Scoring a table at Carbone in Miami Beach is tough. But now it’s open in the Grove

Four years after Major Food Group opened Carbone on Miami Beach, the glam Italian restaurant remains one of the toughest places to get a reservation in the city.

Now, the New York-based hospitality group has opened a sister restaurant, Carbone Vino, in Coconut Grove. We don’t yet know if scoring reservations there will be equally difficult, but we wouldn’t plan on just walking in and hoping for the best.

This isn’t the first concept Major Food Group has opened in the Grove. In 2022, the hospitality group, which specializes in high energy fine dining, opened Sadelle’s, a daytime-only restaurant that specializes in brunch. The group also owns and operates Dirty French Steakhouse and Chateau ZZ’s in Brickell; Contessa, Sadelle’s at Kith and ZZ’s Club in the Design District; and HaSalon in Miami Beach.

Jeff Zalaznick, who with chefs Mario Carbone and Rich Torrisi, is one of the co-founders of Major Food Group, said that while Sadelle’s fit in the Grove from the start, recent changes to the neighborhood and requests from fans and friends in the Gables and South Miami prompted the Carbone Vino opening.

“Things have grown, and we’ve seen a lot of new restaurants pop up there,” he says. “What I get from the community there and in Coral Gables is that they want the same things in a big night out. One of the things we love so much about Miami is that it’s a dynamic market with so many neighborhoods. With this new member of the Carbone family in the Grove and near the Gables, people don’t have to drive so far.”

Despite the fact that the brand has taken pains to make all its locations look unique, Carbone Vino reproduces the look of the original Carbone restaurant, which opened in New York in 2013. (The brand also has restaurants in Dallas, Las Vegas, Hong Kong, Doha and Riyadh.)

There’s a main dining room and a lounge as well as a private dining room, and notable art on the walls, works by Rene Ricard, Lola Montes, Francesco Clemente and Julian Schnabel.

The new restaurant has a stronger focus on wine than its predecessor, aiming to offer more wines by the glass than other Miami restaurants—hence the name Vino. There are more than 3,000 bottles in the inventory overseen by wine director John Slover.

As for the menu—which you can also order and eat at the bar, something you can’t do at Carbone—diners will find Carbone’s greatest hits, including the famous spicy rigatoni alla vodka, veal Parmesan and the Caesar salad alla ZZ, which is made tableside with much fanfare.

The new restaurant will include eight to 10 new dishes, too, like zucchini fritti, Zuppa de Mussels with lamb sausage and Mario Carbone’s spin on classic Cantonese shrimp toast (bruschetta with red shrimp, Calabrian chili and sesame).

There are also new pasta dishes, like the pumpkin agnolotti, tortellini con tartufo and another Chef Carbone specialty called spaghettini bambini, a spin on the kids’ beloved buttered noodles only with grass-fed butter and aged Parmigiano Reggiano from the milk of the vacche rosse, the red cows of Parma.

Zalaznick understands the near-riot that would ensue if, say, the spicy rigatoni vanished from a Carbone menu.

“We can never change anything at Carbone because people go crazy,” Zalaznick says. “This new menu gave the chefs the flexibility to add dishes they always wanted to put in the restaurant.”

Carbone Vino is, he adds, an “incredible anchor” for the brand, which has long wanted more of a presence in the neighborhood.

“In a weird way, it feels like Greenwich Village energy,” he says. “The youthfulness and diversity you find in Coconut Grove, you find in the West Village. I was almost emotional when it was finished.

“Miami is a city growing on all fronts. . . . People are looking for great places to dine and not just party, the way it was five years ago. Now people are focusing on experiential dining. Wine culture has expanded. Expectations have been raised. Hopefully we’re part of that.”

Carbone Vino

Where: 2911 Grand Ave., Miami

Hours: 4-10 p.m. Wednesday and Sunday; 4-11 p.m. Saturday

Reservations: Resy

More information: carbonevino.com

This story was originally published December 20, 2024 at 4:30 AM.