Mario Carbone on NYC's Dining Problem and the Hotel Bill That Shocked Him

"In 2013, Carbone crash-landed in New York with giant platters of veal parm, tableside-tossed caesar salads, and enough spicy vodka rigatoni to permanently alter the city's cholesterol levels. Practically overnight, the man behind the city's new favorite impossibly hard-to-get table, Mario Carbone, transformed Italian-American dining, the New York restaurant scene, and the entire foodie zeitgeist - one over-the-top serving at a time."

"Now, 12 years later, the frenzy hasn't slowed. What started as a downtown restaurant now stretches far beyond Manhattan, with 10 outposts (and counting) from Miami to Las Vegas, Dubai, London, and Hong Kong. Despite constantly flying between his growing global empire, travel still feels like a luxury for Carbone."

"Sitting down in his London dining room for our First & Lasts series, he reflects on the first time he left New York, his earliest taste of true hotel opulence - and the gasp that accompanied the bill for it - and the last meal that genuinely blew him away (spoiler, it wasn't in New York)."

"What was the very first hotel that you stayed in that wowed you? As a family, we really didn't fly anywhere. So all of the trips when I was small were one-day trips somewhere from New York, to places like Pennsylvania. The first really big trip I ever took was when I went to Italy for the first time to cook. I was 20, and the chef I was working for found me a family running an incredible restaurant in the middle of nowhere, in North Western Tuscany."

Carbone’s arrival in New York in 2013 with large platters of veal parm, tableside caesar salads, and spicy vodka rigatoni helped transform Italian-American dining and the city’s restaurant culture. The restaurant Carbone became a widely sought destination, and the brand later expanded beyond Manhattan into multiple locations across major cities worldwide. Even with constant travel for his growing empire, travel still feels like a luxury. In London, he reflects on early travel experiences, including his first major trip to Italy at age 20 to cook, and the hotel opulence he encountered later that left a strong impression, including the shock of the bill.

Read at Elite Traveler