Even by the extravagant and theatrical standards of both Major Food Group and Bellagio, Carbone Riviera is an over-the-top restaurant.
Mario Carbone, Rich Torrisi and Jeff Zalaznick’s seafood wonderland opened Friday, November 7, at one of the most iconic locations on the Las Vegas Strip. The backdrop, at what was formerly home to Julian Serrano’s Picasso, is the Fountains of Bellagio. There’s now a Riva yacht on a floating deck and an ornate Martin Brudnizki-designed dining room where art by Picasso, Miró and Renoir hangs on the walls. But the most significant upgrade at Carbone Riviera is how Mario Carbone and his team present top-tier seafood with their Italian-American ethos.
And also, where else are you going to eat whole king crab, whole turbot and whole sea bream crudo on a patio next to a water show? This feels like the most significant seafood restaurant in the country since Bartolotta Ristorante di Mare, which closed at Wynn Las Vegas a decade ago.
On Saturday, A-list Carbone Riviera guests, including David Chang (who’s known Carbone and Torrisi since they worked together at Café Boulud more than 20 years ago and once almost opened a restaurant with Carbone), raved about dishes like crab AOP and shrimp Parm. Las Vegas Raiders owner Mark Davis had dinner while a core Major Food Group team, including executive chef Jonah Resnick, chief development officer Will Nazar and vice president of hospitality and guest experience Kyra Suki Burner, worked the room. Mario’s cousin, Louie, a front-of-the-house maestro you’ll see at every Major Food Group debut, told Observer that he has now opened 40 restaurants with this company.
Carbone Riviera is a new concept, but a lot of the food will be pleasantly familiar to longtime fans of Major Food Group. This is about riffing on the bangers. Habit-forming shrimp Parm is, of course, a nod to the veal Parm that’s a big part of the reason Carbone became a worldwide sensation. Carbone Riviera’s excellent crab AOP, which gets just the right amount of kick from jalapeños, might remind you a bit of the lobster capellini at New York’s Torrisi. And if you’re craving lobster pasta because you’ve eaten it at Torrisi or Carbone Privato at ZZ’s Club, Carbone Riviera has fettuccine with a two-pound lobster.
Lobster at Carbone Riviera also comes in the form of polpette fra diavolo, which Durango executive chef Danny Ye ate on Friday and said reminded him of an Asian dumpling filling. This was high praise from a Korean-American chef who has run kitchens everywhere from Nobu to Catch and is now curating restaurants for Station Casinos. Many prominent culinary players came to check out Carbone Riviera on its opening weekend. Friday night also saw JKS Restaurants co-founder Karam Sethi, who’s getting ready to open Gymkhana at Aria next month, dining at Carbone Riviera with Observer power list alum Shu Chowdhury. Chowdhury returned for dinner the next evening.
The last few months have been some kind of whirlwind for Major Food Group, which opened London’s Carbone in September and Dubai’s Carbone in October. Resnick, who lives in Miami, told Observer that he hasn’t been home since August 10. For Mario Carbone, who posted an Instagram story of his Rigatoni World Tour hoodie on Saturday, this has been the run of a lifetime.
“It’s been an amazing journey to do this thing, thousands of miles apart with the same team,” Carbone told Observer. “The only thing I can compare it to is a concert. You do the city, you pack the team up and go to the next one with these core people who have gotten incredibly close. It’s been pretty awesome. I mean, obviously we’re tired, but it’s amazing.”
And it all ties back to the energy and the “can’t stop, won’t stop” mentality of Las Vegas, where Carbone opened at Aria in 2015. That restaurant and its success altered Major Food Group’s trajectory, and this wild ride keeps getting wilder.
Today, Mario Carbone dropped an Instagram video about the most recent leg of this journey. The video, which looks like a movie trailer and is inspired by Ocean’s Eleven, is a tribute to the team behind the Rigatoni World Tour.
“We name-check all of the squad,” said Carbone, who plans to be in Las Vegas through Formula One weekend, when he will host a November 20 opening party.
And in case it wasn’t 100 percent obvious by now, Carbone Riviera serves Carbone’s famous spicy rigatoni vodka. This is a Carbone restaurant, so you know that it’s playing the greatest hit.
Carbone Riviera at Bellagio is open seven days a week from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m.
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