NYC Italian restaurant Carbone opens pop-up in Southampton
Carbone's meatballs are on the menu of its summer pop-up restaurant in Southampton. Credit: Major Food Group
As Manhattanites flee to the Hamptons, their favorite restaurants are following them across the East River. Marea, The Smith and Carbone are among the tony boîtes doing long-distance delivery and now Carbone, located in Greenwich Village, has opened a pop-up in Southampton.
For the month of May, Carbone had been offering “Carbone Home,” a subscription service that provided meals “designed to be cooked and finished in your home.” But last week, the restaurant took over the catering hall at the corner of Elm and Pulaski streets and is offering a modified version of its Manhattan menu.
Jeff Zalaznick, a partner with Mario Carbone and Rich Torrisi in Major Food Group, which owns Carbone, said that “This summer, we saw a huge portion of our regular guests living in the Hamptons, so we wanted to bring Carbone to them. Southampton was a great central location and we found a space with a great parking to allow for an easy, contact-free pickup experience.” Much of the kitchen team, he said, was now cooking in Southampton.
Carbone’s starters include Caesar salad “alla ZZ” made with Little Gem instead of romaine lettuce, Caprese salad and "Mario’s" pork-veal-beef meatballs. Pasta dishes include spicy rigatoni alla vodka and fusilli with wild-mushroom ragu. Mains include jumbo shrimp scampi, salmon oreganata, veal Parm and Milanese and grilled lamb chops, prime rib-eye, porterhouse and strip steaks.
If that lineup sounds more like your average Long Island red-sauce trattoria than a pricey Manhattan ristorante, consider that when Carbone opened in 2013, its self-described mission was to pay “homage to the Italian-American restaurants of the mid- 20th century in New York, where delicious, exceptionally well-prepared food was served in settings that were simultaneously elegant, comfortable and unpretentious …. Familiar dishes like linguine vongole, lobster Fra Diavolo, chicken scarpariello, and veal Parmesan are elevated to a new level.”
Prices are elevated, too: starters are $25 to $27, pastas from $30 to $32 and mains start at $40 (for a roasted half chicken) and ascend to $59 (for the shrimp scampi), $69 (for the Parm and Milanese, which are made with bone-in chops), $95 for the shrimp and lamb chops and $152 for the 20-ounce strip steak.
Major Food Group currently operates more than 20 restaurants worldwide including Carbone (New York, Hong Kong, Las Vegas), Parm (four in New York City) and The Grill and The Pool in Manhattan’s Seagram Building.
Orders from Carbone Hamptons must be made through its website and can be made anywhere from one week to one hour before pickup.
Carbone Hamptons is at 230 Elm St., Southampton, carbonehamptons.com.
