Michael Stern, Major Food Group to Launch Sales in Brickell But then again, for a certain demographic, Italian American men who have a nostalgic vision of New York as a romantic postwar playground, maybe meeting Mario Carbone, whose conjuring of a version of this world is somewhat miraculous, is akin to an audience with a godor at least a pope. Vanity Fair may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. This had been building for years; Carbone was the rare room that Leonardo DiCaprio could enter and maybe not be the most famous guy present. Major Food Group and JDS Development Announce 'MAJOR' As The Some of them we know through the years now. The establishment opened its doors in March 2013 to much acclaim per. And I cant explain it sometimes., So pitched was Carbone Fever that within a few years, Major Food Group had a shot at the Mount Olympus of the restaurant world: the space in the Seagram Building that housed the Four Seasons. China was locking down. He was born on Aug 15, 1983. Zalaznick had one thing the friends lacked: bona fide generational wealth. We were three talented chefs in a 500-square-foot kitchen cooking as hard as we could, as creatively as we could, said Kulp, who later founded his own restaurant group, High Street Hospitality Group. But its taken on a new dimension of late. When I asked Carmellini what he made of the Carbone concept when he first heard of it, he suggested it was ambitious to say the least. Major Food Group has 21 restaurants in New York, Las Vegas, Hong Kong and Tel Aviv, according to the company's website. In 2009, then president Barack Obama caused a stir by eating at Il Mulino with former president Bill Clinton, but theres no indication Obama ever went back. Torrisi Italian Specialties closed in 2015, but Major Food Group held on to the space. Im terrified of this man. Eaters Ryan Sutton made The Grill the rare nontasting menu in the city with four stars. Investors were hoping that the Carbone essence could be successfully uncorked for the 10-gallon-hatted high rollers in Big D: AT&T executives, Cowboys and Mavericks, old-money art collectors with Twombly-dotted mansions. In the same year, MFG opened Sadelles, a bakery and restaurant that celebrates some of New Yorks greatest food traditions. Jeff Zalaznick is a restaurateur and entrepreneur. Everything else is an interpretation through the Major Food Group lens. Three of Paul and Irma Milstein's four children attended Cornell -- Roslyn Milstein Meyer '71, Howard '73, and Barbara Milstein Zalaznick '76 -- as did son-in-law David Zalaznick '76, the current vice chairman of the Cornell Board of Trustees; and grandson Jeffrey Zalaznick '05. Still, in the days leading up to the races, Jeff Zalaznick, cofounder of Major Food Group, the umbrella company that owns Carbone, was bullish. But if you wouldve told me and Rich in our late 20s, you guys were going to be fucking big, youre going to be huge, we wouldve been like, Yeah, you bet your ass. . For months, I had been speaking to Carbone in an effort to understand how his name had become shorthand for a very specific kind of luxe dining in the last decadehow he and his cofounders built and are now expanding a supper club that has so consistently lured not just the likes of LeBron and Jeter, Spike and Drake, Jared and Ivanka, but all the various moguls and machers and hypebeasts and influencers in their various wakes. Not all the time, but, I mean, that guy is acutely positioned to be a fan, Carbone says as he watches the two men walk away. In December 2021, the two companies confirmed that they would be collaborating on MAJOR, a 259-unit condo in Miamis Brickell where Major Food Group would curate the entire lifestyle aspect of the property, as well as operate its food and beverage options. Most importantly, it had drama. And at the end of one service, he looks down the line at me. Carbone is very significant, because its the food of the poor immigrants, and its fighting against the Northern Italian disdain, said Ray. Since restaurants gradually started to reopen in the fall of 2020, theres been no spot on earth more perennially celeb-packed than Carbone. We called [it] a 400-square-foot rocket ship, thats what we told each other in our apartment before we went to bed each night, Carbone says later. Jeff Zalaznick is a restaurateur and entrepreneur. By signing up you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement. Theres a comfort in the familiarity of what we do that I believe is part of why people keep coming back to us.. At Torrisi wed work until 11 p.m., then wed meet at 8 a.m. at Richs apartment, with Jeff, culling over old menus, looking through archives in the New York library, trying to find gems of creativity, Kulp said. So they started looking around. Jeffs father is David Zalaznick, who cofounded property and investment company JZ Capital Partners with the financier Jay Jordan. Give. The first Move is a meta one: leading us past the main dining room with tiles reminiscent of those in the restaurant in which Michael Corleone accepted his destiny in The Godfather, through the kitchen la Scorseses direction en route to the best table at the Copacabana in Goodfellas. A few minutes later, the crowds are still a bit thin. His build is stocky, shaved head. Major Food Group (@majorfoodgroup) has become synonymous with dining like royalty.From its superior food and beverage programming to its ultra-exclusive status as some of the hardest reservations to secure in each of its given cities, the dream teamMario Carbone, Jeff Zalaznick and Rich Torrisihave the golden recipe to bring their inimitable flair to dining destinations all over the . Jeremiah Moss, the proprietor of an online historical concern called Jeremiahs Vanishing New York, accused places like Carbone of turning the Big Apple into an Epcot Center Jurassic Park of a city. Eater did a one-paragraph post about Mosss rant. After hearing the Torrisi buzz, Zalaznick went back for a second meal, then went out for a drink with Carbone, and they instantly connected over their shared philosophy on food and a vision for a possible future restaurant. Youre doing something very old, when youre young. The NIMBY crowd was particularly incensed that Carbone had a hand in elbowing out of New York the very element to which it was supposedly paying homage. It was absolutely, immediately embraced, said John Ellis, a Miami retail broker at Newmark. Alain Elkann interviews Jeff Zalaznick of the Major Food Group Ardent Carbone fans will recognize menu favorites with subtle updates like stone crab from the raw bar or coconut-lime confections for a local touch. Jeffrey C Zalaznick, New York Public Records Instantly fashioned in a palette of terracotta and emerald green with damask-upholstered walls and leather banquettes. But this very often tends to be Italian Italian food, which means the food the wealthy eat in Milan or Genoa, not Italian American food. A fellow grunt on the line was a Korean American kid from a D.C. suburb named David Chang, who quit after his mother was diagnosed with cancer and who entertained hopes of striking out on his own. Its the order that came today, says Ed. I had dinner at Carbone on the first Sunday of May, and the main takeaway, apart from the relentlessly euphoria-inducing fare, was something like: This is an unapologetically self-aware way to go out for a meal. Piazza and his wife also own a unit at the Ritz-Carlton Residences, Miami Beach, which they acquired in 2019 for $5.6 million, according to property records. Major Food Group Opens Carbone Miami With Overwhelming - Forbes Major Food Group | LinkedIn People in this city love Italian American food so much that theyre willing to eat it badly, but they dont care. This sort of critical appraisal is something of an important marker in the evolution of fine dining in New York. How Jeff Zalaznick Built the Major Food Group Empire With each concept, the food, the design and the performance all work together to transport guests into a themed world, whether thats a 1950s family-style Italian restaurant, a Jewish deli or a naughty French steakhouse. Zalaznick declined to provide further details about the locations. Out come the coffees but also a bottle of Sambuca, dropped at the table for diners to use to spike at will. With The Grill, we fucking put our balls on the table, Carbone says. I love that because Im kind of similar in that way. Several South Florida projects are forthcoming in Brickell and the Miami Design District, so we can expect a flurry of news from the group through the rest of 2021. By the turn of the century, the Milstein familys holdings were worth about $5 billion, according to, The trio set about transforming the space into Carbone, an upscale red-sauce joint that paid homage to Carbones Italian American roots. These are not my people. I dont get this. Thats what you were doing at Torrisi. Generally it means unique service style moments, whether its the verbiage we use, how the captain guides you, the spiel they use to rattle off specials, Torrisi says. And, always willing to play with the intersection of food and experience, Major Food Group had several collaborations on its roster. In June, Justin Bieber played before a Barclays Center crowd and then reportedly showed up on a whim to Carbone with his wife Hailey for a postshow date, only to be told they were fully booked. But for all DeSantiss bona fides and rocketing national profile, doubts about his own persona (calculated, aloof, cold-blooded) persist. As a scion of the Milsteins, the prominent New York real estate family, Zalaznick initially followed the typical track for monied heirs of his generation: he went into finance, landing an investment banking job at JPMorgan after graduating from Cornell University in 2005. Because updating the past is what they do best. Alongside glossy write-ups in the Times and New York, though, there were early press pieces bemoaning Carbones maximalist approach as pastiche. The property features a guesthouse, 100 feet of deep water frontage with a dock and boat lift, a pool and wet bar. When he got back to the States, he thought he had the stuff to make it in the kitchens stacked with chefs who would come to define the next two decades of restaurants in New York. More than thatthey had a similar idea. His name was Josh Halegua and he had a restaurant space nearby that Zalaznick might be interested inin fact they could go over to see it immediately. From her greed is good heyday to her post-divorce denouement cavorting with a series of freaky Italian lovers, it was Ivana, all along, who gilded the Trump name. Sadelle's Dallas The Hottest New Brunch Spot in Highland Park Village So, what exactly is the winning formula that has allowed Carbone to transcend the last decade in multi-city iterations, all the while remaining one of the most coveted dining destinations? You might want to peel back, Carbone says. Then theres the recently announced private Carbone inside a members club set for some not-too-distant future in Hudson Yards. Prior to becoming a restaurateur, Jeff worked as an investment banker for J.P. Morgan and then a manager at the Mandarin Oriental. They agonized over every dish, Rosen said. A Carbone Captain filets the Dover Sole Piccata. It started as an ordinary work trip. Thats a Move.. CARBONE | Major Food Group | Miami Restaurant It had all the things that we look for in real estate when we look for a space to tell a story, which is that it had the history and the soul of that story.. Then in Seattle. At the moment, this is as close as you can get to a perfect New York restaurant, he wrote in August 2017. Jeff Zalaznick - Commercial Observer It was booked solid for the rest of the year. A month after Carbone opened in Miami in January 2021, the group opened Sadelles inside the flagship of streetwear brand Kith in Paris. Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. As Carbone bends down to sign it, I get the uncanny feeling like this is something rehearseda Move. And then, for the remainder of the day, he has an apron on, watching TV, gardening, doing something outside, actually cooking, Carbone continues. You dont understand, the fan says. He grew up in a sophisticated environment where he could dabble, and go to places that he loved, said real estate mogul Aby Rosen, owner of RFR Realty, who would later partner with Zalaznick at the Seagram Building. The Major Food Group team scored prime real estate in the exclusive South of Fifth neighborhood on 49 Collins Avenue a stone's throw away from Miami mainstays, Joe's Stone Crab and Prime 112,. His reasoning was partially due to the politics of the space, which was predicated on exclusivity and a delicate chess of status and elitism, said Rosen, which he felt was outdated. Jeff Zalaznick, Rich Torrisi, & Mario Carbone WRE: ZZ's Club is your newest restaurant and membership club opening in the Miami Design District. And people have contacts. Phyllis Lambertthe daughter of Seagram president Samuel Bronfman, who commissioned the building in the 1950swrote a blistering op-ed for The New York Times about the restaurant swap, saying Mr. $135 per person for FUCKING SPAGHETTI??? Prior to becoming a restaurateur, Jeff worked as an investment banker for J.P. Morgan and then a manager at the Mandarin Oriental. Icahn lives on Indian Creek as well, a skip away, as do hedge funder Eddie Lampert, and the former Mr. Elle Macpherson, real estate tycoon Jeffrey Soffer. From left: Rich Torrisi, Mario Carbone and Jeff Zalaznick of Major Food Group along with Michael Stern of JDS Development (Getty Images, JDS Development, Google Maps) Dec 1, 2021, 3:30 PM. And the assumption was at that time that he would go on and do his own thing and I would do my own thing. Torrisi was this real juggernautit was a sandwich shop, it was this incredible multicourse restaurantand they were beside themselves with enthusiasm, says Ben Leventhal, a cofounder of Eater who went on to cofound the popular reservation service Resy, on which youll be hard-pressed to find a table at a reasonable hour at Carbones flagship anytime soon. Like its original location up north, the Miami outpost has become a see-and-be-seen locale for power players and glitterati, and landing a reservation in the wake of its opening has become the ultimate status symbol. May we all be rich enough to eat here more often.. Chef Ed, whats going on with our great wall of bread?. Tell us more about the concept behind this project. Only one item on the menu is a direct recipe that Sadelle herself made, and thats the coleslaw. When talking about the restaurant, Carbone and Torrisi often bring up a concept they have dubbed The Move. The Moves are wink wink mini performances pulled off by the servers that weave together into a narrative, a series of over-accommodation that will charm and overwhelm and crescendo until you have been pomodoro-pilled. Zalaznick quickly made it back to New York, where he got ready to take his family on a ski vacation to Aspen, Colo. By then a case of the COV-SARS-19 disease had been detected in Europe. First, there already is an outpost of Carbone in Miami, just a short drive down Collins Avenue, one thats large enough to pull off close to a thousand covers on a big night. Stepping into the Four Seasons took [Major Food Group] to another level.. The family of Nelson Mezerhane has owned it since 1984. Estimated Net Worth: $770,000 Estimated Salary: $254,660. If you go to a globalized luxury hotel in Bangkok or Buenos Aires, the restaurant there is more likely than anything else to be serving Italian food. After building owners Aby Rosen and Michael Fuchs kicked the Four Seasons operators out of the landmarked Philip Johnsondesigned space, Rosen started asking around about who could inject new energy into the bastion of influence that birthed the term power lunch., Vito Schnabel helped him connect with Zalaznick in 2015, and Rosenwhose company also owns the Chrysler Buildingwas impressed. Its going to be a very hedonistic experience.. The Major Food guys understand the importance of the show, of looking good, and the staff is entertaining, Rosen later told Town & Country. I have no interest in going back, she said. I said, You know, my dream would be to do a building.. Since its opening, Sadelle's has become a New York brunch institution, serving more than 700 guests per day every weekend. The pair could not have chosen a better backdrop, a certain element of metatextual, post-everything exegesis having been baked into Carbones ziti from day one. And Jeff Zalaznick, whod worked a bit in the industry, was looking for something new. They are planning to open a new restaurant in the fall just a few steps from their original Torrisi Italian Specialties, an ode to Italian-American food and delis that Mr. Torrisi and Mr. Carbone, alums of Daniel Bouluds restaurants, first opened on Mulberry Street in 2009. It would be a place that was both insanely Italian American and insanely fancy. It just felt so right.. After a spell serving sandwiches at lunch to modest returns, some press accompanied one of their first dinner services, and soon they were drawing lines around the block. Culinary titans Mario Carbone, Rich Torrisi and Jeff Zalaznick opened the doors to Carbone Miami last month and ever since, the legendary Italian eatery has been the hottest reservation in town. He wears his restaurant world celebrity with the well-groomed mien of a guy with a few menswear podcasts in the Spotify queue. The two met on one of Sterns visits down to Miami in the spring of 2021. We also happened to be these young guys doing this old thing, which we didnt realize crosses this really, really wide demographic, Carbone says. To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Art dealer Vito Schnabel curated the work in the space, commissioning a series of paintings by the critic and poet turned artists artist Rene Ricard. The previous workers had been working on wooden pallets on the kitchen line because the floors were so bad, and there was an open container of marinara on the counter with a ladle still in it, as if they had just walked out. Shes the only one in the family, before me, that could cook, Zalaznick said. And we can make shit happen on the fly.(Nota bene to the rich and famous: Advance warning is key. Dirty French is a New York bistro created by Major Food Group's Mario Carbone, Rich Torrisi and Jeff Zalaznick. Major Food Group and its founders Mario Carbone, Rich Torrisi and Jeff Zalaznick has made a big impact in South Florida since opening Carbone in Miami Beach during the height of the pandemic,. It doesnt look ready, but he is. Caf Boulud was intentionally difficult, Chang told The New Yorker in 2008. What Carbone coming to South Beach did was validate that Miami was a vibrant community and a foodie scene, Ellis said. No end date. At one point, a friend who represented the building at 181 Thompson Street told Zalaznick about the site, that they were renting the retail space, which for 90 years had been held by a legendary but bygone Greenwich Village red-sauce joint called Rocco Restaurant. It received a glowing two-star review from The New York Times and was named one of GQ's Most Outstanding Restaurants of 2015. Krishnendu Ray, a professor of food studies at New York University and author of The Ethnic Restaurateur, explained that Italian cuisine is becoming one of the dominant forms of haute cuisine, gaining ground on French and Japanese. He said pandemic restrictions made it impossible to maintain the restaurants approach bringing in chefs from elsewhere and having them interact with customers. The star-studded Carbone Beach is returning for the 2023 Miami Grand Prix. It has to be us. That was our thought process back then. MFG's restaurants are conceptualized to uphold the highest level of food quality and fine dining service in a fun and inviting atmosphere for the guest. In April, Jeff Zalaznick was in South Beach to celebrate the opening of the new edition of his firm's naughty French steakhouse, Dirty French. MAJOR will feature 259 custom residences conceived as . And its all thanks to this man. Zalaznicks only condition was that they be allowed to keep the glowing sign, which they left in place, tacking Carbone across the former lettering. To date, MFG has received 2 nominations for Best New Restaurants in America by the James Beard Foundation, holds 18 New York Times Stars and 3 Michelin Stars. However, they dont blink at forking over $50 for an 8-ounce filet of beef. He was born and raised in New York City and is a graduate of Cornell University. Jeff Zalaznick | Sadelle's | Major Food Group | New York Restaurant Major Food Group Returns to the Old Neighborhood Rich Torrisi, Mario Carbone and Jeff Zalaznick will open a restaurant in the Puck Building loosely based on Torrisi Italian Specialties. At the time, the kitchen was run by Andrew Carmellini, who would go on to open Locanda Verde in Robert De Niros Greenwich Hotel, The Dutch in SoHo, and the sprawling French bistro Lafayette in NoHo. We recently caught up with Jeff Zalaznick, one of the managing partners of Major Food Group, alongside Rich Torrisi and Mario Carbone the team behind Sadelle's. A friend from New York who relocated to Dallas for a job in the art world says that in her experience, Texans are very set in their ways, and the New York imports dont really work here. (Il Mulino New York lasted all of two years in Dallas and closed in 2006. All rights reserved 2023 The Real Deal is a registered Trademark of Korangy Publishing Inc. Watch: Developer Patrick Carroll "spits" on restaurant manager, L&L, Mitsubishi default on Plaza District office tower, Hall of Famer Mike Piazza lists Miami Beach estate for $18.5M, Major Food Group expands to South Florida, New York restaurateurs decamp to South Florida. Our plan as Major Food Group is to not only expand geographically as a restaurant group, but to expand into other verticals, like hotels and real estate, where we thought that not only was there a huge opportunity for our style of hospitality, but also where we thought our restaurants would play a huge role in the value of those properties, Zalaznick said. That story got more than 100 comments from angry anti-gentrifiers and supporters alike. In December, Pete Wells at the Times named it the second-best new restaurant hed reviewed that year, bested only by Sushi Nakazawa, a now-faded fancy sushi joint. But you also get what you pay for, which a lot of times doesnt happen.. Major Food Group has expanded rapidly since inking its first South Florida lease last year. Out comes the spicy rigatoni vodka but also off-the-menu gnocchi slathered in fresh ramp butter. I realized that I didnt really want to be talking about restaurants, I wanted to be doing my own.. Carbone had worked at Lupa right across the street. The commenters kept at it too. Youll get everything you want and more in this latest addition to the Carbone repertoire. Carbone Beach. The restaurant has earned praise from Bloomberg, Eater and The Wall Street Journal for its hand-rolled bagels and classic dishes. In Miami when youre hot youre hot, and when youre not youre not. The walls are accented with Venetian glass mirrors and artwork curated by long-time collaborator and gallerist, Vito Schnabel, who selected artists like Robert Nava, Gus Van Sant and Harmony Korine. Just three months after signing the lease, Zalaznick and his partners, chefs Rich Torrisi and Mario Carbone, were hosting A-list celebs, New York expats and real estate bigwigs including Barry Sternlicht, David Grutman, Craig Robins and J.P. Perez for a preview night at Carbone. The family left for Aspen. The second I walked in I immediately felt it was the perfect location for Carbone, Zalaznick recalled. Everyone thinks theyre going to be a grand chefeveryone was going to be the four-star chef, the three-Michelin-star chef, the grand restaurateur, Carbone recalls. My wife and I got engaged on Ellis Island six years ago and our first meal after getting engaged was at Parm. The man, who is just over five feet tall, takes out a bag of cigars. They were drawn to the namesake restaurant opened by Rocco Stanziano in 1922, steps away from some of the first churches for Italian immigrants in the country, which served locals and the occasional Italian-descended royaltyJoe DiMaggio is said to have come along with Marilyn Monroe in the 1950s, and De Niro dropped in as late as the 2000s. And hes sitting next to Jay-Z. Rihannas pregnancy announcement was bookended by visits. Carbone is akin to this centurys DEUX MAGOTS, with Kim Kardashian and Pete Davidson FILLING IN for Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre. Soon they found a former blue jeans store on Mulberry Street, spent months gutting it, and opened Torrisi Italian Specialties. By . : a new residential-hospitality tower located at 888 Brickell Avenue in Miami . Its like, This space is closing. In 2014, a year after the original opened, young restaurateurs behind the dining group Black Sheep helped open Carbone Hong Kong. Miami icon Nikki Beach to be evicted for Carbone spin-off - New York Post