Carbones like a movie set, where every waiters like an actor, says Daniel Boulud, who once employed Carbone and Torrisi at his own Caf Boulud. 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. The couple sold the property to Major Food Group co-founder and co-owner Jeffrey Zalaznick and his wife, Alison, who were renting the mansion prior to closing on it in mid-April, records show. And I became the kid. 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. Sadelle's Dallas The Hottest New Brunch Spot in Highland Park Village This sort of critical appraisal is something of an important marker in the evolution of fine dining in New York. Major Food Group (MFG) and JDS Development Group (JDS) have revealed the first images of MAJOR, the highly anticipated 90-story residential and hospitality tower, located at 888 Brickell Avenue. We look to craft a story, and its a 100-year-old Italian American sign, a perfect location in the other Little Italy of Manhattan.. You were taking an idea and you were being really youthful with it. It was devouring Italy. And at the end of one service, he looks down the line at me. ), Dallas doesnt like to pay high prices for Italian unless they are in New York or Los Angeles or Italy, Nancy Nichols, a longtime local food writer, wrote after the spot closed. Soon they found a former blue jeans store on Mulberry Street, spent months gutting it, and opened Torrisi Italian Specialties. Its a reality of how the majority of palates and pocketbooks in this city roll.. The restaurant delivers its highfalutin versions of classic Italian American comfort food hitsragu, ravioli, rigatoni, calamari, puttanesca, shrimp scampi, lobster fra diavolo, veal Parmesanwith a side of arch referentiality: the red-tuxedoed captain singing along to Frank while his bazooka arms mix a gigantic Caesar salad; the reddest, spiciest, booziest vodka sauce ever served over noodles on white tablecloth; the courtesy-of-the-chef wink wink nod nod free courses coming out to make you feel like youre a made man in a mob hang. That was our space. Brooklyns further than three hours away! Carbone says. I was the gofer. 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. Design-wise, the sprawling dining room transports you to Miami in the 1950s lush mid-century Miami glamour with an Italian-American twist, brought to life by the inimitable Ken Fulk. It was like a 16-year-old and Taylor Swift right there, Carbone says. It hit the market for $18.5 million in late 2017, Major Food Group's Jeffrey Zalaznick and Mike Piazza with the Miami Beach mansion (Getty, The Jills Photography by Luxhunters). From Leonardo DiCaprio, Rihanna, and Jay-Z to Kim Kardashian, Barack Obama, and secretive millionaires, its as if the rich and powerful simply are not aware that other places exist to get dinner. And its all thanks to this man. In 2016, MFG took over the city's iconic Four Seasons Restaurant located in the historic Seagram Building, and restored this landmark restaurant space with the opening THE GRILL, THE POOL, The Pool Lounge and The Lobster Club over the course of 2017. Shortly thereafter, a family feud ended in a split between the real estate and finance sides of the business. Right there, were going to build our first Carbone hotel., See All the Outfits From the 2023 Met Gala Red Carpet, Why Tucker Carlsons Exit From Fox News Looks Like an Execution, Prince Harry and Prince William Reportedly Still Havent Talked After Spare, Dune: Part Two: An Exclusive First Look at the Sagas Epic Conclusion, The 25 Best Shows on Netflix to Watch Right Now, From the Archive: Seduced and Abandoned (2014). All rights reserved. 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? Since restaurants gradually started to reopen in the fall of 2020, theres been no spot on earth more perennially celeb-packed than Carbone. Major Food Group, Michael Stern Plan Miami Condo Tower - The Real Deal Prior to becoming a restaurateur, Jeff worked as an investment banker for J.P. Morgan and then a manager at the Mandarin Oriental. The dining room garners plenty of attention, from tableside Caesar salads to towering platters of desserts whisked around the room by Captains dressed in custom Zac Posen tuxedos. Celebrities are just fucking people toothey might not be normal people, but they are people like anyone else, he says. Jeff Zalaznick Net Worth. Zalaznick knew his market. Parisians flocked to the store at brunch hour, keen for a taste of bagels served on an Instagrammable three-tier tower. MAJOR will feature 259 custom residences conceived as . The expansive patio space can seat 50 people. The outdoor patio feels more laidback, with rattan ceiling fans, eclectic furniture and lush greenery as a nod to Havana, bringing a distinct Miami flair to theCarbone experience. Jeff just brings a different level, through his relationships with people, through his eye for whats next.. In Boston, Major Food Group worked with the developers of the Newbury Boston hotel, located in a historic downtown building on Newbury Street, to curate the food, beverage and other lifestyle elements of the hotel, including a rooftop bar called Contessa that opened last July. The new as-yet-to-be-named project will move into the back of the Puck Building in the former location of Chefs Club, which closed during the pandemic. This new property will offer high-caliber cuisine with a traditional omakase experience and la carte menu spanning Tokyo-sourced seafood and premium beef. But Il Mulinos prelaunch build-out was no match for the conceptual rigor girded to the opening of an Italian American juggernaut like Carbone. by FameRanker April 3, 2022, 1:11 am 2k Views. Zalaznick jumped into both, building and selling a food content site that started as a restaurant search portal called Always Hungry. The Carbone celebrity complex has been egged on by the dogged pseudo-reporting of the pandemic-era Page Six meets Gawker Stalker that is @deuxmoi, the gossip-spewing Oz of Instagram. He was born and raised in New York City and is a graduate of Cornell University. We knew exactly what we wanted to say, how we wanted to say it. And he goes, Who the fuck are you? Great question, chef. Someones got to do it. Wouldnt it be interesting if we can figure out a way to bring what Jeff does in the hospitality and restaurant space into a residential property?. Thats what we said., Right there, you see right there? Zalaznick says, spilling a little wine as he gestures to an empty lot in the Dallas night. Jeff Zalaznick is a restaurateur and entrepreneur. After the meeting at the Jane, all three of them got together, this time at the Mulberry Street playground across from the bar Spring LoungeCarbone called it Shark Bar, like any legit SoHo dweller doesand agreed to form a partnership that would turn into Major Food Group. Youre not supposed to be doing that., Other attempts to take New Yorks Italian cuisine nationwide include Il Mulino, a go-to West Village upscale spot that was sold to investors in 2001 and expanded rapidly; its parent company declared bankruptcy for seven locations in 2020 amid the pandemic. I was like, Dude, I know that, of course, that space across the street with the epic sign outside, Carbone says. Instead, after dominating Miami and expanding to Dallas in the last year, Major Food Group 's Mario Carbone, Rich Torrisi and Jeff Zalaznick are working on their first New York City private club . First order of business was finding a space for their dream restaurant, their temple to Southern Italian comfort food as slick as a summer blockbuster. With [Jeff], it was quite the opposite. Zalaznick declined to provide further details about the locations. We believed it was missing from the fabric of New York., When I asked Carbone to explain the X factor that brings in boldface names more reliably than any eatery on earththis is based on inexact science, to be sure, but its believed to be true by many experts of A-lister rubberneckinghe slipped into a pose that was maybe knowingly clueless, trying not to sound disingenuous while also protecting the discretion of his clientele. Headed by restaurateurs Mario Carbone, Jeff Zalaznick, and Rick Torrisi, Major Food Group will be in charge of branding and hospitality . Its the order that came today, says Ed. So we would watch all things Bobby Flay and just talk about shit, Carbone says. It was chip-on-your-shoulder cooking, like, all these other restaurants have twice as many cooks, all this new equipment, and were gonna fucking outcook them with nothing but our sheer will and technique.. We estimate that Jeff Zalaznick has a current net worth of $770,000 largely based on the estimated salary and income of $254,660 Jeff is estimated to have earned as a Actor. Rihannas pregnancy announcement was bookended by visits. And hes screaming in all languages. And Carbone is perhaps best seen as video streaming on an app, capturing this Sinatra-washed rigatoni fantasia, one that unfolds as if on a New York back lot in an L.A. movie studio filling in for Greenwich Village. NYC restaurant barons ride Florida pandemic wave to open new spots Expansion of a global nature has, unsurprisingly, been an entire chapter of the Carbone playbook almost since day one. Carbone was born to Italian Americans in a residential part of Queens, and his grandparents, who came over from Italy as adults, were always around, always cooking. In Miami when youre hot youre hot, and when youre not youre not. Even if this was set to be a huge weekend for the Magic City, this kind of ambitionthe kind that prompts one to prop up a cathedral of carbs in South Beachhas been in somewhat short supply since the pandemic crippled large swaths of the restaurant industry. Miami is such an exciting place right now, and we love it down here. Mario and Rich, theyre New Yorkers, and they have this nostalgia for classic New York, and it gives it this joie de vivre.. But the two, Torrisi and Carbone, stayed close. What is the present address for Jeffrey C Zalaznick? It received a glowing two-star review from The New York Times and was named one of GQ's Most Outstanding Restaurants of 2015.