Andrew Schulz's Flagrant with Akaash Singh - How to Get Into ANY Restaurant, Why Michelin Stars Are Nonsense & Building a Billion Dollar Business

Episode Date: April 17, 2025

YERRR – the guys sat down with Mario Carbone to chop it up about the hustle behind building a restaurant empire. From old-school red sauce joints to celeb-packed hotspots, Mario breaks down the flavors, the business, and the pressure of keeping it all fresh. He talks about Michelin stars, wild celebrity dining stories, and why good hospitality is the real secret sauce. All that and more on this week’s episode of FLAGRANT. INDULGE. 00:00 Intro 00:37 Getting a reservation at Carbone? Greasing the right people 8:07 Quick Tip, Restaurants’ intel + Maitre Ds 13:18 Michelin Star Experiences 17:42 How much do waiters make at Carbone? 21:58 Politics in dining, Michelin Stars + Finding a good restaurant 26:25 The staff is banging each other 27:38 Can Michelin star be bought? Paying influencers 30:21 Sorry Justin Bieber! Scummiest PR move 33:01 Starting out + Power of the Review 41:51 Worst tipper? Tip 20% 46:31 Racial busboy harmony 48:51 Mexicans are the best 53:29 Sandwich Shop to Carbone + Getting a backer 1:00:34 Throwing a critic out + Respecting a negative review 1:04:51 Aiming for the old school + Torrisi’s super power 1:08:30 Relationships with celebs + Banned celebs 1:12:39 Rap mentioning Carbone 1:23:49 Rules to sending food back 1:24:46 Better Italian food in NYC than Italy 1:28:13 Getting people to leave + Not being kid friendly 1:32:22 Outside Dining, Maintaining Quality + Entrepreneurial 1:37:30 Too difficult to replicate, The Spicy Rig + Iconic dish 1:43:02 Biggest bomb + Secret menu 1:46:48 Pet peeves + Giant menus 1:54:21 Moving to Italy + New dining trends now 2:00:58 Pinnacle for a Chef + Rewarding talent 2:04:08 Best places in New York? 2:11:42 Judge an Italian restaurant? Underrated pork chops 2:14:44 Charging for Wine + Impressing a date 2:17:43 F1 Weekend in Miami 2:20:15 What’s next? + Performance + Obama protocol 2:25:24 Getting your flowers from the Older generation 2:27:18 Navigating Egos 2:30:14 Why is New York the greatest city in the world? 2:31:41 Next generation coming through + Tariffs impacting 2:34:44 Being proud of heritage + Assimilation Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up guys? Today we are joined by one of the most famous chefs in history. His restaurants have been frequented by everyone from half-white rappers to half-white presidents. His spot, Carbone, is harder to get into than a menopausal mothership. Jeff, I don't blame you, okay? We all get excited when a brown box gets delivered. Anyway, today he is going to tell us the number one trick to get into any restaurant in the world. Why Michelin stars are nonsense, and how to bet on yourself and build a business even in a recession. Give it up for New York City's own, Mario Carbone.

Okay, I'm very excited for this. There's so many questions that I have to ask you. I want to learn about it all. But first of all, I want to know how, how does someone get a reservation at Carbone? Someone, are we asking for you? No, I just wanna know someone. Already. I just wanna know someone.

Not even me, how does just a regular guy that doesn't have a podcast. It's a democratic society. I mean, it's a policy that's just one month out. You just gotta lie to the people. Yeah. You gotta lie to the people immediately at the beginning of the block. The most expensive restaurant.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's imagine. You have 200 seats to fill for a night to make your money. Yeah. You can't allege any, like, you can't leave it to chance, like, that these two people are going to come in, they're going to fill those seats, and they're going to spend good money tonight. So, like, of course, we keep information on everybody, like, who's coming in, who are

our regulars, take care of those people, what's their spend so that I know these 200 people tonight are coming in, not just a random set of people because that's drastically going to change what we do tonight as a business. So it's almost never random? It's not never. Like we like when was the last time you had a walk up? It happens, but at Carbone it's rare because it's in such demand. So

we do put out reservations. Generally what we do is we put out the sort of the shoulders, right? We put out early. 5pm, 10pm. Yeah, because we have the internal demand to fill it with regulars. Okay, can somebody like grease a host? You can get into, I mean it's not about necessarily greasing a host. Thank you. Um, I would say. Like you came in here, you greased me, right? You gave me Cuban cigars. These are real Cuban cigars.

I mean I got a connection at the airport. You got at the airport? We snitching on our hideous. It's all wall street. It's all wall street. Duty free. So hold on, so these are real Cubans. Once we get a little lighter in here, we'll probably light these.

Oh, you're not going to smoke, right? Will you have one? I will. And then we need a little ashtray too. Okay. So you come in and you grease me. I don't even know what this greasing gets, right? You want to grease the kitchen?

How about you? You already want to grease my kitchen one night? Yeah. You take the five o'clock, five thirty reservation. Okay. Bring in two cases of beer, go straight back into the kitchen, drop it in the pass. Be like, hey, it's for you guys tonight, chefs. From me, Schultz, reservation of two, five o'clock.

Wow. Oh, shit, see? Now we're talking. Now we're talking, now we're talking. Now we're talking, now we're talking. That costs you 30 bucks. And then what happens after that? They're gonna be like, who?

Then one of the chefs will be like, someone just dropped two cases of beer, like who's that? I don't know, Let's go find out. Look it up. Like, oh, Andrew Schultz, two top at 5 o'clock. Has he been here before? No, first time. Wow, he did the right thing.

Send him out something from us. And then all of a sudden, your name starts to populate in our system. Then maybe you order a nice bottle of wine. Treat the staff nicely. Now all of a sudden, the next time you call to make a reservation, you give us your phone number, immediately your name is going to pop up and be like Andrew Schultz. Wow. Oh, so there's a database that rewards the type of customer you are. Well,

it's more that we keep information on everybody. Tons of notes on everybody. And it can go from allergies, the table they like, the table they don't like, preferential amount of time when they want to dine, et cetera, et cetera. So we keep notes on everybody because that's the crux of the business. Who's coming in tonight? Right? That's everything. We can't just open the door to random. Wow.

Does that go for every nice exclusive restaurant? Is this like everyone keeps notes and they all do it their own way, but everyone keeps notes on their customers. And there's, you know, there's softwares for this that help you track all this information. How many times have they been there? What was the last time time they were there with the beer move that would work in most places The beer move works in in most places. Thank you. It works. It works great. I appreciate guys. This is Ricky everybody

Delivering drinks all day anything you guys need Spritz guy I like a spritz. I'm not gonna lie app. Anything you guys need, all right? Yeah, let's get something cooking, man. What do we got? You're an Aperol Spritz guy. I like a Spritz. I'm not gonna lie. Aperol Spritz. I'm the one. Thank you. Anybody else? I need a nice mocktail. He's shaking it right now for you. Ah.

So we have it. I'm gonna have a Spritz as well, Rick. Two Spritzes, absolutely. Let's go. A Spritz would be great. Two Spritzes. Thank you, sir. Spritzes all around. That's a smart move, guys.

Go all the way around. Okay. Oh, this is... They make a little vagina out of it. This is cool. A little V cut. Okay, so we call it a V cut. Oh this is the normal thing. I thought this was like some crazy cigar cut that we got here. It helps to knock canoe a little, you know. Okay, so there is a way, so back in the day I would think you just tip well and all of a sudden that maybe can get you something. It helps. What's well though? Like 100%, 200%, what's well? I mean 100% of the bill.

That's insanity, right? Insanity. It happens. You're talking tariffs now? What are you talking about? We've got one guy who comes in every now and again and will spend a great deal of money and regardless of what the bill is, leaves 100% tips. So Rogan, every time I go out to eat with Rogan, he tips 100%. Every single time, which I tell him every single time is insane, but I want the waiters and the staff at the restaurant to make some money.

I never even considered the idea of walking into the kitchen with alcohol when the restaurant already has alcohol and then hand, how do I even get into the kitchen with alcohol when the restaurant already has alcohol and then hand it. How do I even get into the kitchen? The kitchen is not getting the restaurant's alcohol. So at the end of the night they're gonna have your two cases of beer to crack open after a long service. They're hot, they're sweaty, it's been a long night. But the kitchen still has agency meaning they can send out some dishes, send out a little extra. They're guaranteed you're gonna get a little something. So when I had my daughter, somebody told me,

they were like, listen, you gotta take care of the staff at the hospital. If you go out and get food, get pizza for everybody. You go out and get bagels, get bagels for everybody. And they did nothing different than I expected. So. But you didn't get any VIT. Maybe we did, I'm not even sure.

Actually, I think they delayed the pregnancy as much as they possibly could to keep on getting free food. My wife was in labor for 24 hours. If I got them like some Snickers or whatever, maybe we would have that baby in six. Yeah, why wait? Yeah, I'm incentivizing them. Well, this is a tradition. I mean, if you're at a sushi bar, that's a classic move.

It's like, hey, you get a round of beers for all the sushi chefs. That's a classic move. Really? So first thing you do when you sit in a nice sushi bar hey you get around the beers for all the sushi chefs that's a classic move so so first thing you do when you sit in a nice sushi bar buy around a beer for all the chefs this is one of the reasons one of the reasons we're so excited to sit down with you is learning restaurant etiquette from the inside I feel like it is so and I want to get into your history I want to get into how you built this thing and how you put those other two guys that don't do much on your back You know

Nick or something like that and to what is in Torino? Great guys great lucky But in all seriousness understanding No. No, no. But in all seriousness, understanding this kind of stuff offers crazy value to the average consumer. So you're bringing a couple cases of beer. Now, what happens if a waiter goes, why are you going into the kitchen with two cases of beer? No, no. Commonplace. Or you give it to the waiter and say, hey, I brought a couple cases of beer for the kitchen. Does the type of beer matter?

I mean, chefs drink simple, cold, simple, cold, easy drinking. It doesn't matter. Throw a bag of ball in there. Yeah, don't bring them any like weird, hazy IPAs. They don't want that. From what I think the chefs are, Corona. Yeah. Take out the Modela for the boys.

A little Modela, you know? Yeah. Not mad at a Modela. OK, there's a good question. Actually, no, no. I want to stay on these hacks. Okay. I got another one for you.

You order a nice, so this is a front of the house, you're going to get some appreciation. You order a bottle of champagne. Whether you're talking to the waiter or the sommelier, you order the bottle of champagne and right before they leave, you kind of grab them, give them a little whisper and say, I don't want the champagne flutes, bring me wine glasses. A real wine drinker never ever drink champagne out of champagne flutes. This is bars, keep going. And the second you tell them, I want, if you say AP glasses, which is all purpose, or you

say, bring me wine glasses for the champagne, that immediately says, you know what the fuck you're talking about. And that helps. I don't know. It's better for the champagne that the whole like, no one, no one likes drinking out of these things. It's actually not great for the champagne. Okay. You want a real wine glass for your champagne. Okay. No one ever does that. Yeah. So the second you tell them that, that immediately puts them on that, you know what you're talking about. And you get a little more respect. You get you get immediate you get you're gonna get immediate respect. Okay. And I know honestly and it makes sense that it is this way, but I never considered that it was similar to like the nightclub in that the more that you spend, the more data you're giving the restaurant and the more they're going to prioritize you in the

future. I never even considered it. It's all digital. So as soon as, you know, once you call for the second time, immediately the person that's on my team that's picking up the phone or looking at the email has side by side your information. You're at the back of your baseball card. Here's what you do. Here's who you are.

Here are your likes, dislikes, here's what you spent, etc. etc. Not that it's always about spending. We just want to curate a room so that it's not random. So what we're trying to figure out is what the cheapest way to get currency in the restaurant is. So bringing the beers to the staff. This is already assuming you got the res. I'm curious when you walk up to the door there's the maitre d' which I have a long lasting beef with maitre d's in New York City. You want to get into it? I'm curious. I just get frustrated sometimes.

You know, because you get this girl, she graduated college like a year and a half ago. She holds power over this entire restaurant, every person that comes in. Is there anything you can do or say to a maitre d' that might kind of tilt the scales in your favor? Thank you. Saying, oh, my mom's in town and she's having a birthday, anything that would kind of. I mean, they're gonna They're gonna see through those. Yeah. Yeah, I mean

Walk up reservations because at that point you're at their mercy Thank you so much. I think try to kill them with kindness. You'll take anything listen. I'll take I'll take your worst two seats I'll take the bar stools. I'll take whatever you got You know, so instead of trying a big shot Yeah I'll take whatever you got. So instead of trying to big shot, humbling yourself. That's all they've got. All they've got is this little bit of power that they've been given at this front desk to your point.

I would go with, listen, I'll take whatever it is. Give me your worst two seats. I'll be happy tonight. I'll be in and out quick. That's... Yeah. I got a thing at eight o'clock. Because they have to worry about what's been plotted for the night.

So at Carbone, it's about a two and eight o'clock. They have to worry about what's been plotted for the night, right? Like, so at Carbone, it's a two and a half. It's about a two and a half hour meal. So we're plotting these reservations, right? It's a very tricky little dance that we are assuming the five thirty reservations going to be done at eight o'clock. Right. But it may not happen that way. So the fact that if they've got an extra table, they might give it to you. If you're like, I'm going to be in and out quick.

Does how you dress for the walk up make any difference? It depends on the restaurant. If you look like this, look, I'll trim it a little bit. I think it depends on the restaurant a little bit. But really, I would say kill them with kindness, try to get in and out quick. I'll take any seat you got. What about the friendly handshake with a little cash in it?

I mean, that's as old as time. But does that work? I think it works. I'm not advocating for it because my team is very well paid, but I mean, I'm sure it works. Would that be offensive? Obviously not in your establishments, but another restaurant, like if you were to be like, hey, there's a little 20 bucks, you think a maitre d would be like, oh, like it could be beneath them.

Who the fuck are you? You're trying to pay me 20 bucks to get you a table. If you, if it turns out you're like talking to the general manager and not just like, you know, a well-paid general manager and you try to give him a 20 spot, he's gonna be like, what are you doing here? Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's going on here? Bro, I tried to pull the, I know the owner thing once at Carbone. No. That's this week. No. At Emilio's, Emilio Bolanos, whatever. And I'm talking to this big guy out front and I'm like, yeah, Emilio told me to come by, just a table for two, whatever like that,

and he's like, oh, did he? And I was like, yeah, and he said, what time did he tell you to come? And I'm like, around like 7.30, whatever like that, and I'm like, I'm a little bit early. He goes, okay, cool, all right, yeah, well, we'll figure it out. And I'm like, okay, I walk away. And thank you. he goes, okay, cool. All right, yeah, well, we'll figure it out. And I'm like, okay, I walk away. And next person that walks up to him goes, Emilio. Oops.

No, I'm not thinking he's gonna be sitting outside of his restaurant on a bar stool, like deciding who gets in. Well, I think of them is a well, there's the kid and then there's the dad 100% Mmm. Anywho. I mean, that's so funny. Hey, I'm a comedian. I was just fucking with you Okay, so you got a lot of good restaurants under your umbrella Andrew and I argue a lot of times he's become this like real foodie type and That was really derogatory. It was, and I meant it in a derogatory way.

Because he's very pretentious about it. Yeah. What I love, I was just saying this, I went to Teresa's, it was the best restaurant experience I've had in the city because it was elevated, but didn't feel pretentious. A lot of times I'll go to Michelin star places and I end up being underwhelmed.

Not a lot of times, a few times. How do you feel about that? Is that like a general, go to Michelin star places and I end up being underwhelmed. Not a lot of times, a few times. How do you feel about that? Is that like a general, hey, Michelin star, you know this is gonna be a solid restaurant experience or not? There's a lot to unpack with Michelin. There's a lot there. A lot to unroll.

There's a lot. Get it? I see what you're doing. It's a tire. Ah! Michelin started as a subsidy for the tire company. Now it's no longer. So now it's a business.

So I think you got to take that with a grain of salt. They're in their own business of selling books. Michelin's tricky for a lot of reasons. If you're to the restaurant, the kind of restaurant you're talking about, they're going for that accolade. There's this sort of assumption that you have to do it in a really tight way, a really library style, hush environment, very sort of the chef is right, he wants you to eat this from the left to the right sort of environment because they're

coveting these stars. I don't know if that's a good business model. We are the opposite, right? Yes. I think that chefs, well-trained, high-level chefs fall in one of two categories, and we're firmly on one side than the other. There's two categories. Not that there's anything wrong with the two categories, but there's two firm categories. One category is the chef that spends all their training, all their work, their life, their

life's journey to make something that you've never had before. That's a very dangerous proposition. But if you have whatever this thing is and you don't like it, the chef can at least fall back on the ego and say, you don't get it. You didn't get what I was going with. This is the pretentiousness. Yeah. And that infuriates me because it's like, no, I get what tastes good and what doesn't,

dude. I get it. And I preach to my team and my chefs, we're on the other side of that. We are equally dangerous. We are trying to make for you the thing that you've had thousands of times. Right. And I want to make one of the best ones you've ever had, but you know exactly what it's like. So I can't be like, Oh, he didn't get that meatball. You're competing with their grandma. Yeah. Like, you know what a meatball is, right? You may not know what that chef was trying to go for, but like if you didn't like it, it's probably not good. Yeah, you don't have that fallback. But if I

win, I've got a customer for life. I've got someone who's coming multiple times a week. If that chef wins, you may go once a year. You may actually never go back again, even if it's great. I never go back to those places, even if it's the really abstract ones is a fun cool experience Uh-huh, but it's like I recently went to Places called the Chicago chef he had throat cancer or something that Alinea Alinea just did a pop-up in Brooklyn. Yeah, and my wife and I went and the food was great and We got into a nice argument which was uncomfortable for all the other people during our seating. That's fun

though. That's a lot of that. That's real. That's real. You're honest. No, no, no, no. Not only at a communal table, you change tables like four or five times. So they had to deal with that fight four or five times and it was new people sitting next to us every different time. So you wouldn't let it go. No! Not letting this go, anything! Just because you put the dessert all over the table, I'm gonna let the fucking fight go? No! Everyone in the restaurant loves that, okay? Going to dinner with my wife, seeing a couple working,

I'm like, yes! It's theater! It's theater! It's just fun to listen. You're like at dinner and a show. Bro, it was, I mean, because the lad at the end of the dessert, they like, it's all deconstructed or whatever, you know? And they're like...

And that's three Michelin stars. That's the highest award. At one point, He was the highest rated American restaurant. We had I literally pay you to construct the food I know I never paid anybody to take some shit apart from me. I can do that. Believe me. I can do that I could take a part of lasagna. Yeah, but I will say the food was good, but you would hate it You definitely would hate It's important that they exist. It's just not my mind. I'm in a business. We're at the corner of art and commerce. Like I'm in a business model. There's nothing wrong with preaching the art and teaching the art of business.

That is also a craft and we need to keep the lights out and we need to keep people paid. Yeah. Do you know how much money your wait staff makes? I mean, depending on the restaurant, a substantial amount. Like what does a waiter at Carbone in Miami make? Like on average? Over 150,000 a year. So you're guaranteed 150,000 a year, and that's what's on the books.

That's not even like people throwing them a little shit on the side. Yeah, but there's very little cash these days. Everything's cards No, no one carries cash anymore. No one so I always wondered like to some of your staff That was in like cash tip positions get upset about that like the people that are doing Valet These like how do they manage that their whole life was cash tips?

I guess about lay is still do you remember I'm trying to think of where when I carry cash at this point Valet is one of the few ones that you still want to have that, you know. But the wait staff, it's all in credit cards, which is good because it actually used to be really dangerous because these restaurants have all this cash. At the end of the week, some employees got to take like comical bags of cash and might as well have a dollar sign on it to a bank that is waiting to get robbed. Because you were putting it all in the bank.

Yeah, like all in the bank. 100% of it. You weren't giving it to Ricky DeFace to put under a mattress. He doesn't have mattresses. COVID. But yo, it is a crazy thing because like in the city, any small mom pop business in the city that dealt with cash was given, if you want to be generous, 50% of it to the government.

And that business completely changed now that everything goes digital. So you got to adjust to shit. Yeah. For that same reason. Wait, wasn't Carbone only cash initially? No, never. Just with me? That was strictly your policy.

It was me policy. Because the card kept bouncing. Yeah, because we didn't take that card you had. Oh yeah, what was that? I think that was a diner's card. Uncle Rush card. He's like, I take gift cards? When I go to some of my favorite bars or lounges, I bring cash just so I can tip with the cash. Because I know for that particular reason they appreciate that way more

than if you just put all the tips on the credit card receipt. That makes sense. Also guys this weekend I'm gonna be in the best comedy clubs in the country. No disrespect to any other club but Comedy Orcs the best clubs in the country. I know we sold out two shows. We still got tickets left. There's some tickets left for the Sunday show. The other two are going quickly so hurry up and buy those. May 9th and 10th Virginia Beach. I'm letting y'all know I might have to reschedule. I will know for sure very soon but I think I might be in India working on some things that you guys

should keep an eye out for. June 19th through 21st I'm gonna be in Salt Lake City. Guys those dates and a bunch more at AkashSingh.com. Thank y'all so much for coming out to these shows. We did nine in Tampa Bay. That was amazing. I love y'all. Peace. What's up people? World's fastest ad read. Bangor, Maine, Portland, Maine, Charleston, South Carolina, Atlanta, Georgia,

and Strodsburg, PA, a bunch of other cities, all on my website, markgagnonlive.com. Come see me on the road and we're gonna hang out after the show, we can say what's up. We're not really gonna hang out. Say what's up with your mouth. No, just take a picture and come to the show. But not with words.

Like more like a whoa. We can talk about just only talking and have fun. It's hard to talk with Mark's dick in your mouth. See and come to the show. But not with words, like more like a, whoa! We can talk about just only talking and have fun. It's hard to talk with Mark's dick in your mouth! See you guys at the show. Guys, this is incredibly important. Maybe the most important thing that I tell you on this episode. Our dear brother, okay? This is family, okay?

This is not like casual work acquaintance. This is literal family, Derek Poston. You saw him open up on the Life Tour. You saw him open up on Infamous, Absolutely Hy saw him open up on Infamous, absolutely hysterical, and he's putting out his first piece, his first comedy piece, with the great Don't Tell Comedy brand, you've definitely seen Don't Tell Comedy specials

all over the internet, all over TikTok, all over Instagram. This piece, How to End Racism, is absolutely hilarious, and is on YouTube right now. Derek Poston, How to End Racism, Don't Tell Comedy, I'm gonna be talking about the Derek is flagrant family. So get after it, go watch it, let's run these fucking numbers up, create another superstar out there. He's absolutely hilarious. Leave a bunch of comments, share it. Show the love, show that flagrant family love.

Right now to our boy Derek Poston. We're very proud of you Derek. Love you Derek. Love you Derek. Now let's get back to the show. I'm curious, back to the Michelin thing, like the politics of the Michelin. Like I have a friend that has a restaurant in Brooklyn

that plays bar Madonna, it's awesome. But he talks to me about like getting on like the politics of the Michelin. Like I have a friend that has a restaurant in Brooklyn that plays Bar Madonna, it's awesome. But he talks to me about like getting on like the list. Like you want to be on the best bars list. Like there's all this politics you have to play, not only having a great experience with your consumers, but playing the game of the restaurant. So as far as getting a Michelin star or playing in that world, how important is it to be in the good graces of the critics,

being on blogs, things like that, to promote the brand of the restaurant. If you're going for that, if that's a goal of yours, then it's important. Michelin can't possibly be what they say they are or what they have been. So like Michelin in the past started in France, you know, 50s and 60s, there would be an anonymous inspector that would come every year and check on your restaurant and grade it basically. For that to still happen today in the number of restaurants and numbers of cities that Michelin is in is virtually impossible.

Right? There's no way they're checking on these restaurants. So it's my belief that it's simply an aggregate. They're just aggregating where they need to sell books and what the reviews of the rest of the world are of these places and figuring out who to give stars to. I think there's a handful of people that are actually going to some of these restaurants. Like the top couple brass of Michelin are going to the important ones, but there's no way they're going to all of them. So it's really just some sort of aggregate system they're using to give out these stars.

It's no longer like, the movie Ratatouille kind of like projects this, like that's a Michelin inspector basically, right? At least at the New York Times, which is for me the most important review in New York, right, the New York Times critics says, you know who it is, it's a single person's opinion, whether you like it or not. It's a real person. It's not some sort of computer generated aggregate. And take this for a grain of salt. We only

have one Michelin star. They took a couple away from me a couple years ago. It is what it is, but like, you know, I could easily be seen as someone who's just kind of grumpy about it. But I just think as a system, and it's nothing that we necessarily covet, but as a system, I just don't think they're being honest with who they are as a criteria. So you're saying there's other motives here at play. There's a financial motive. They used to be a subsidy of this tire company, right? And the whole idea was that they created this map of restaurants so that you in your car

on your Michelin tires would drive from restaurant to restaurant and it was a fun way to promote it. It became really big and then it became, it spawned into its own business. So you have to look at it and say, this is its own business, it has to make its own dollars. So as a business, there's just no way, given what they do in revenue and book sales,

that they could pay enough people to go to all these restaurants. So if that's the case, then how are they coming up with this? It's a fugazi. So then in with it? It's a fugazi. So then in that case. It's a fugazi. What's more important? Like if you're going to a city

and you wanna know what the good restaurants are. Yeah, how do you know? And you don't use a Michelin star, is there another review system? Is there an app? Is there a website? How else can I be informed about the best restaurant in the city?

I mean, social media is gonna tell you. I mean, if you punch in best restaurant, pick your city, you're gonna get 10 at least. But it's a pay for. Infatuation. Have you heard of that? Yeah, infatuation. I mean, they don't they don't speak kindly to me in Miami, but they do in New York, two totally different groups of people in the same publication. But they they're they're definitely going to pop up. You're going to get CNN Traveler. You're going to get all these things that are going to pop up. But but the biggest thing that's changed in the restaurant business is that the power of these critics has been basically completely taken away and put in the customers' hands.

Everyone has it now. Everyone's an editor in chief of their own thing. No matter how big their Facebook is or their Instagram page, they're going to tell you all about their meal, and if you follow them, you're going to go... They're the critic. There's a there's a I people always say a lot of times comics like compare ourselves to boxers for some reason I don't know why and whoever does that has never boxed at all but I always say the closest comparison for comedians is chefs. My chef friend says it's the closest comparison. Just in

terms of like speaking to them it's a couple different things one the kind of natural people pleasers like we're doing this thing, we're creating this thing for other people to consume and hopefully they like it and we're kind of waiting for them to tell us that they like it. The hours also and just like degenerates, really kind of bad people at our core. Dredge of society. Dredge of society that somehow managed to make money doing this like weird thing. It's a circus.

It is a circus, 100%. You're in these restaurants, and you're managing the staff. They're all fucking each other. How do you stop that? I don't know how they bought that. Um. I worked in restaurants for years. Listen, I think.

What do you do? How do you? The team going out after work and having drinks and letting some steam off of a long night is totally normal and we're not going to get in the way of that. I think certainly we have rules that like management and hourly staff can't coat mingle. Like that's just rule number one. And as soon as that happens, there's zero tolerance there. But the staff, they become family.

I mean, I have the same team in Carbone, the original Carbone, since basically day one. No one's left. It's all the same team. Wow. Starting with Ricky. Wow. Really? How do you know Ricky?

Ricky was a day one guy who answered an ad for captains, the head waiters are captains, for a captain position, and loved him immediately, and he grew into being the face, I call him the face because everyone knows him. Everyone knows him as Ricky of Carbone. That's good. Before we get too far away, two things. Do you think a Michelin star can be bought? I think you got to play the game a little bit.

If that's something you're going after, if you're if you if that's a really important metric for your restaurant and for success and for getting people in there, then you have to play a game to a certain degree. And that being buying it could manifest itself in the things you buy for the restaurant, all of the extra money you spend towards the things that you think you need to get that star. I don't think you can pay Michelin for a star. Cities pay Michelin, which is commonplace, cities pay it to bring them to that city to create a Michelin whatever. Which makes sense. But that's just like the... Michelin guide? Yeah, the Michelin guide. So the Michelin guide

is paid for? It's paid for by the cities to bring them there. Which makes sense if you're a tourist in Miami, Michelin guide. No, it makes perfect sense. I thought Michelin guide was the achievement right before Michelin star. Because sometimes the way people speak about it, they're like, oh, it's not Michelin Star, but it's Guide. You can be included in the book without having a star, where they're like sort of recommend you, especially if you're at a lower price point. If you had a really low price point,

usually you're not even up for a star. This is really just kind of the world of find out more or less. Then the second question, because you said, now the power is in the customer's hand, but I feel like restaurants are just paying influencers, hey, here's some money, come here, eat for free, do a review on us. So it's like, I don't trust a lot of the TikTok because they'll do it on the same restaurants over and over.

And I'm like, I'm a little suspect about this. That's a great point. That is marketing these days. I mean, it's not that much different than paying some agency to tell you how great this restaurant is. Bro, it's more effective. Yeah, so then how do we find a real good restaurant? I guess you just need to trust it.

No, no, I understand what you're saying. But like when Kendall Jenner wears a bag, all of a sudden all these girls want to wear the bag. When they eat at this restaurant, all of a sudden all these girls want to go check it out. So to Alex's point, if some of them are being paid to go to restaurants, how can we trust them as an influencer? Because the whole game is to assume that they really truly are inspired by this restaurant and they love the cuisine.

I mean, they're selling, if you're a big influencer, you're selling all sorts of products, right? I mean, like, Oh, they're getting all sorts of products, right? I mean like... Oh, they're getting... Huge amounts of money. And they're getting money to even go to restaurants? I mean, we don't pay anyone to go to restaurants, but I'm sure that that's a business, right? That's got to be a line item in advertising somewhere. In this local town, so-and-so is a huge influencer.

They're definitely going to move the needle. They're definitely going to move the needle. I thought you guys were making great headlines the opposite way. So instead of who comes to the restaurant, it was who gets kicked out of or gets rejected. Every time a famous person would get rejected at Carbone, it was like P6.

That's been happening that often. Dude, but you heard about it often. It happened every now and again, and sometimes it was a mistake. Who was it, but it was like Justin Bieber tries to get it. That was a mistake now and again. Sometimes it was a mistake. Who was it? But it was like Justin Bieber. That was a mistake, Justin. Yeah. That was a mistake. Milk that mistake. It was unintentional. I would not have kicked Justin out.

A serendipitous mistake or whatever the word is like. You're like, oh, this is a mistake. No, because I didn't want to deal with that press. I didn't, it didn't look good. It wasn't like, it didn't, to me it didn't look good. Like that's not hospitable. We tried to take care of it. It was just like a didn't to me. It didn't look good. Like that's not hospitable. We try to take care of it It was just like a last-minute thing that that scenario was just like a super last-minute trying to make a reservation And they were already showing up and we just didn't have the table at that moment But to Andrew's point there's a human psychology when you read this person couldn't get into this restaurant It must be insane. So could you see a world? I'm not saying you did it Could you see a world where somebody might reject that person and then leak it to the press?

I think it's too risky. I can't see somebody trying that. What's the scummiest thing you've seen a restaurant do for PR? Scummiest thing to do for PR? There's only so many things that you can really do. I mean, I'm trying to think of like creative scummy things. You know, planting paparazzi.

So making the calls of the PR agency. Yeah, someone's there and then you call like a page six type guy and all of a sudden they get blown up. I've heard some clothing like wardrobe people will do that where they'll like go to some company Hey, you have this designer clothes pay me. I'll make sure he wears it and then when he wears it I'll call the paparazzi and say hey Justin Bieber's at this restaurant. That's a thing. Yeah And how do you make sure your staff doesn't do that and then get hit? well, I mean our staff that's something we talk about more than probably most is sort of anonymity like

one of course we say nothing nothing, but also we are the protective layer of a celebrity or an athlete or someone that's in the restaurant because you don't know who might be secretly filming them or who might just come up and try to get an autograph or a selfie. So my team is that last line of defense to make sure that they have a really private moment. Do they have a special seating area, a special entrance, all of that? It depends on the restaurant. Some places just have like there's nowhere else to go. It depends on how much notice we have but like most places there's like wow. Okay take me through early days. Yeah. Was there a point in Carbone

where you were like, we're not going to make it. We're going to close. Well, early days was just a couple hundred feet away from here was original. Terese. This is on Mulberry, right? Yeah, that's the first. That's the very first restaurant Mulberry and Prince. I'm sorry. If we're going to go early days, let's go really far back. You go work at Balut, right? I worked at Balut before my first like real New York chef was Babo. Right. Yeah. So you start with Potali Then you go to Italy if I'm not mistaken you come back and you work for Daniel Ballout. Mm-hmm Dan and you're working at Daniel I went I went to Danielle to try to get a job. Well, the story of Danielle was I really wanted to work there

My dad was turning 50 years old and I said pops Pops, I'm going to save up some money. I'm going to take you to a nice restaurant tonight. And me and my dad went to Danielle. I know that Danielle kind of works the dining room. He walks around the whole dining room and I really wanted to meet him. I wanted to get a restaurant. So I had my resume in my jacket pocket and he comes over, he introduces himself, he talks to her for a second and he asked me what I did. I said, listen, I'm a cook in New York, but I'd love to work here. And I gave my resume right on the dining room floor.

And he told me, listen, I don't know if we have anything, but here, call my assistant tomorrow. And I called this assistant like every day for like a month until finally she was like, just show up on Saturday. Saturday I show up, no one knows I'm supposed to be there. No one has any idea I'm there. I get there, they're like, who are you?

They give me like, they just throw a uniform at me and they're just like, go find something to do. So I like, I find one cook, I do one thing all day, I dice leaks. I did that really bad for a while and they kept yelling at me and I finally did it okay. I dice leaks all day, no one says anything to me. The day ends and everyone's going home and I'm like, all right. So I throw my uniform in the bin and I'm like, I guess no one's going to talk to me today.

The next day I show up, I find the guy, I get the leaks again and I do it again. No one really talks to me. This goes on for like three or four days. And then the executive chef at the time, a terrifying man named Alex Lee, one night during dinner service, kind of looks over and he's like,

and he like points at me and I'm like, me? He's like, yeah, he goes, come here. I walk up to the pass and he's like, who the fuck are you? And I'm like, my name is Mark Arbonne. I've been here for five days. No one's talked to me.

I've been cutting leaks for four days. I just need a job. And he's like, there's no work here for you. There's no jobs here. I'm totally full. He's like, go to one of the other restaurants in the company tomorrow and see if there's a job there. So I spent a week at Danielle

without really having anyone talking to me. I wound up getting a job at one of the other restaurants and I worked there for... Which one? Cafe Balloud. So it was at that time it was I was like 22. Me, David Chang owns Moba Fuku. That's what I was about to say. This is a really and then also Terese. My partner Rich. We were like in a row like this. So think about this within Balud it's called Cafe Balud. Cafe Balud. Where was it? within Balloud, it's called Cafe Balloud. Where was it? 76th and Madison.

Okay, so within Cafe Balloud, three of like the foremost restaurateurs in New York City would sprout. Yeah, 22, 23 years old each. 21, 22. You know Mova Fuku. Yeah, it's fire. And wow, this is just like so crazy. So you, I'm doing a little research on you and like you thought that you would open something with David.

Originally, we were going to do something together with Dave. With Rich as well? No, just me and me and him. But Rich was my roommate. So we would like, after work, we would, we would, we would spend like before, like before we'd crash, we'd spend time like talking about ideas, talking about like, how we were going to get how we were going to get started, what his place was gonna be like, what my place was gonna be like.

And then in 2008, there was a financial crisis and all money dries up. All investors dry up, everyone's done. But we were ready. It was like, this is our time. So instead of trying these separate ideas individually, we were like, the only way, if we want to be our own boss, like next year, the only way we're going to do this is if we do it together.

Wow. And we pooled our resources, our money, and we took a space a couple hundred feet away that was like 450 square foot jean shop. And it was a Mulberry and Prince, but we just, we thought that that was it. We thought that was the energy, that was the spot, that's where we needed to be. And that was, Tere and Prince, but we just we thought that that was it. We thought that was the energy That was the spot that we needed to be To see what was it called? Three easy times specialties. Yeah, it's three easy times. Yes. So he got his name first. Yeah Eagle maniac this guy

Unbelievable foosball two out of three Okay, so that's the most diplomatic way to do it. Wait, really? How else would you do it? Rock, paper, scissors, but that's too much to chance. Not too Italian kids. You play football. So Rich gets his name.

Is it successful? At first, at first it was mixed. We opened it as a sandwich shop. That did well. But our goal was to open it at night and do like kind of a serious dinner. It was one set menu on a chalkboard. And when we started opening at night, no one really came. And if they did come, they were like, oh, I heard you sell sandwiches. And we're like, yeah, but in the daytime, like, yeah, but there's nobody here making a sandwich. We're like, no, that's not the thing.

That's not what we're doing. We're doing this menu thing. That took a while. They got a point with that one. You want the money or not? I see what you're saying, but I'm going to die on my morals here. It took a while for people to figure out what was going on there. And what do you think it was?

Eventually we got a great review from New York Magazine and that started a bit of a line outside, people waiting for reservations, the shit that we had never seen before, almost overnight. Were you just waiting on the reservation? Were you calling them, trying to get them down? Because I think you know this could change fortunes, anybody reviewing us, how do you get them to review you?

You don't, right? You don't, And at first, when they came the first time, they were alone in the dining room. We knew them. And so we cooked for them. We talked to them. We're friendly. They left. They came back next week and I was like, Rich, man, they must really like it. They're here again. And he's like, yeah, cool. You know, whatever. Third time they come. And I'm like, oh. They're making sure. Oh, they're writing a review on this restaurant. So do you spice it up on that last one? I mean, we gave it all we had.

But it wasn't, I mean, we threw everything we had at it, but it wasn't much at the time. We only had this one little menu. Yeah, no sandwiches. We had no sandwiches, just enough money to kind of make a chalkboard. Were you both in the kitchen at that time? Yeah, it's only five employees total.

There's like me, him, a dishwasher, one waitress. I mean, that's everybody, right? So we were open six days a week. On the seventh day, we were closed. We were doing prep and everything. He and I would go in, lock the door, we'd go in, we'd crank the radio and we would prep all day just to get ready. So we were working seven days

But we were the only employees but we were living the dream. There's an interesting thing with restaurants specifically about the review and this has changed in almost every other form of media The review is really for important with TV shows or not even TV shows but like movies Anything that comedy that you had to leave the house for, right? Because you got to get a babysitter, you got to get dressed, you get a new, there's like a lot of things you have to do, right? Once everything went streaming, the review doesn't really matter. Are you sweating reviews when the special comes out?

No, no, because all you got to do is turn it on. And people make their own reviews. That's what I'm saying about social media as well. But what specifically for restaurants is you're not ordering a delivery. I gotta go. So if I'm gonna commit that, I have one date night a week with my wife. I'm gonna commit Tuesday night to someplace. My wife has already vetted 10 different websites and made sure it's a thing that she really wants to do because that's our one night out a week, right? So the review does still hold, whether the review is from an influencer, some social media, from Yelp, the review does still hold a lot of weight within the restaurant community.

We still need that word of mouth. We still need someone to validate the experience before we go. Whereas just like turning on a special is, I don't need you to tell me if it's good or not. Give it 10 minutes, ah, it sucks, I'm done. Oh, I really like it, I'll keep watching it. So it's interesting to see that one single review flipped. I mean, I used to hear that back in like the 70s and 80s, if you got a great New York Times review that the owners would literally tear it out of the newspaper, walk into the bank and get a loan.

Wow. And be like, here. Wow. That's all you need. The old New York Times critics used to tell me that. Wow. So were they drunk off that power? I mean that was the top.

There was no Michelin in America back then. Rick Eggings ran a little stronger. Yes, chef. What a little... A little dirty martini. Oh, wait a minute. Gin? Ovaka.

Right away. I'll do that as well. This guy just brought you a spritz, you dick. Well, I'm gonna have that too. Acting less would make me nervous. That's why I as well. This guy just brought you a spritz, you dick. Well, I'm gonna have that too. Acting last is making me nervous. That's why I brought it. Or it matters if you bring it.

Tuvaka Martini. Right away. Hey, in all of your experience, who's the worst tipper? Oh, this is a good question. Everyone tips wonderfully. Everyone tips wonderfully. You're not gonna get him. You're not gonna get him.

Come on. You're not gonna get him. Who's the biggest scumbag? You walked in there. Everyone who walks in there? Everyone who walks in the door, we thank them very, very much. Let me ask you a question. Everyone's great.

When you were letting Epstein dine at your section specifically, was he a big temper? I don't know nothing. I don't know nothing. No, I wasn't there that night. I was off there. Mr. Faze, if I may ask you to settle in a bit between Alex, Alex and me, your life depends on your answer here. Alex and I walk into a restaurant. Who do you think is going to tip better? You don't have anything about us. You're just looking at us. You know what? We just deliver the

best service. We don't think about things like that. You're not gonna get them. Not at all. He's looking at you a lot. You don't go, oh we got a couple. He is, I'm just saying. Wait, what was it? Three martinis? Three martinis, three martinis. Make it four. What do you call them? Do you call them Canadians?

Three martinis on the way. No, make it four, make it four. Four, you got it. See how demanding they are? Italians count, they can't even help the Italian, bro. He said three, three like that. I love it. Okay, so, alright, so we're gonna go ahead and get started.

We're gonna get started. We're gonna get started. We're gonna get started. We're gonna get started. We're gonna get started. We're gonna get started. We're gonna get help the Italian, bro. He said three. Three like that. I love it. Okay, so all right, so the review changes everything, but it's still a small restaurant like You're not getting- Can you answer that question?

Wait, who tips the worst? Indians or black people? That's not fair. That's not fair. But he does have an answer. Chinese. No, but they're Chinese tips. Diner boy in New York City. I'm a diner boy. I'm a diner boy.

Who tips the word? I was taught. My dad told me, my dad told me you didn't need a tip when you sat at the bar. And I overcompensate. I over tip because of the. Because that's a great scene in My Blue Heaven, where Steve Martin goes over-tipping by the fantastic movie. But wait a minute, is there a version where over-tipping makes you look a little funny?

No. Never at all. No. But do you think if you saw him over-tip or him over-tip, they would be over-compensating for cultural stereotypes? If I over-tip, I'm generous. If they over-tip, they would be overcompensating for cultural scarcity. If I over tip, I'm generous. If they over tip, they're trying to make up

for what their people have done to the restaurant industry for decades. Jeez. I think they're simply taking care of the staff. I actually think this is, yeah, I'm not even. Oh yeah, that's okay. I don't gotta push back on that. This guy's been around Ricky for a while.

Also, 20% is fine, right? Yeah, I know, 20% is generous. 15%? Oh, this is me. Wait, 20% is generous, 15% I can, this is me. Wait, 20% is generous? 15, I can't do it? Were you unhappy with your service? Oh my God.

No, I thought it was great. I mean, yes. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, what should you tip? 20%. 20%. 20% is good. You're good at 20.

20's right. 25, farting. Yeah, I would only go into 20 if I was unhappy with my service. Okay, that's fair. That's typically what I do. But if you are unhappy. Oh, all right. He's always unhappy. Yeah friends. That's fair. That's typically what I do. But if you are unhappy... He's always unhappy. He's never happy.

You might want to start staying home. No, I started tipping better when I started making money. When I didn't have money, I would look for any excuse that you gave me bad service so I could go 15. I didn't like his attitude, I didn't like his vibe. 15 is so hard to calculate. What are you doing? To get in your phone?

I'm Indian. You know what it is my dad taught me? It's double the tax. Back in the day, double the tax. Now at 16, you gotta go a little lower than that. He doubles and it takes a little off. I'm 41. Back in the day, double the tax was a fine tip.

20% is like a newer thing. When we were younger, 15 used to be... That's inflation. 15 used to be... That used to be the good spot. But now you're tipping for all sorts of things that don't warrant any sort of tips. What are we talking about?

Like what? I mean, if you're just, you're going to the coffee shop, you're getting a cup of coffee, all of a sudden the screen spins around. He made me tip. I didn't even tip. I got a water. 15, 20, or 25.

I got a water at a cafe today, just a water. I brought the water, she made me. Spin that screen around. She made me beep it. Son, son, self check out. And then turned the thing around and then the thing said 20% and I'm like what did you do in this whole process? The screen is going to prompt you to a couple of questions.

Buddy self checkout at the airport they ask if you want to leave a tip no one is here. I still take money off my bill. I take my self checkout at the airport because people are working those they understand that you're going to have trouble with this and there's people that are helping you check out Which is no longer the whole purpose of this experience It bothers me so much if they don't help me check out and I have issues I just walk out with the water And I know I'm brown and I do it anyway You justify stealing

Yeah, yeah, I do it anyway It's a $20 water I get it We gotta get these migrants out to country For real, for real It's a good point Hey can I ask you, this is a restaurant deep cut. What are you going to do when they ship out the micers? No, no, for real, no, no.

But no, this is, I've noticed some restaurants, okay, it's almost if they made a decision to not have Latino busboys and they go Indian. Bangladeshi, I think. Or Bangladeshi. I'm going to say it and then we'll bleep it out so that you're safe, but not your a f***. There are no Latinos that work there. It's Bangladeshi you think it is?

Bangladeshi is what I hear. Is that like a strategic move? So the strategy that's implemented there is if you have like one main guy who's like the head porter, right? He's doing the hiring. There's there's constantly in fighting amongst communities. If you start blending communities, there's going to be all sorts of stupid drama that's going to happen between because they're fighting with each other. And it's best to sort of hire one community of people. That's fascinating happen between because they're fighting with each other and it's best to sort of hire one Community of people that's fascinating. I tried to do that That was the problem. If we got a bunch of different ones, there'd be no infighting.

That is it. So it's delegation of responsibility. I never thought about it like that. If your head guy is from this community, he's going to hire all his people. And it's just a happier house, right? Everyone gets along. It's all one community. The staff meal is all happier house, right? Everyone gets along, it's all one community, the staff meal's all the same, right?

You don't have to deal with Mexicans making pork for the Muslims and they're fighting about it. It's just a happier house. Is that how it works with nursing too? Like when you see some areas are specifically Filipino, some areas specifically Caribbean. I know that happens with nannying. If you tap into the Caribbean nanny community,

they're going to recommend the other people that are often, like, part of their church. Makes sense. I was more than a mouth, though, for that. That's what I always assumed it was. Like, you just be like, yeah, I have someone that can fill in. I know someone that can pop in.

But it's all good. They're going to stay within their own squad. Yeah, of course. People they know. Yeah. Why does it seem like, in New York, the best chefs of Italian, the best chefs chefs of Thai and every other cuisine are all Mexican It's teeny tiny every every kitchen. I go to it looks like it's Yeah, so wait you're saying no just wire all the chefs Incredible chefs, I mean

Mexican cuisine is arguably the most complex food there is period talk that shit period I was starting with like the Aztecs into the Spanish into the regional Mexican cuisine. Oh, thank you It's an incredibly difficult. So if they can cook mole, they can cook whatever else the fuck you want. So then why? And they work hard. No one asked them about them, pyramids.

Yeah, he knows, he knows. No one questioned them. He knows. So with all the immigration that's going on now, is that affecting the restaurant business at all? I mean, I'm sure it is. It doesn't affect ours. Okay. I mean, we just don't allow like illegal immigrants to work in the restaurants, right?

I mean, you have to have proper paperwork. You know, we don't we don't fuck with that. Like, it's not worth bringing the house down. Why are you laughing? It's not. Ah, yeah. You have to. I've got 5,000 employees. So then how do you get, how do other restaurants get around that? Because I see it looks like...

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So how do we go from the restaurant being a sandwich shop in the daytime, getting a little bit of traction with New York Mag to then becoming a staple in the neighborhood? Oh yeah, sorry, how many times? No, no, no, because it's not even that restaurant that becomes Carbone. That's what I'm saying, Terese.

So you and Terese are there, these two Italian guys that understand art, you understand food, right? At what point do you're like, we need a Jew to pay for shit? Well, we were pretty frugal early on, but we knew that- So why did you bring that up? We knew.

We knew we needed help. There were just two chefs who were trying to figure out the rest of it. How many tables is that first restaurant? Sorry, I'm gonna take it. Six, like six tiny little tables. And when we got somebody that was like noteworthy coming in, it was it was heavy because the room is this big, you know, like, Stout would bring Hove in, he'd

sit in the corner and you're like, oh, wow, this is nuts. Yeah, that's crazy. So early days were kind of crazy when we were getting momentum because that was that was the room. That was everything. But when we when we met Jeff, Jeff was one of the kind of early customers, we knew him, he was like, we had like similar friends in the same business and he came in and he quickly kind of identified like that we had a chance of like being something much bigger than we are right now and he thought he could bring the rest of it to the table, which we would have learned,

like I believe it would have learned, but it would have taken a lot. It expedites the process. Yeah, for sure. Okay, so you both are together, and you decide to open up another restaurant. Because he won the first game, you get to get your name.

The location is phenomenal. Yeah. Like absolutely phenomenal. Pure luck, coincidence, incredibly expensive. For everybody who doesn't know, it's in what would you... It's in Greenwich Village, like a few blocks from the cellar. Greenwich Village, Thompson between Bleecker and Houston. You're blocks away from Selho, blocks away from the East Village.

It was an Italian restaurant. Rocco's, right? Yeah, Rocco from the 20s. Yeah. I think it was a Genovese family, kind of like Stal Italian restaurant. Rocco's, right? Yeah, Rocco from the 20s. I think it was a Genovese family kind of like Stallworth restaurant. Oh, wow. There were a couple of questionable doors in there that were for them, back courtyards and shit.

And it finally kind of fell on disrepair. And we found out about it through the guy who owns the space knew Jeff somehow and we wind up getting it you know it was it was at the time crazy expensive now it's a great deal but at the time it was crazy expensive. What was the rent? It was like eighteen thousand a month in 2012 2013. Keep in mind this is a first floor retail space with like three windows facing the street. Yeah Max.

So the majority of it is behind. Caverns. Yeah. I mean, 18 grand is an absolutely absurd, no offense here, but like, what are we talking about square footage? This is like... I mean, we were paying top dollar back then. How many square feet is this space? I have no idea. Okay. It's 85 seats. 80, 85. It's smaller than this, this whole studio that we have here. Yeah. And okay, so you guys started, there's big overhead, but you have somebody that's willing to invest in you guys. At what point is it immediate success? Is there a review? Are there, is there people of, you know, fame that are coming? When we first opened, there was a big push of who do you think you are sentiment from sort of the community at large because we had gone from these kind of lovable

guys charging a small amount of money in New York to tuxedos, expensive dishes, table side. There was a sentiment of like, don't you know Emilino's down the block? What are you doing? What are you trying to do here? There was that, especially from the older generation. So we had to kind of push through that. So you had immediate almost rejection. We had a bit of rejection from the food community, not necessarily the patrons, but the journalists, certainly the ones that had been around a while and seen a lot of shit. And you were their darlings. Because we were acting older. Yeah.

We had these guys like him in tuxedos. We would put fake ads in newspapers and Craigslist to hire old school waiters because I didn't want kids. We created a fake steakhouse for them to respond to because those are the style of restaurants that they want to take jobs in. And so I got old-school guys to come in and respond to those ads and then I told them what we were doing and put them in tuxedos, play the old music, do the old vibe, you know, because everything in 2013, everything was this big. All the food was this big. The trend was 20 course tasting menus

and we were doing, we were going completely against that grant. And to do that in our 30 years old didn't make any sense to anyone for a minute. And it took, it took a little bit of time. And then we got to the New York Times review. We got an incredible New York Times review. And that before that, it was the price point that they were frustrated by. It was the price. It was that we made such a big leap that it caught people off guard. Who are you guys to charge this much money?

The same person that was applauding me a couple months ago down the block in that little place was like, wait a minute, what'd you just do? Was that hard for you to deal with or do you just not care? I didn't understand it. Bro, this is human nature. It's like when you're on the way up, you remind everybody of what their dreams are. And then when you believe maybe you get to the top, you remind them of what they might never achieve. And it's very hard for humans to support you in that endeavor.

And yeah, you see this happen in like every single industry. You see this happen with athletes. You see it's like this guy's the next Jordan. Then he starts playing really well and he ain't Jordan. I thought you said he's the next Jordan. Right? Okay, so you guys are living your dream and all of a sudden you get turned on by the community that had really kind of, I don't want to say inflated your egos, but really like pumped. They helped get us the confidence to try this.

So was it heartbreaking? Because you must believe their reviews of your other restaurant because you're like, wow, finally someone recognizes our talent Then you see the criticism and you're like, well shit. Do I have to believe that as well? Those are the same people I believe when they were complimenting me It's very sensitive reviews, right? I mean you put yourself out there you make this thing. So Whenever a review doesn't go your way, it's it's impossible to not take it personally. It's impossible. So to know that we were putting ourselves out there in that way and to have that be the initial response, again we were getting traction on the ground. People were enjoying themselves. The vibe in the restaurant was good.

I was just worried a little bit at like the community at large and it took a kind of a flag being planted by the New York Times to say, no, this is accredited. This belongs in that conversation. So New York Times comes in and thwarts all the other criticism. They basically wait to be the last one. So in a big review like that,

the New York Times will take that position and they'll wait for New York Magazine and the Post and all the other publications to weigh in and then they'll go last. And then initially are those other guys saying who the fuck are they? Those were a mixed bag. Okay. They were all over the place. Do you remember those people? Have you like hung out with them since, seen them since? Have they tried to cozy up to you now that you're successful? Well I famously threw one out and that was a thing. What happened? Because no one's ever really thrown a critic out. Wait, what happened? I wasn't, again, young and a little spicy at the time, but the

critic at the time for New York Magazine had come in and he wrote a really poor review and I just didn't like the way he went about it. And I was also young and sensitive and I didn't like the review. I didn't like the way he went about it. What do you mean you didn't like the way he went about it? And I was also young and sensitive. And I didn't like the review. I didn't like the way he went about it. What do you mean you didn't like the way he went about it? He brought I remember he brought in like other chefs to sit with him. And I didn't think that was cool. Yeah, it seems to review it. Yeah. And I thought he had an agenda. I thought he didn't like it from from before he even sat down. He never gave us a chance. So he wrote this pretty terrible review. And then

we had a little bar down the block and he tried to go to that bar a couple weeks later and he's supposed to be anonymous, but I know who he is. And he shows up and we threw him out. And that became a whole thing because like no one's ever done that. And in hindsight, probably I wouldn't have done it again. But that's how I felt at the time. I wonder if the people that review or react to things. I wonder if they understand like, the lack of respect for their opinion. We're appreciative when their opinions are

complementary. But like, the lack of respect comes from the fact that like, a lot of them have never put something out in the world to be criticized. Yeah, Manny Rita. It's yeah, it's a Teddy Roosevelt thing. And it's like, it is a different thing when you when you create something, and you put work into it, and then you place it out in the world to be criticized, or, you know, loved doesn't matter.

There is a vulnerability to that. So like even the people I don't even like, and I don't even like their stuff, I still admire that they have the courage to put it out. And I wonder if critics, if they did that initially in their own life, if they had submitted something for public hazing or public scrutiny or support, if they would have a different energy towards their criticisms. We should get one of them on here. That'd be cool. Yeah.

I mean that. Yeah, no. I wonder if they ever think about that. I appreciate the ones that do real homework, that come with real, like either they've been in the business a really long time, but you can tell that the way they go about it, the way that they research it, whether they like it or not, it comes from a real place of understanding. And at that point, you can can't you can only say so much But the ones that have their opinions made up beforehand did have you ever got a negative review that you respected? Yeah. Yeah Yeah, I have like and what does that look like? It you know, there's a there's a couple of critics

There's one named Ryan Sutton who is a really really bright journalist who knows his shit inside and out. And sometimes he's written really beautiful reviews for us, and sometimes he hasn't. And if I look back at the ones that he was more critical of, they are some of the things that they're some of the projects that I think needed more work than others. I think he was probably right about them. Respect. Respect. Yeah.

That simple. I had a guy criticize a joke that, or he criticized writing as lazy, and then he referenced a joke that he didn't get. So in his criticism, he missed the cleverness of the joke, but he had such confidence to criticize me that he showcased the joke as evidence for like laziness while the joke went over his head. And I'm like, I don't even know what to do in that.

You know what I mean? What do you do with that? I mean, like, how do you compartmentalize that? I mean, at this point, I'm just like, I have to give more energy to the people that really praise and really appreciate and like more whatever. Yeah, I have to give more energy to the people that really praise and really appreciate and more aligned with what I think the creative vision is. Comics are dope because just like chefs, they get instant gratification.

You tell a joke and you know if it gets. You know right away. Like, I deliver the plate and it's gone. Did you like it or not? You ate it or no? Like, it's instant gratification, which is just beautiful, right? And it disappears.

You make something, it's a disappearing art. It goes on a plate and it's consumed and it's gone. I'm curious when you create Carbone and you go for these old school servers, captains, faces, all these guys, where does that vision come from? Are you trying to replicate something that you went to as a kid? Or were you just trying to deviate

from the trend that was happening presently? Where did that conviction happen? Carbone was a very intentional sort of celebration. It's an Italian American restaurant, right? So it immediately doesn't exist in the country of Italy. It's born and raised in America, like I am. So if you start to look at it and you're telling a story, and for me restaurants are most closely,

most closely similar to theater. You build a stage, you're telling a story, you're in costume, you're trying to make this believable play that starts at the exact same time every day with the same cast in same uniform for a different audience. It's theater. And you're trying to create something that's transportive. I want to take you somewhere. And in Carbone's perspective, it's first generation Italian Americans. So I say it's Michael, it's not Vito.

Right? It's Michael. He struggles with Italian, right? In the movie, right? He can speak it a little bit, but it's not his native tongue. He's born in New York, right? This is a thing that's born in New York. It's really not recognized. It's not understood by Italians. It's our thing. So when did that take place? If you think about the Godfather movie, the first reference is Louis' Italian American restaurant where he kills Sollozzo. That's the 40s and 50s. So that's where I wanted to set the restaurant to that period.

So then I start thinking about, OK, if it's if it's 1950 New York, what's the music, what's the uniform, what's the menu look like? What's the server look like? What's what is what is this? Because I want you, the customer, to walk into it and teleport and be in my place. I always appreciate thoughtfulness. Whether I, whatever, if I know you were being

very thoughtful in what you did, I just really appreciate that and I love that. And my question, kind of piggyback on what Marcus said, you had a vision, Rich had a vision, y'all were gonna do separate things, but then you came together. What elements did you take from each of yourselves to create Carbone, Terese, whatever it was?

He's crazy talented. He's a better chef than I am, right? We're both chefs, but he's- Better foosball player. He's a better fucking foosball player. Super talented, militant about how he goes about things. I'm much more, I live in the margins, right? I tell these sort of stories.

They don't necessarily, there's a perfection to the imperfection for me. Well, he's more like a Swiss watch. He's been trained by the best chefs in the world. He's an incredible, so I've taken a little bit from him, and I think he's taken a little bit from me of how we go about making something. And that's proven really, really, really special for us.

And how the end result gets there. Because I think without either one of us, it's a really different product. But we approach it really differently. And I think if there's like a chef competition, like he wipes the floor with me. Right. Do you have to say that because your restaurant is so much more successful?

We love you Rich! We love you! We need a reservation at 8, not 5. Not 10pm and not at the bar. And not at that new seating that you put in front of the kitchen? No, no. Okay, so obviously Carbone, it becomes super successful. How much is the game nurturing relationships with famous people because of what they bring to the success of the restaurant? I.e. Jay-Z coming into the restaurant, Justin Bieber getting rejected and humiliated outside of it.

But how much is it like you nurturing those relationships? I always say that it's really flattering when they come because they can call anybody, right? Like there's no door that's not gonna take Jay, right? So the fact that he came tonight means that he's like, he's selected that he's chosen to go there. So I think it's really flattering when we do get these sort of big celebrities and athletes. And as far

as taking care of them, I think the most important thing is making sure that you do everything you can as a restaurant as a team to protect their privacy. You know, they're they're not there to be on display. You want to try to make an environment that's really nurturing for that and make sure that they're protected. The team knows that. Their anonymity is everything to me. And I think if you do that, then they respect it, put out a good product, make something they want to come back for. And, you know, hopefully they'll be part of the regular. How does the public find out that all these celebs are going there?

I think that's more of a mouth. Everyone's got a phone, too. I think it's like, yo, Jay- Z was at the restaurant while we were there. Have you ever had to throw a patron out because they didn't know how to act around a famous person? I don't think we've ever thrown anybody out. I think I think we've definitely like gotten in the way of photos. I'm sorry but Mr. and Mrs. so-and-so's you know they're having dinner please respect that. I don't think we've ever thrown anybody out. Anybody that's banned? We have a few banned.

Who's banned? I don't know who's banned. To get, one of the only ways to get banned in this company. You think he's a rat? You think he's a fucking rat? One of the only ways to get banned in the company is to treat the staff poorly. So who treats them the worst?

If you're a dick to the staff. Give us some shit. Rich would tell us. Rich would would tell us Totally tell us so would Zelosny snitches good so it's a Laznik yes, yes, so they would tell us give us give us a little dirt. Who's a piece of shit to the staff? Who should we know that person deserves to be out? They deserve to be out in Jeff Bezos. No, this is a good guy. I heard that he offered to put you in the spaceship with all the girls

Is it true? Yeah, I would get so claustrophobic in the spaceship. Yeah, I had to do I did the today show last week for that I had to do, I did the Today Show last week from a- That's your concern? From a cruise ship? I'm bonding with you. I'm severely claustrophobic. Yo, I can't get into this thing. If I was ever trapped in an elevator with any of them for 30 seconds, they would never respect me as a man.

He does, seriously. I got an order, right? Yeah, yeah. Fuck that dude. Fuck that. Okay, so you're not gonna give us any shit? You're not gonna give us any- Wait, but why would someone get banned?

They're addicted to the staff? If you treat the staff poorly, you cuss at them, you get drunk, you yell at them, God forbid you put your hands on them. How's that happen? You're never coming back. And we have door guys and we have security around. The restaurants are too busy and too high profile to not. But the fastest way to never come back here is to mistreat the staff.

And that's part of I assume this I was thinking the service at your restaurant is really good and I really appreciate I'm a southern boy so like manners mean a lot. Is that part of your 50s aesthetic like every waiter going out of their way to do such a seems like there's like a show involved. I think they go out of the way. I mean I'd like to think they go out of the way because they you know that's their home too right like you're disrespecting their home this is where they make their money this is their family too.

The staff doesn't really turn over they're really close as a they're a really close knit group. Do you train them to do any like like it's kind of a show when I went to Carbona was like There's a certain amount of like there's a cadence to how I want look like and and and we do kind of put it in the book too. A cadence to how we talk to tables and how we take an order. There's a way that we do it. Like Ricky's voice is basically in this book as like how we take an order. Because they're captains, they're not there to take orders, right? They're there to guide your experience. When was the first time Carbone was mentioned in a rap song? First rap song I think was Drake.

I think that was the first one? I think Drake was the first one to do it. I think so. And did that blow your mind? How do you find out about it? That's a great question. Yeah, people just started texting it to me. We didn't know what was happening, of course. It's crazy, yeah, it's crazy.

Like I'll be working out in the gym and like some song will come on. The mention of Carbone, it's absolutely bananas. Did he hit you up before? No, no, no, no one's told to be before. I mean, it's been, it's happened a couple of times. It was just like the cover of someone's album. Someone that's on rock nation. Like they just took a, just took an iPhone photo in front of Carbone and that was the cover of their album. Wow. Did you talk to him since? Like did you hit Drago? Like, yeah, thank you for the... thank you for the shout out. I've never thanked him. Really?

No. Oh, hey, real quick. Can we send our flowers? Take a break from this episode. We got to send our flowers to Volk. Oh, yeah. Alexander Volkanovsky. 46 years old and won.

Alexander the Great. 46. You need 46? 36. Why are you aging him like that? That's fucked up. I thought he was 46. He had a whole rugby career.

That's actually decent logic. I see that he was a professional in other sports. Yeah, yeah, I thought I heard 46, and I was like, oh, that makes sense. You are bad at math. Yeah, it's really embarrassing. It's really embarrassing. But, no, for real, shout out to Volk, man.

That was an unbelievable fight, because that guy, Diego Lopez is- It's less impressive now that I know he's not 46. But it was still really impressive. It's still really impressive. Nah, he's a beast, man. Yo, that guy, Lopez. That's impressive now that I know he's not 46. But it was still really impressive. It's still really impressive. Nah, he's a beast, man. Yo, that guy Lopez was scary as shit. Also coming off of, I think, three straight losses

and two of them are knockout losses. Like, you're out completely. And to come back after that was awesome. To get clipped during the fight and literally be blind in one eye. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't know if you guys watched the fight,

but it was phenomenal. It was fantastic. Like he was just... He was like unbelievable. Doesn't stop moving the entire fight, constantly making Lopez and Lopez give credit to you know him too. Like he just kept coming forward. Dog, his chin is nuts. That motherfucker is a beast. He's gonna be around for a while. It's uh, yeah, it was just awesome to see but he's also fast very much a casual I'm watching this fight and I'm like dude. I don't know how volk I don't know how our boy wins this cuz Diego Lopez is big and he seems like he hits fucking crazy hard Yeah, and even though the reach difference apparently wasn't that big that wasn't that much. He looks so much bigger

That's a bulk is small, but he's got a 72 inch reach. Yeah, so you reach is usually kind of your height Yeah, so he's a guy focus by five He's got a 72 inch reach. So your reach is usually kind of your height. So he's a guy, Volk is probably five, five? Five, six, five, five. Somebody that like. 70, I think it's 70 inches and that's a guy at 5'10 normally. He has a six foot reach.

Like that's insane. So a lot of these guys, he has that advantage and I think that's why he's able to like, did you see him peppering him with jazz? So you're standing at distance with this guy who's much smaller than you and you're like, there's no way he's able to like, did you see him peppering him with jazz? So you're standing at distance with this guy who's much smaller than you, and you're like, there's no way he's in punching distance, and then boom, boom, catches you.

But there are these moments, and this is the thing that's like about fighting, especially MMA, you got basically nothing on your hands. So whoever connects, the other person goes down. And there are these exchanges where they would both sit down, bite the mouthpiece. I don't know if you saw it, like, Fulk would come in with a one or slip and then come over the top with a two and then he'd add three more punches to it. And in that exchange,

they're both throwing. And it's not like they have their eyes closed, but you're really just throwing. You're not even, you're assuming the other guy's going to throw and you're like, I hope I land first. and we got to watch that for five rounds Yeah, I was a great it's an insane thing. It's a witness. Anyway, I'm just so happy for even if he wants to retire right now He doesn't have to he has so many more but like he's a legend I mean what a accomplishment you did it from saying, you know also to do it in Miami same place where Izzy came back and took out Like there's a lot of cool there's a lot of cool vibes there.

Yeah, man shouts. So, we love you, Volk. Yeah, never bet against Volk, that's what I said. Yeah, last episode. He did call that. Last episode. He did call that. Decision, that's what I said, Volk wins by decision.

Yeah. Oh wow, you were absolutely right. Four round. Don't check it, but decision in the first round, that's what I said. I think he's at second. Anyway, what else we got? We got NBA playoffs.

Yeah, this is your time to shine. I hope the Mavs lose. Oh, Luka came back. It was crazy, Luka coming back to Dallas his first game. Oh, did you watch it? No, I couldn't watch it, I'm too sad. I'm too broken, I'm broken. Like I'm like, I saw the video that they played after.

You trade a fucking guy and then play him, and he doesn't wanna leave. Luka starts crying before the game, watching the video. This guy did not want to leave Dallas. It's the most obvious thing in the world. The only thing that made me happy is my friend went to the game and said me, I have it on my phone. I could probably pull it up. But the fire Nico chant in the arena crazy.

Nico's the GM of the Mavericks. Fire Nick. So fucking loud. And I'm glad at least and I think he knows anyway I'm glad Luca got to see they're like no bodies. He got a crazy ovation people are cheering to the lake Cool, there's still a lot of people cheering for the Mavs like no matter what but apparently they're gonna lose like a hundred million dollars in revenue They think wow from this trade and how is that ticket pricing? People aren't they will they raise ticket prices twice since the trade which is insane season ticket prices people aren't renewing

I think people aren't buying as much merch now. Who's, I mean, I love Kyrie, but you're not that inclined to buy Kyrie a jersey. Also, he's injured. And he's injured. AD, you're probably not. Even though he's actually good, he is always hurt. And you're always gonna look at him

as the guy who they traded Luca for, so they're never gonna really love him. Oh, wow. So it's just the fucking stupidest trade I've ever seen in my life. And then Luca went out for 45 on like 60% shooting like he just went nuts And I'm really this isn't the first time in my life. I'm like rooting for the Lakers One I'd be so happy for our kush. Yeah, you had some good wins early in your life. I'm not even worried about you

Yeah, since age 10 has been pretty rough Who do we think wins? Like what's happening right here in the NBA playoff picture? The West is super tight. It's like the Lakers and Wolves, I think, are the sixth three matchup. But can anybody beat the Celtics? My understanding is that just from speaking to people

around the league, it's like, and this is fucked up to even put out there, but the conversation is essentially if everybody's healthy on the Celtics They're winning it. So they're almost hoping and this is fucked up. Yeah, but they're hoping for an injury Yeah, now because that's the only way that sucks that sucks But that's that's how dominant they believe it is. Oh shit to the war did the Warriors not make it in now They won their play. They did win their play. Yeah.

So they're seventh, I think. That's inaccurate. They barely beat the Wolves. It was a comeback. They won by like five in the end. Steph, dude, you know what? I watched Steph in the Olympics the first time I rooted for him.

Everything I say about Golden State fans, I've taken back. It's the most fun thing in the world. It's incredible. It's so fun getting to root for Steph. And I was like, oh, I love this guy. I take back every negative thing I've ever said about him. He's awesome.

Because your team was in the Western Conference, it was harder. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I hated him. The fact that we are Knicks fans, you can kind of root, I won't say root for West Coast teams, but you're not really tripping off them that much until you reach the finals, and then Knicks never reach the finals.

So I'm not really that worried. And also if you're a big LeBron fan, that's the guy that was always in the way. then Knicks never reach the finals. So I'm not really that worried. Also if you're a big LeBron fan, that's the guy that was always in the way. That team was always in the way. So LeBron has eight rings if it's not for Steph and the Warriors, but I was like, if him and Jimmy Butler went to the finals, that'd be the greatest fucking thing.

And I think they'd give a Celtics a hard time. This is the thing, Jimmy is a different player in the playoffs. Yeah, he went off last night in the play-in. Admittedly so. Yeah. I think I told you this. He straight up told me. I was like, how many guys can actually step it up to another level in the play-offs?

And he was like, there's five. And he named them. And I was like, what's the difference? He's like, yeah, during the regular season, it is what it is. And then the playoffs is like, we start to really lock in. And there's like five guys that can lock in. One of those guys he said was Joel Embiid, which I didn't even consider. And I was like, really?

He goes, oh, he goes, that man is not to be played with. Wow. And I don't know, like I've seen him be effective, but maybe because he's kind of slow and plotting, I guess I didn't view him in that way. But Jimmy's not one to bullshit about that. Like, you know, he's seen KD, he's like, yeah, KD's crazy. Like, anyway, but Jimmy's the type of guy

that's gonna win you a playoff game by himself. So one of those games, he will win you by himself. I mean, he took them to the heat to the finals by himself. By himself, so now you get some staff action. Let's say Draymond steps it up. I'm not saying he's gonna be scoring, but there's a different level of intensity that Draymond's gonna bring to the game in the playoffs. I think it's very hard to count the Warriors and that'd be an awesome story

I'm madgers and wars are both be so fun You know, the NBA is fine this year if the Western Conference finals What can it can it even look like that in the in the I think it even go Lakers or they're gonna play each other before That I think they can because I think the Lakers are the three seed so they play the winner of the two Yeah, they play the yeah they play them in the second round right? Yeah. Yeah. Hmm whatever it's fine. I think though I don't I don't know why I don't believe in the Rockets maybe I just haven't watched enough this year especially post-trade but I don't I

think that's a very winnable series for Golden State I think. Yeah I think I think Golden State I think I'll tell you one thing I think the Rockets are scared shitless. Oh yeah this is because it's all new to them? I mean, now it's like, you know who you're going up against. And you know these motherfuckers can hoop, especially in the playoffs. So it don't matter what happened during the regular season, because you got half-assed played in the regular season. Yeah, absolutely. So you let them, not you, but like somehow they inch into the playoffs and now the season starts over. Yeah. And that's the other thing that like say what you want about the Lakers. Like

there were times during the season where LeBron at 40 is just carrying the team. Yeah. That's going to happen for the next few weeks. You'll get fucking used to it. Yeah. He took a few nights off so he could carry the team. Yeah. And now you got Luca too and Luca can carry a team. And that's the reason why the Lakers, now defensively, I don't know what happens and obviously in the playoffs, like you need to lock in. Yeah. But has LeBron been on a team, and I'm sure the answer is yes, but has LeBron been on a team where there was another ball

handler that could also do the things he can do? Score from three, get a bucket whenever he wants, and get other people involved. Has he played with another- Maybe Kyrie, but I don't know about the getting other people involved. Yeah, Kyrie is a really good example and then look how well that went. Maybe D-Wade a little bit. Oh yeah, D-Wade.

And look how well that went. It's almost like, I mean, this is so stupid to say, obviously LeBron plays really well when another top five player in the league is on his team, but specifically, AD, he's not taking the ball up, putting himself in position and scoring. He kind of needs you to set him up a little bit. Luca is like, you either get out the way and I get a bucket, or you set a screen and I'm on some bum and I get a bucket. And LeBron is the exact same.

So I'm like, I haven't even given a fuck during the regular season, but I'm kind of into this. It's gonna be brutal for me to watch, but yeah. What about the East? What happens in the East? Ain't nobody gonna fuck. Knicks, all the way. To Knicks,icks obviously Alex has been to so many games this year I trust his judgment. How many games you been to again 40 41 shut up

One even to one shut up. Okay Anyway, listen if you're gonna gamble you're gonna put all your money on the Knicks as you should Stake is the leader in global betting and US social casinos. Top sports and political events. Use the promo code FLAGRANT for your welcome bonus. Now let's get back to the show. What are the rules to sending food back? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I think if you order something

that has a specific in it, it's cooked to this temperature, I want it without pistachios, you know, I think, and it didn't happen that way. You order an expensive steak. I want it without pistachios, you know, I think. And it didn't it didn't happen that way. You want an expensive steak. You want a rare and it comes out well done. Like send that shit back.

Like that like that's that that should be sent back. That was completely mismanaged. What about a hair? I would send it back. I mean, like, that's that's that's disgusting. Should be sent back. It should be taken off the bill. It should be made right.

I could just if it's not on the food, I'll just plug it to the side. It depends how long it is. The length of the hair makes a huge difference. You're saying if it's like a full, like your length hair? Yeah. Yeah, if it's a whole strand.

If I found out you got women cooking? Maybe get a little pubic hair. Let me find out. Dude, what is this, Terezi? Rich, we love you. OK, is the Italian food in New York City better than the Italian food in Italy? It's completely different. They don't look anything alike. Can you get better Italian food in New York than you can in Italy? Oh, wow. This is my

take but I'm really glad that you are supportive of this and I think I think the highest level Italian food in New York beats the highest level in Italy all day now my my my take is that the mom-and-pop Italian in Italy is gonna beat the mom-and-pop Italian on average accurate New York I agree with the highest level and I would go not just Italian I'd go the highest level whatever food in New York is gonna beat Any other country trying to beat any other country. You're trying to get him swimming with the fishes right now.

The only thing I would say is like Japan is like such an outlier. You can't even count them. I see. Okay. It's AI. They're AI. They're AI. Asian intelligence.

Thoughts on that? I think I don't think that that's totally inaccurate. I think New York is the greatest food city in the world and at the highest level it is often better than the best in that country because it has to be. Wait, why does it have to be? To survive. Yeah. Because there's so much competition.

Yeah, if you're in New York, if you're going to have the best Indian restaurant in New York, it better be one of the best restaurants in the world. Jersey kind of beats out. But he likes the mom and pop Indian shit. What is Jersey beating? Look at his face. Look at his face. I love that.

He's fighting food. That's a clean board. Look at that fucking foot. They're working overtime. They're giving me wrinkles. They're working overtime. They're working overtime. They're giving me wrinkles.

This is olive oil and pasta steam. Pasta steam. Wait, wait, go, go, answer that. Indian food. The best Indian food is in Edison. They see Galaxy, you and I go one time, you're gonna fucking party. There's Galaxy in the middle. He likes it when we like it stewed with a foot.

Like it's a different type of culture. It does taste authentic, but it's also better. Next time you're gonna bring us some. Indian food don't carry well, but if you want to come to Jersey. No, Indian food carries great. It's amazing. Yeah, I know. It's probably the best. The single biggest food we've seen in the world is one of the worst. Dosa don't carry well, but if you want to come to Jersey... No, Indian food carries great! It's amazing. Yeah, I know. It's probably the best stew.

Dosa don't carry well. The single biggest delivery food in the world is one of the worst. Dosa don't carry well. Pizza carries like shit. It's the biggest delivery food in the world. Dosa. Have you ever had Dosa carry out? It doesn't hit the same.

Oh no. A curry in a bag. A curry in a bag is... Butter chicken and all is fine, but yeah, we can get that too. It's just getting better. Yeah. Oh yeah, I see what you're saying. But not veg food, which a lot of Indian food is, it's better there.

We'll go there. Keep bullying him on this because he's about to walk in. We're not going to go, but I would do takeout. It's not going to be as good, but I'll take it. We'll do it. We'll do it. Let me get a Carbone takeout. But that's just not happening.

Oh, why is that? I mean, we're too busy. It's not as good? We're too busy. They're not as good? We're too busy. They're going to take out the 50? I don't need your takeout dollars. They're taking out the galaxy. They're taking out the galaxy.

They're taking out the galaxy. They're taking out the galaxy. They're taking out the galaxy. They're taking out the galaxy. They're taking out the galaxy. They're taking out the galaxy. They're taking out the galaxy. They're taking out the galaxy.

They're taking out the galaxy. They're taking out the galaxy. They're taking out the galaxy. They're taking out the galaxy. They're taking out the galaxy. They're taking out the galaxy. They're taking out the galaxy. They're taking out the galaxy. They're taking out the galaxy. They're taking out the galaxy. They're taking out the galaxy. They're taking out the galaxy. Yeah, we got shut down by the cops first time a black person ate a carbonate

You accomplish that it's so refreshing to black people that go well, that's not a celebrity It's not my fault you a hedge fund manager or something. I know you now, so we good. Okay, here, this is an important, this is a very important question. Okay. How do you communicate to somebody at a table that it's time to leave because you have another reservation, without telling them it's time to leave. You start taking things off the table.

So slowly, one item at a time, you start taking things off the table. So the first thing is you start taking things off the table. You've dropped the bill, right? That's the first move. Drop the bill. If the bill's on the table and they haven't paid it yet, then you're going to slowly start taking things off the table until they realize potentially, subliminally,

oh, we probably should go, they're removing things, they may not. The next round would be like to offer them an after dinner drink somewhere else in the restaurant, at the bar, another location. So that's the emergency. That's like- Can I buy you guys a drink at the bar?

I need you off this table. If you have to go there, you offer that's, that's, that's class. I'm going to pay you to leave. Yeah. Yeah. Cause you're guessing, right? You're guessing the amount of time people are going to stay and you built this book off of that. Yeah. So if they're staying far too long, then it's going to start screwing up the next round. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's why it's, it's so, just to go back to that earlier question, saying to someone, I have to leave in 45 minutes,

is very valuable to a restaurant. Incredibly valuable. It's funny, like, I would do that, especially now that we have a kid, like, if we just pop into some place and we're just like, hey, it's too enough, I'll start it out being like, we have 40 minutes with this baby before it's time.

And you'd be surprised how often that was. Your chances are gonna go through the roof. Because in that early, like before, when is the rush? Maybe like seven o'clock reservations? Yeah, starts around seven. So if you're in that like six o'clock range, they're scared that you could push back, I imagine, the sevens.

Yeah, I can't, even if that table's available, it's not really. Because it's about to get sat. But you could potentially get in and get out yeah and the restaurant just won a whole nother seed it's pretty money yeah do you feel bring their kids to Carbone very rarely yeah like a kid but like a five o'clock seating we frown on that he's trying to bring so there's restaurants there's different okay what's more Italian American

bringing her kid to a restaurant well, okay. What's more Italian American than bringing their kid to a restaurant? Well, actually, it's, what's more Italian? I don't know. I'm curious, how do you communicate to people that it's not kid-friendly without saying it directly? I've seen some things. Well, I think it's actually part of our reservation protocol. Like you make a reservation, the email confirmation probably says at some of the restaurants that like children under a certain age So there's with like shorts and sand. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah like that. Mm-hmm. There's Yeah, some restaurants just won't have baby chairs. That's a great way of doing it I mean if you're like a brunch restaurant, then that's obviously a kid-friendly environment. Yeah, you're going for like a really nice dinner

Probably a place for an infant To someone that shows up in sandals? That's why we built it into that. That's why we have like a backup and says, hey, listen, it's actually on your reservation. It says, you know, like proper attire. Really asking questions for him. In Miami, you'll wind up sitting outside. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, that's interesting. This is how you enforce the sandal requirement. There's another way of enforcing it which my dad taught me not about restaurants but it was like the way that the people that work there are dressed defines how the people that attend dress. So if you have everybody

that works there in tuxedos it's hard to show up in shorts. But if everybody that works there is in shorts then the people's hard to show up in shorts. But if everybody that works there is in shorts, then the people that show are gonna be in shorts. Can I call out somebody that refuses to wear pants? Yes. Noriega. Noriega wears shorts everywhere. Fucking refuses to put pants on.

I don't have the old pants. Joey, go grab me the Drink Champs Heavyweight Championship belt that's out there. Refuses to wear pants. Like, not to the restaurant, in life. Because he's on the run eating. That was good. Carbon in Noriega.

You can't be on the run if you're not in shorts. Oh, so you enforce the shorts rule even in the Miami? You sit outside if you're in shorts. That's a question based on that. Do you miss the outside dining at your New York location? Not at all. I was just wondering. Not at all.

I mean, listen, it was revenue for us. It was good revenue for us, but for the city, it had to go. It had to go. Why? Because there was no rules around it. These restaurants don't really have extra money to do it, right? But they need to capitalize on it. So they're building up these shanty towns

in front of their restaurants. Right? Right? It's a horrendous look for the city. Then it breeds. Thank you, Ricky. It breeds. Appreciate you.

What's going on here? So this is, I just did Drink Champs and I got the belt. Did you win something or you just get it? No, I just put it on. He's like, nobody's ever done this, all the episodes we've ever had. He goes, I want you to take this with you. Oh, that's fire. That's awesome.

So this is the drink champs, heavyweight belt. But you know, listen, this can be with you right here. This is nice. Oh, dude. Come on. OK. That's nice. Nice piece.

Here's a question. You got Carbones all over the world now, or at least the country. I'm pretty sure the world. Oh, well. No, you got some gold. How do you maintain quality, consistency? It's the number one thing that I spend the most of my time on and the most difficult thing I think is consistency. Trying to build protocols and like, you know, WhatsApp chats and video zooming and digital recipes and all sorts of like

processes so that their chefs can communicate all over the world because they're all making virtually the same thing. We're spending more money and more time every year to try to get better at it. It's really hard. It's really the hardest thing. It's harder than everyone assumes it's staffing, which is hard, but once you get good people, I think they stay because they want to be part of a good team and they want to make good money, right? It's the consistency that is number one by far for me and the thing that will

keep me up most at night. Yeah, consistency is, I think, or inconsistency is the one thing that would make me stop going to a restaurant. Like how many chances are you going to give a restaurant? How many? One. One. And if it fucks up, I hesitate the next time. Because think about it, especially when you're in New York City, there's hundreds of restaurants you haven't even tried yet.

So if I keep going to the same restaurant, I'm making a choice to not go to all those other ones. And if you fuck up the meal that I'm expecting and excited to have one time, the next time I'm about to go, I'm like, shit, I might get fucked up again. Not only did I lose that customer, how many people did he tell him? Oh, shit.

And it's not just the meal, it's the service, it's the music, it's the table you get. Okay, okay, so you can't have the chef there seven days a week. No. Is your A chef as good as your B chef? No, otherwise you'd be the A chef. So then how do you maintain consistency?

Or maybe a better question is what days is your A chef there? It's tough with Carbone because we're blessed to kind of have the same business almost every night Usually what you do is you put your B chef on your B nights, right? Which is like Monday Tuesday Wednesday Sunday Maybe depending on depending on the location like I feel like New York Sunday is a big Sunday can be big it depends if You're uptown or your midtown the weekends are quiet because the midtowns Monday to Friday. Yeah, Saturday Sunday quiet. You're something closed. Yeah Midtown quiet downtown's you have a good Sunday. So you're looking at Monday Tuesday Best the best nights for us in the company or Wednesday Thursday usually, usually. Because what? The weekends people go away? Thursday is like the biggest night of the week for sales.

Wow. Why is that? I don't know. It's always it's been like that for a while now. Thursday. I mean, yeah, you get a Friday. Saturday is that kind of like bridge and tunnel thing. That's a real thing. Yeah. And it's a lower check average. It's more customers. They eat for less period of time.

They spend less money. They spend less time there. We do more reservations. It takes more customers to do the same number of revenue. Yeah, they have to leave because they gotta go to Desi Galaxy. They gotta go back to the kids, the nanny, whatever. That's interesting. How do you preserve the brand? So not only is the restaurant

and all the particulars of actually dealing with the day to day, but the but the brand of carbon like this global entity How do you make sure that doesn't get diluted as you spread into more markets? It's a great question I think you have to one be okay with a certain amount of dilution, right? You have to understand that it's no longer as potent as it was when there was one short. Wow There you have to make peace with that. You're now on an entrepreneurial journey

and it's no longer about I'm the chef of this one restaurant, I'm here every night, I'm gonna cook for you, which is a beautiful thing, but when you've made that choice to take on a more entrepreneurial venture, you have to make peace with that to a certain degree. And now that we're growing further and further beyond that one location, it becomes consistency. Can somebody on the other side of the world tonight have a very similar pasta than they

will at New York? For me, that's all the brand. That's the brand right there, right? I can set the playlist. I can make the uniforms the same, I can do all of those moves, but what's going to happen when the waiter delivers that plate of food? Is there ever a moment where you're like, this dish is too difficult to replicate the same way? Okay. Yeah. And then in that circumstance, do you just reduce the level of difficulty of the dish?

And what dish? Yeah, I think we've done that a lot over the last few years is trying to make things that are, I call them big bullseye, you know, like they have a big bullseye. They're much more easily replicable for whatever reason than a dish that takes a lot of in the moment talent. Like the ticket comes in, I ordered this thing and it takes a great deal of talent to make this from scratch versus something that is predetermined to be in a big strike zone.

And I have a pretty good confidence that it's gonna land somewhere here and it's gonna be pretty tasty. Can you give us examples of big bullseye and maybe even small bullseye? Like rigatoni vodka, which I sell probably the most of of all the restaurants, right? You call it rigatoni vodka,

that's what you call your dish. Rigatoni ala vodka? That everybody calls a spicy rig. Spicy rig, what do we call this? You don't know that that's what everybody calls a spicy rig? The spicy rig? You don't know this about you? The spicy rig? You don't know this about you?

The Spicy Rig? You don't know this about me? Tell me about me. It's like I'm finding out Hulk Hogan doesn't know about ripping his shirt off. You don't know it's called The Spicy Rig? With a the? It's so profound it's called The Spicy Rig. Go to Carbone, get The Spicy Rig.

Get The Spicy Rig. Yeah. You're not aware that that's how people speak about it? I didn't really think that it was like it had a title like that. He's doing market research. There's a prefix. There's a the. You get this.

Okay. I would like to enter this discussion. Yeah, go ahead. I'm sure you're aware of like the dish from different restaurants. I name a restaurant, you know exactly what it is. What's the dish? Polar bar. The burger. That's interesting. You went with burger. We're going to go with the pastrami? Yeah. I mean, I feel like it's iconic for that burger. I think the specialty burgers they do are better than the burger that's on the menu. Okay. But it

doesn't matter. But the pastrami sandwich maybe. Okay. For you guys, spicy rig. I also think there's another thing for you guys, which is like, it's experiential. I think the Polo bar is in that version too. 100%. You're walking into a world.

It's immersive. As you described it earlier, like the play is, I think that's, I haven't heard it described that way, but I think that's perfect. Because you're getting experience the second You're not it's actually like all the heavy lifting isn't on the food. The lifting has done the second you walk it Hmm. Imagine imagine you can be Henry Hill walking in the back of Copa exactly

If I can deliver that that's that's yeah But that's a perfect shot. Yeah, that's a perfect shot that Scorsese set up to have all that shit happening that I have to have running for six hours, right? I have to have a six hour Fellini movie happening at all times, where there's a guy lighting something on fire, there's a hot girl in the corner, there's something, there's an athlete over there, and then you walk in. And you're having that Henry Hill moment. I've got to have that going for six hours. That's amazing. Yeah, yeah. That. Yeah. You're having that Henry Hill moment. Yeah. Yeah. I've got to have that going for six hours. Yeah. Yeah. That's a great. Okay. So, so to read. Okay. So, uh, to Reesy, for example, what would you go with? What is the the dish? What is the thing that speaks to you?

is there's a couple. There's the Jamaican beef patty cavatelli, which we've been doing since the original. Because when we built Terese. Rich, did you see it just took credit for your dish? When he, when he. That's a big week. When he, that restaurant. The Commodoro, the tortellini.

Yeah, the tortellini is probably the one. The tortellini is crazy too. We wanted to make Italian food that was, we called it the New Yorkese. Right? It was like, because there isn't really Italian food in Italy, there's regional Italian food, and they don't fuck with the other regions, right? Tuscany doesn't care about Sicily, right? They just became Italy. Before that, they were these individual... Italy way less years than we've been in America.

And so we were like, what if we make our own region of Italian food that is New York-Casian? So we pulled from the Jewish, the Jewish Lower East Side, we pulled from Jamaican beef patties being in pizzerias randomly. We pulled from all the German, the German lochia. We pulled from all of that, that was New York to make this food. Yeah, that was Our New York food. Yeah. Yeah, you know that we we believe that we were doing the most Italian thing possible by not making Italian food So, what do you think the dish is for For for carbon

Brigatoni, it's the spicy right? right? And that's the one that you think is the one that's the... He still didn't. Caesar salad and the Veal Parm. Oh, yeah. Okay, so what I think is it's spicy rig and then the Caesar. And then I think the, not the Sleeper, but the one that actually knocks your socks off is the Veal Parm. So it's like the spicy rig everybody knows about. It's like obviously synonymous with the brand, but not everybody gets the Veal Parm. And then when you get knows about it's like obviously synonymous with the brand but not everybody gets the veal parm and then when you get it it's like

why the fuck did anybody tell me about this because I don't think I got veal parm until maybe a few times that I went there but also that it's the experience with the Caesar salad that's really fun like having them make it in front of you that goes back to the theater yeah hmm I think you ever introduced a dish to any of the restaurants that didn't work? Bombed. All the time. Like what's an example?

Give me the biggest bomb. We're comedians. We love bomb stories. Bombs are more like no one orders it, right? Like less they order it and they don't like it. More like you put all this effort into something and zero won't let you know. And for chefs, usually it's like really chefy shit. Like you want to get away

from the mainstream ingredients because something's in season or some farmer drops something off and you're really excited about it. And particularly at Carbone because you're being bulldozed with the number one menu. Everyone's now ordering through social media and like the thing you have to order to be there, right? It's so hard to sell them something else at this point because they need the verification of being there. It's like Birdcrusher's machine story. So I can't, I'm like, no, no, no, this thing's a,

I sure get the rigatoni, but I promise you this is great. So do you try, because you always hear something like the specials are, oh, these are older ingredients that the chef is trying to get rid of or whatever, is sometimes the special, this dish that the chef really wants to add to the menu maybe, and it's in the way we would try a joke at an open mic.

Is that what it is? Or are specials just something that you generally shouldn't mess with? No, I think specials this day and age are something that they're actually trying to work on and it's new. I rather reprint the menu and not verbal a special. And so that when like Ricky verbals things at your table, that's part of a script, like kind of a script. Because there, I want there to be a back and forth between you and the waiter. I don't want to just drop menus and then you come back and you tell me what you ordered.

There's nothing there for me. I want a conversation. Yeah, you want the... So I force these things. I force conversational moments during the order taking. So smart. Meatballs are not on the menu at Carbone. That's an intentional thing because as soon as you order pasta,

that's a trigger for the waiter to say, you want meatballs? Yeah. You want to put some meatballs on it? I'm angry. Service feels better for me because we're having a conversation. Where you're having a dialogue, there's a back and forth happening, and you're now all of a sudden, you're now trusting this person. You're putting the rest of your experience in their hands.

Later on, you're not even going to know, but hey, just choose some desserts for me, right? You trust them. They're captaining your experience and it's kind of a script that we like we laid out in the book is I wanted to moralize like the language of carbon because that's how we take an order there. Are there any other secret menu items? Like you have the meatballs obviously they're kind of off menu but anything else that someone could order? Yeah, there's, I mean, there's all sorts of like little, we call them pocket, pocket moves,

right? Like things that you can do. I hate when the waiter has to ask the chef, like when the waiter says that, oh, let me ask the chef. Oh yeah. I really don't like that. I hate it in my restaurants. So I try to make sure that the waiter, the waiters, the captains, they know all the things

that are possible so that when they're at aains, they know all the things that are possible. So that when they're at a table and they're talking to you and you're like, yeah, no, I don't want the prosciutto. I don't eat pork. Oh, I can do roasted peppers with the mozzarella for you. That's not on the menu. But he knows, he doesn't have to go ask the chef. I know what I can do for you.

I can do this, right? I'm not in the mood for your parm tonight. You want to do a little milanese? We'll put a little arugula salad, some tomatoes on a little lemon. Yeah, let's do that. Great. We'll do Milanese. Dad, these are real waiters. These are lifelong waiters. These are not transient people that are on their way to another thing. This is how they feed their family, right? So like give them all the tools to take care of

this table and let us cook, you know? That's the model. What are your other pet peeves for restaurants? My own, might be my own? Not your own restaurants, but just pet peeves in general. You go to a place. Yeah.

What do you hate and you try to avoid for your own place? I'm really sensitive to lighting and music in restaurants at this point. If the lighting is really harsh or the music is just off, too loud, off theme, abrasive, I'm not feeling it, I'm immediately put in a weird place. I'm not comfortable, I'm not cozy. I want warm lighting. I want whatever the music is.

I want it to be the vibe of what I think this place is. And then those are my two biggest ones because I think that sets the tone. How do I put people in their position to just kind of succumb to my thing tonight? And if you're not feeling it, you're uncomfortable, you're immediately, you're in a defensive place and I don't want that. I want you to give in. I want you to be don't want that. I want you to give in. I want you to be part of my movie. I want you to be an extra in this thing.

And to give in, you have to be totally comfortable, and you've mentally bought into this thing. As soon as that guy walks up to your table with giant menus, you're giving in. It's in your hands. So the menus being huge is a thing cartoonishly Yeah, is a thing 100% does it serve? It's a it felt like to me at the time when we did it again

We were going against the people that don't know can you just with your hands to show how big a menu is from Carbone? I mean, it's probably you know It's not exaggerating. Two, three feet by three feet. It's a small flat screen TV. Yes, yes, it's gigantic. At the time we were going against the micro tasting menu. That was like a little index card.

You're here all night, it's the chef's way, there's no substitutions. You have no autonomy, no agency. You mean, you matter nothing. Yeah. You matter nothing. Wow. Yeah. You matter nothing. Wow. And here, I remember writing in Italian,

have it your way. It says, appi aere, the way you want it. If you don't see anything on this menu, tell me what you want. Yeah. We want it to be a yes restaurant. Because to me, that's what Italian restaurants are. Italian restaurants, by nature, especially in Italy, is a night off for mom and dad. It's because you eat so well at home. That's wow. This is so fascinating. I never even considered that. You eat so well at home that to

go out, it's a night off for them. Yeah. Yeah. So you're just using this restaurant as a conduit Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you're just using this restaurant as a conduit to eat well, hopefully. I never considered that. In a eat-in culture like Italy, it is not surprising that both parents know how to cook extremely well. In America, maybe one is proficient at cooking, and my family, neither. We ordered in every single night growing up in New York City, and we had the luxury to do that. But like, it was it was only like most family maybe one knows how to do it. In Italy both probably. If not them close relatives, grandparents are ready to rock. So to choose to go out of course the mom-and-pop restaurants are gonna have high-level cuisine because at home you're competing with some serious

shit. You'll see legit grandma. Wow, I never considered that. So a night off. So the only reason you would go out, it's not to have better food. We would go out to have better food because my parents were proficient though. You're going out to have a break from cooking and cleaning. Yeah. And if you're hoping it's as good as what's at home. Exactly. You're hoping, but bare minimum, what you can do is not bust my balls. Yeah. And that's what probably experience. I know what I'm talking about. I'm a customer that's highly edgy. I know what I want. This is give me this. I never considered the competition. The greatest

competition for restaurants in Italy is not other restaurants. It's how you cook in your own house. That's why by and large super fine dining in Italy is not great. You know, I mean, my opinion because they're competing with phenomenal base food of their mom and their grandma. And so they're trying to make this thing that's nouvelle, this new take on it when the base product is fucking fantastic. And anytime that I've gone to one of those places and my wife and I've gone to Italy and you're like, why did I go? It's not it's not it dude it's

you need to find a no-no somewhere yeah we'll just go to that mom and pop restaurant that people talk about yeah i've been yeah we're in florence we had legit grandma's cooking the food and it was like this is incredible all right guys let's take a break for a second because i just saved your traveling experience okay and by me i mean extra okay you know the wallets obviously has consolidated all the things that you need, a wallet that's made for the digital economy, a wallet that's not gonna be, well I can't say if it's gonna be stolen or not,

but what I can say is that if they do steal it, you can track them. You can go right to their house, you can rob them back double, and it's completely legal, I'm pretty sure, in most countries. Definitely the United States of America, don't quote me on that.

But listen, there's this bag that's in front of me right now. What is this bag used for? Clothing. It has a vacuum seal option right here for your clothes. Like your gym clothes if they smell. Yeah, it's your gym clothes. Or also if you just wanna travel, right, and you just wanna make sure

that you can fit as many shirts as possible. You can look at them look at I'm vacuum sealing this shit right now. They got this vacuum seal thing right here. Okay, what is that going to do? It's going to put 15 shirts into a tiny little part of your bag. You're going to pack everything you possibly need because you would definitely be using it to pack shirts 100% nothing else, no other materials, no other, you know, incredibly profitable illegal things that you could use this for. This is for clothing and that's what X-Star wants you to use it for and they're not responsible if you use it for anything else. You can take that information and do what the hell you want with it. But for

me, clothing, because my wife and my baby are going to take up pretty much all the storage in any of our bags, I have been relegated to finding clever ways to pack the clothes that I want to wear whenever I go places. And Xter has my bag. Also having a bag within your bag, incredible by the way. Organize all the things you need, stuff it, contain it. You never have to go, oh, we don't have room for that. We always have room.

You give me this amount of room, I'm going to pack my whole weekend. Xter has got your bag. If you want to get this for your wife, great gift. Girlfriend, great gift. Mother, father, maybe if they're tech savvy and they know how to push a button. My parents are in their 80s, they'll have no fucking clue how to do that.

Point is, Exeter's spring sale is here. You get up to 30% off site wide on all their sleek smart wallets, the travel pack vacuum bags. But here's the real kicker, you can get up to 40% off with the promo code flagrant at checkout. All you gotta do is head to partner.extra.com slash flagrant. That's partner.extra.com slash flagrant.

Shouts to Exter, now let's get back to the show. Guys, one of the most underrated movies to come out in the last like 20 years is getting a sequel. If you have not seen The Accountant, you need to go do that right now. It's fantastic, it's got Ben Affleck. It's not about accounting. All right, this guy's killing people. It's awesome. Christian Wolf in The Accountant 2 is dragged into a murder investigation.

When an old acquaintance is killed, it involves cryptic messages. And Christian, with the help of his estranged brother, played by one of the best actors on earth, John Berenthal. If you don't know who he is, you know who he is. Look him up. This guy's fucking awesome. And this movie has the same writer as the first movie, so it's not gonna be one of those sequels, that's completely different and it kinda sucks.

And this is the kinda movie you gotta go see in theaters. There are gonna be guns, there's gonna be shooting, it's gonna be fun, you don't wanna watch it on 35 inch TV at home, go watch it in theaters. It's The Accountant 2, it comes out April 25th, go watch it right now. I was 20 and I just moved to Italy and I moved to the middle of nowhere aware

Northwestern Tuscany Italy Italian English wasn't even really spoken Modena. No, this is like North of Pisa in it in like near Luke You're trying to like choose a town that maybe you've heard of that. It's near like near Luca It's middle of nowhere and I moved there to live with a family that ran I'm just like exactly the kind of restaurant you hope to run into when you're on vacation The most amazing mom and pop restaurant they the family lived above the restaurant The restaurant was the ground floor their apartment was above it. I lived with the family in the extra room How'd you find these guys? Yeah, you seek them out specifically. Mario Batali helped me help me set it up

Wow, so you're working at Bobbo and I said to Mario. You ask to say, I really want to learn. I said, I'm from New York. I only know this food. I want to learn the origin of this whole thing. Wow. I need to train in Italy. I need to learn this. Can you help me set up? He connected me to an author who lived in Rome, who knew this family, and I lived with them for like almost two years. He saw talent in you early though, Mario? I think he saw an aptitude for work. I don't know if I had talent back then. I know I had a very high threshold for work. He saw ambition.

Yeah. Okay. And what was that experience like with the mom and pop? Crazy, like life changing. Like there's only one phone number for the whole building. So even if you're upstairs, like watching the soccer match match you have to answer the phone as if it's a reservation right it's your day off and you're upstairs you're like like you have to take a reservation like it's his mom and pop as it gets and that was like that total question. How was

your Italian at the time and how much better did it get? It was not good at all, but I had a, you know, this is before, like technology in your pocket. This is 2000. I had a little book in my, like a little translator in my back pocket, a little thesaurus, and I would learn what I needed for the day. And by the time I was done, I spoke the language. What did they think of you? I was like an Italian American. They thought I was like, they thought I was crazy, like a crazy American who works too

much like exactly what you would think a European thinks of an American. Why do you work so hard? Can't you just take the afternoon off? It's not all about the paycheck. You need to like, you instill like the beauty of the process, you know, and a lot of it was, you know, going to the field to find the thing or visiting the farmer, like exactly what you would think the quintessential food experience would be in Tuscany. I got to live that. You know, a certain mushroom would come in and the chef would be like, hey, go up that road right there. You see those bushes over there? Like, yeah, he's like, there's an herb that grows over there. Pick a bunch of it and bring it over. It goes for this mushroom. Oh, that's cool. You know, like shit like that, that would happen to me. That's just like, as a kid from Queens, it was like as life-changing

as it gets. The Italian food that I knew was the Italian food I make today. Like Italian, real Italian, greasy Italian American food. That was like, wow like wow this is the this is where it comes from This is this is veto Corleone. Oh, that's how do you feel about a pop-up restaurants with like they're curated Like night. That's a story to the night, you know They have like the tables deck. What's it called the tables that we all share? Communal to community elbows like how do you feel about those? I feel like those are becoming way more popular and then they try to infuse like Nigerian and Italian like crazy mixes that you wouldn't necessarily see. But I think it's more of a

gimmick or is it like? It depends on who's doing it but like I think if it's great it's great right? Like if you believe it, if you're about it, if you've put the work into it, why can't that be your transport of experience? It doesn't have to be mine. Mine's mine. If that's yours, then great, I'm all for it. I want to experience it. Okay, so you're in Italy, you're learning about the connectivity between... The land, the people, yeah. And I'm sure they're teaching you some... what's that saying? Dolce fariniente?

Yeah. Is that it? Yeah, the dulce fariniente. Yeah. The sweetness of nothing. The sweetness of nothing. Yeah. And you're this ambitious American.

Is there any point in time where you're there that you get caught up in their appreciation of life and you're able to kind of relax? Do some of your ambitions subside? I think I learned a great appreciation for how they live. I think at 20 years old, as someone who wanted to like tackle the world, probably not. I think I was just as bullish coming back to the States after that trip about wanting to be this chef entrepreneur who conquers New York more than ever. I don't think I've I didn't really thought I mean I loved my

like afternoons playing soccer and you know like getting four hours off between lunch and dinner but I knew that that wasn't my life. I knew that I was coming back to Manhattan to be in the jungle and to conquer it. I lived in Barcelona while I was in college from 20 to 21. But I had a similar experience. And there was this moment where I was like, wow, this is really enjoyable. Like hanging out with my friends,

playing basketball together, going out, living on 10 euros a day. Five euros of the 10 was spent to get into a bar. And I got a free drink with the entrance. Like I saw this version of a life for me, and it kind of scared me. I was like, this is too comfortable. I could enjoy this, and I could do this,

but there's this other part of me that was compelled to go do something, quote unquote, great, as if that's not great. That's also great. It is interesting that, like, despite learning all those things, you still felt like the pull. Yeah. I think that's an American American cultural trait that

We don't communicate to each other enough Europeans seem to know it about us Like they but I almost think that like it's expected of us and we're unaware of it We're an ambitious people man, like Laughs full of time. Yeah Yeah, like to eat to experience that like cooking at the highest level. Let's call that the highest level for I mean You I imagine you really respected the cuisine. It was incredible So and it's a different type of it, but you still felt like that that eagerness that urge Because I for me it was like I knew that that was just part of my journey

To get to this end goal of make it in New York. That was the that was the only goal for me. Is that the pinnacle for like, what is the pinnacle for a chef as a new as a New York kid training in Manhattan? My ultimate goal, which which I far exceeded, which is incredible, was just like, make a name for myself in New York City, which seemed impossible, but I was going to give it my best shot. The best chefs in the world, the best restaurants in the world, there's so many of them, there's

so much noise, there's so much talent. Can I make a name for myself in this city that I've always called home? So to get that recognition from like the New York Times, from the from the biggest publications of New York, from from your colleagues, from your peers was was I couldn't have thought of anything higher. And now we're like we've expanded far beyond New York. But for me, it's it's always that was always the goal. What what has felt better achieving that for yourself or giving back to charity and let letting rich have an opportunity to do it.

Love you, Rich. I'm curious about that. Rich, we love you! We love you, Rich. We love you, Rich. Remind me of the name of the restaurant you and Rich worked at, Cafe Balud. No, the original one or the one they built together? The one that you all met.

Cafe Balud. Cafe Balud. So in the way Cafe Balud curated you, Rich, David, has Carbone curated any new restaurateurs that have gone off and made a name for themselves? There's a great chef named Luciana who's in Miami. She was raised here from Miami. She opened Carbone with us in New York, who's opened a handful of restaurants in Miami, who's been really successful. But by and large, I'm really proud that most of the great talent in the company has risen within the company. So the people that run this company, like the top 10 people

in this company have been there since almost the beginning. They're partners in the company, they have ownership in it, and they've been there forever. So I'm really proud that they haven't had to leave and we've grown fast enough to where Even their ambitions were met within the walls of the company. This with the twist right here Is really good Have you been over served? Yeah, I've never had a martini with a twist. Do you have any more like restaurant tips

that you gave like with the champagne with the wine glass or maybe even How can we seem classy? Yeah. I heard my name. Ricky, this is not dirty. The one with the twist. So what's in it? Just tell me, break that down for me. I've never had a martini with a twist. Martini with a twist. Nice what's in it? Just tell me, break that down for me. I've never had a martini with a twist.

Martini with a twist. Nice. He just is a little stir. Makes it nice. A little vermouth. And it gives you a little nice spritz with a lemon twist. Simple simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. Right here. Are you married?

Yes, I am married. Oh, really? You see the ring, dude. For how long? I didn't see it., dude. For how long? Oh, I didn't see it. Ten years. Wow, what's his name?

By the way, let me check. Let me go check. Anybody else see something else? A little something. Yes, please. A little something. We need a little something. Makes me some Garibaldi's.

Garibaldi's right away, chef. Giuseppe Garibaldi, the patron saint of the Italian-Americans. So, yo, I think you guys. Don't tell Satra. You guys had a question. Let me ask one more question. Garibaldi's. Garibaldi's right away, chef. Giuseppe Garibaldi, the patron saint of the Italian-Americans. So yeah, I think you guys. Don't tell Sinatra.

You guys had a question. Let me ask one real quick. If you're a tourist coming to New York, let's say you try to go to Carbone, you can't. Sadell's, Tracy, you can't. Where else can you go if you're like, yo, this is what I would tell any tourist, this is the best place to eat in New York to experience the city. I would send them to Katz's. It's very hard to find a restaurant that embodies New York, to experience the city. I would send him to Katz's. Oh yeah. Do a call. It's very hard to find a restaurant

that embodies New York quite like Katz's. Okay. I would send him to Katz's, maybe Peter Luger's. My dad's 84 years old, and his family would go to Katz's. I mean, and it's still fucking great. Yeah. Like, complain all you want for what it costs. It's incredible.

Yeah. It's one of the few old school places that are still around that are putting out product as good as they have since day one. It's incredible. Let's go through it. Best pizza in New York City. Let's break some hearts right now. So I'm going to put Luke Haley up there. Of course. My cousin. That's your cousin? Basically. He's been shot so many times.

I didn't realize that he'd been shot so many times. He hit me 50, yeah. We were hanging out at, do you know Wayne? Wayne Boyd? Yeah, I do. Yeah, we're at Wayne's house for this paddle thing. We gotta get you on paddle, you're on tennis. I don't know why you're playing tennis.

Oh, real sport. It's like using a typewriter. You gotta go with what you know. It's like the 1950s. Yeah. Oh, that's right. You're trying to have like an immersive experience when you're doing sports. Ping pong for adults, for sure. Yeah. People like ping pong.

John is taking over. So. So with with and we're hanging out there and we're talking, he starts telling me a story about he got shot up, like stabbed, stabbed. You know, it's funny that he would lie and make it a gun. Well, I mean, he got stabbed like 20 times. Whoa. Jesus. Yeah. Why? Oh, his story. He'll tell the story. We've got to get him on here. So that's your cousin.

I told him that. I was going to tell him to come to today. It would have been funny. I mean, it would have been great. So like, what type of cousins are you? Are you cousins like, how are you cousins? Cous like, how are you cousins? Cousins like, like what cousins? I got it. I dated his cousin for a short period of time, too. Isn't that your cousin? Not my cousin. That's his cousin. Their cousins, but that's his cousin. We're like cousins. We're like cousins.

All right. We're not going to ask him. I also love Lindistry. Lindistry is great. Phenomenal pizza. Okay. Okay. Best burger. Best burger. I love the, I love the age burger. Minute of Tavern. I still love that burger. And I'm going to throw in hometown. I'm going to throw in Red Hook Tavern. It's unbelievable. It's the best burger I've ever had in my entire life. Billy Durney. Shout out Billy Durney. Shout out Billy. Billy's the best burger I've ever had. Billy Durney. Shout out Billy Durney. Billy's the fucking man. Fucking incredible. Sushi?

Incredible. Sushi... Sushi NOS. Incredible. That's on the Upper East? Yep. I did not like it. Really?

You know, it's interesting, when I was doing some research for you, when Carbone got its first review, I think it was from either New York or Timehouse, you were like second best restaurant, not the first review, but one of your reviews, second best restaurant, and you were second best restaurant restaurants not first review but one of your views second best restaurant and your second best restaurant to sushi nakazawa and I Confused it with Nas at first and I was like I couldn't believe I told my wife. I'm like, are you kidding me? What the fuck I?

Will say sushi nakazawa Was fantastic. I guess I was great. It is Fantastic. I did not like sushi. I like, I preferred carbon to sushi. But I will say that I thought sushi and I'll tell you why the waiter there had this encyclopedic knowledge of the sake and he was this Korean guy. Like he wasn't even Japanese. He was telling me the different ways each of this he could have been making it up dude. But it was phenomenal and it was like transporting me there was an experience there that was that was really good. So that place

was good. Okay so best sushi you say Naz really I'm not like Naz at all. Nakazawa is a great call. I'll take Nakazawa. Okay hmm Chinese. Cafe China, Sejuani, spicy as fuck. Indian food. I love Sejuani. Cafe China. Indian food. Indian food. Well, we're about to get Jim Khanna from London, which is my favorite Indian food in the world.

Have you been to Jim Khanna? You're the whitest person. That's not, that's made by brown people. I mean, I mean, it's listen, they were so kind when I went there, but it was not meant for the spice level was nonexistent. Thank goodness. How was the quality of the meal? It was cool. But it's like a venison bidiani. And I was like, oh, that's cool.

But like, just give me the give me this good stuff. You know what I mean? Street stuff. I want this. You want an armpit know what I mean? The street stuff. I want this. You want an orphan. I don't want to go to Jersey. I know I am telling you. He also doesn't like anything popular. Like he immediately rejects it because it's popular. He hates Drake.

Yeah. I just said, Teresa's best dining experience I had in New York City. So how do you feel about that? How do you feel about that? Rich, did you hear that? Rich? It's not boating well. It's not. Oh, thank you, good sir. Caribaldi for Chef. This is a caribaldi.

Oh, what is that? This is orange juice, Campari, and a little bit of apple. You're going to love one of these. Really? Yeah. Can I try one of those too? Absolutely, on the way. Thanks so much.

You're fine to drink, bro. What's going on? I'm trying. I'm trying to drink if you're trying. He's doing a flight. He's going to get me one. He's going to get me one. He's going to get me one. he's going to get me one.

What about Mexican? Mexican, I just opened a great Mexican restaurant. Where? In Miami. What is it? It's called Chateau, it's an old French chateau that we made this like really dope Mexican restaurant out of. Because I actually got a chance to spend a bunch of time in Mexico.

Mexico City? Mexico City, but traveling around a little bit to other regions as well. My favorite Mexican here. I mean, Cosme is amazing. Amazing. I mean, I propose that is the Jim Connor. The Jim Connor of Italian food. Enrique, I thought Enrique is like a legit, really respected chef.

Legit, legit, legit. Yeah, I thought I thought I think Cosme is I think they got one of the best desserts in the city. Oh, the corn? The horn cornhouse meringue. It's incredible. That's one of the best dishes in the world. Really. I mean, I'd put that in like one of the 10 best dishes in the world. Bro, that's another thing like Mexico City specifically, as just a world, I always say this, it's a world class city.

Like you can't think of it any differently than you think of New York, Paris, Rome, like especially when it comes to dining. Like Pujol think of it any differently than you think of New York, Paris, Rome, like, especially when it comes to dining. Like Pujol, did you go to Pujol? Yeah. It's unbelievable. Pujol is incredible. Contra Mar, Pujol, even like their old breakfast spots like Cardinal, like the old school Mexican

breakfast spots like the Cedales of Mexico City, they're incredible. Yeah. Okay, best chocolate chip cookie in the city. I Don't know if I have an answer for that I don't know if I've done a lot of chocolate chip cookie research. Are you a sweets guy? I am a sweets guy I'm a sucker Italians are suckers for like sweet breakfasts I don't know why it's like they're a big pastry coffee culture So I think I'm a sucker for that stuff too. like all things from doughnuts to like all things croissant I love all that shit best bakery then

best bakery They're talking my fat ass language Bakeries is this hard since you know all these people like is it like asking us who the best comedians are No, there's a bakery in Brooklyn called Apartment 4F. That's great. I've heard of this place. They make some really incredible pastries and breads. Balthazar's Bakery, I've always loved.

Always loved that. I love the old school donut shops like Peter Pan. Peter Pan's great, yeah. I love donuts. I fucking love donuts. If you were to go to an Italian restaurant, you needed to judge the quality of the food with one dish. Who?

What would you order? Great question. I would order like a dry pasta, not a fresh pasta, dry pasta. It's trickier to make. So something like a spaghetti or penne rigatoni, a dry pasta, cooked perfectly, cooked from scratch, al dente, sauce right. It's trickier that it takes a certain touch of someone that really knows what they're doing. Oh, interesting. Fresh pasta is easier. It's more forgiving.

It's, it's, it's soft. It's, it's luxurious. It only cooks in a few seconds. It's good with just plain butter. It's, it's harder with a dry pasta. It's trickier. That's interesting. What is the thing on the menu at Carbone that you think people should order? Like the thing you're most proud of that people aren't ordering as much as the Spicy Rig are pork chops. We serve great pork chops, but because of our veal parm, it gets bolder.

I don't eat beef, so that's what I'll do. We serve a fantastic, big, thick cut pork chop with vinegar peppers, which is a classic Italian American dish that I order a lot when I'm there as a customer, which is really important to be a customer, like to sit in the seat of a customer. I get a whole different set of notes than I do when I'm in the kitchen.

But pork chop with vinegar peppers. Great dish. That's the one. All right. What about at Terisi? A dish that doesn't get ordered that often. His menu is smaller. He sells a lot of everything.

The duck, the duck at Torezi. I've heard he's a duck master. We used to have, we should probably shouldn't say this, but we used to have. So when we first opened, uh, dirty French on the Lower East Side, Rich had developed a technique for cooking duck where the duck had to age for 30 days like beef. And what would happen was the skin got super dry and crispy when you cooked it, but also it tenderizes the meat just like it does with beef.

We were selling a lot of duck. We couldn't hold all the ducks we needed in the restaurant to age them for 30 days. So we rented an apartment across the street on Ludlow, across the street from the restaurant, and the landlord didn't care at all. Like, the landlord had no idea what we were doing. We just moved refrigerators, there's no furniture. It was just refrigerators in an apartment across the street on Ludlow Street,

and ducks hanging Wow. throughout the apartment, aging in this apartment. And then every day at four o'clock, you'd see a cook come out with just a tray of ducks from this apartment into the restaurant. And it just sounds like a racist conspiracy. These Chinese people are hiding ducks in apartments downtown. Don't say that.

Meanwhile. Meanwhile, there's Rich D'Arisi. How often are restaurants hacking the margins where you try to take an item that's going to sell well Hey, don't say that. Meanwhile. Meanwhile, there's Rich D'Risi. How often are restaurants hacking the margins? Where you try to take an item that's going to sell well, but it's also the cheapest to make, but you price it the highest. Or like, they'll do this with wine sometimes. Sometimes they'll make the cheapest wine or one of the cheaper wines more expensive

to try to create a psychological effect. Have you heard about this? It's like what movie theaters used to do, where they charge a certain amount for the Small coke and then the medium and the large right? Are you guys doing that with wine? I mean, no, we're trying to apply a pretty You don't apply like for us for example, we don't apply the same

Price structure to an expensive bottle of wine as you do to a less expensive bottle Price structure to an expensive bottle of wine as you do to a less expensive bottle right? So you're generally you're looking at like a three time markup on a less expensive bottle of wine $100 or less and then as it gets more and more expensive the markup becomes smaller So like if it costs us $500, we're not charging $1,500 We're probably charging close to $1,000 on it while a bottle that costs us 30, we might charge 90. So there's a greater threshold on a less expensive bottle than there is on a more expensive bottle. Those margins are critical to the survival of a restaurant because at the end of the day, the final number at the bottom is generally a really small, like everyone, like if you

know anything about restaurants, you know that they're generally going to close and that you don't make a ton of money So that money that's made in alcohol is critical to the life of a restaurant Also, it's as opposed to food. It's non perishable right? Like if you fucked up and you ordered 40 ducks this week and only 20 people ordered the duck Like you're gambling on something that's very perishable right right? Now you're eating it for staff meal and you lost money. So it's a very fine dance with food and perishable items to get the number right so that they don't come to the table and like, sorry, we're out of the duck tonight or we eat it for staff meal.

What's in between those two is like really knowing how to run this business and it's a fine dance. If you're on a date with a girl, like let's say you've gone on a couple of dates, you get a reservation at Carbone, you really wanna impress her, is there anything you can do internally to send a message to really blow her mind? Like someone with dessert but not corny?

You wanna send a message to her? Yeah, if you wanna have a good experience. I'm just sure there's some people listening. Mark's never been on a fucking date. I'm sure there's some people listening. You're on a second date with a girl. He met the first girl he met. He met the first girl he met. I'm just kidding. I'm second there's some people listening. Mark's never been on a fucking date. I'm sure there's some people listening. He met her the first girl he met. He met her the first girl he met.

I'm taking her carbon. I would go back to the implementing the bring a beer rule. Like you're going out on a date and you carry like this gift to the kitchen and she wants him like, what are you doing? Why you got like a 12 pack Coors Light? Like, oh no, it's a thing that we do for the guys. And like, that's gonna put you in a position of like, who is this guy?

He's a regular. He's a regular. He got a couple of reservations and he knows this place so well that he brought beers for the kitchen. Yeah, that's fair. And then all of a sudden, they're going to start sending extras out compliments of the chef. Now you look pretty great. Right. So I would go back to that strategy.

Tell me about this F1 thing. F1 is our fourth year of doing it. I mean, obviously, you know, Miami is at its like capacity that weekend. The city's crazy. So the first year we were sort of like, okay, well, if the restaurant's so full, maybe we can do something else. Like there's such a demand for this weekend. What can we do that's like over the top to meet the weekend? So we kind of devised this idea of like throwing this like really elaborate supper club dinner party where there's a performance, there's house bands, Ricky sings.

Ricky can sing? Oh yeah, he's Sinatra. Oh wow. Ricky! What's your favorite Sinatra song? Oh, My Way. Got to go My Way without a doubt. Yeah. I mean. But he could also fly me to the moon.

He'll give you, I mean. But keep going. He loves a good saloon song. He loves a good sad song. Like what? You gotta bring him out. He can bust that one out. Yeah, we got three. We got three good ones. Okay, but tell me. Do we have any sasheetos? We're going. We got three good ones. Okay, but tell me. Do we have any sasheethas? Go on.

So there's like about four or five hundred people that come. We build this giant amazing tent on the sand of Miami Beach. There's a headlining performer every year. The very first one we ever got was Andrea Bocelli, which was crazy. Wow. Where in Miami Beach?

It's on basically 21st and Collins on the beach. Where's that close to? What hotel? It's like right where all the hotels are. So like right behind the Satay. Okay. On the actual sand, we build the kitchen, the whole thing. Friday, Saturday, Sunday night in conjunction with F1.

And it's pretty great. I mean, it's like, it's a Carbone meal, but like plus, plus, plus. It's like Carbone meets a form of the 12 Caesars. It's like Carbone meets a form of the 12 Caesars. It's like really over the top. And add all the live music, a giant, you know, ice sculpture, raw bar. And we throw everything at it. How does the average person go to something like this?

Impossible. No, I mean, you first, Mx sells their tickets through the, you can buy tickets through them, you can buy tickets through us. You can get them, you know, at majorfoodgroup.com you can get them through our you know uh all the individual restaurants um we sell them on instagram you know saturday i think saturday sold out but we still have tickets for friday i went to f1 miami like two years ago that was the place to be really yeah like the last performance last year was lauren Hill and it was one of- How'd you get one so- Lauryn was one of the great ones we've ever had,

but we've had some amazing ones, but Lauryn brought the house down. She's one of my favorites ever. Brought the house down. Yeah. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. What do you, what's next?

What do you want? You've achieved all the dreams. I don't have a lot of wants. It's amazing. I mean, like things are fucking amazing. I mean, like, things are fucking amazing. I mean, I've far exceeded my own expectations. Thank you, sir. She's got the orange. She's got the orange handkerchief for Frank. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, a little bit that's very kind of you to say but I'm a huge fan of the American popular songbook.

Oh really? And you know music has been a big part of my life and my family and we used to sing around the house growing up so I figured I might as well give it a shot. Yeah whatever you love. I mean we would love to hear something. Where are you from? I'm from Yonkers, New York. Oh no way. Okay what is your what is the song the song that you go to, the song that lights up the house? Well, there's many, but just to give you a, you want to hear a little something now? Please. Yes. Fly me to the moon.

Let me play among the stars. Let me see what life is like on Jupiter and Mars. You know, something like that. In other words. In other words, hold my hand. My man. In other words, baby kiss me. You know, we do a little something like that.

What about, what about, what about, uh, That's Life? Oh yeah, that's one of my favorites. Oh, give us some of that, dude. Yeah, that's life. That's what all the people say. Wow. You're riding high in April, shut down in May. But I know I'm going to change that tune when I'm back on top,

on top in June. Oh, I could keep going, but don't let me get all right. All right. Thank you so much. It was my pleasure. Thank you so much, guys. Brave ding ding, you know what I mean? He's a fucking legend, dude.

He's great. He's awesome. Have you ever had princes come to you? Like royalty or like a sheik or something? What's the weirdest request? Jay-Z's been to the restaurant. We had Obama when he was still sitting president come in. Wow.

New York? New York, yeah. To have him as the sitting president he at the restaurant and the protocol that goes around that is bananas. Okay, what's the protocol? Well, I was the only I was one of the only people that knew about it. So I was pretty convinced that they were watching my phone. So I didn't tell anybody because it was an unannounced.

So that night it was unannounced. So no one knew that he was supposed to be there. So at that point, Secret Service deems anyone that's in the restaurant to be safe because they don't know it's happening. So they don't need to check that, right? It's interesting. So the second that he shows up, then they go full,

they shut down all communication, all phones stopped working. They set up a metal detector outside. Someone goes to every exit downstairs throughout. There's someone in the kitchen with me. And immediately the second he walks in then things sort of shut down. But it was amazing. He walked in, the place went absolutely bananas. And so to have him there as the sitting president of the United States, and he's been back since, but to have him there that night was pretty unbelievable. Does he order or does he say give me your best hits?

We ordered, they ordered for the, someone at the table ordered for everybody and he ordered his drink which was a dirty, dirty, I think he's a dirty gin martini. So all the, the only thing he ordered his cocktail, but everything else just came out. So you you does he speak on any of the dishes? I went to the table. I said hi to him. He's unreasonably cool for president of the United States. He got up at the end of the night.

He kind of addressed everybody in the crowd, which is amazing. Where do you see them in the restaurant? We have one table in the back that's like, to the left. Yeah, it's all the way up so that you know, the most unbothered of all the locations. But when he stands up, he knows that everybody's looking at him. Yeah, I know. It was like standing ovation like every night for dinner. So here's the thing.

I was at the comedy cellar once and Madonna was upstairs. She actually went on stage and did some comedy I didn't watch, but she was upstairs. And it was like a very weird experience because the gravitational pull to her, like any conversation you and I would be having was a pretend conversation as we like through the side of our eye watched Madonna. And the fact that he would get up and just acknowledge that, I think is quite honorable. It's the most authentic thing you can do

because you know everybody's fucking staring at you the entire time. You finish, you're like, everyone can have a look. Yeah. Then I'll leave. Does someone taste Obama's food? Yeah, that's a great question. There was a person in the kitchen that all they,

they have like a whole like kit with them, a giant briefcase. And all that they asked of me that night was to let them know when we were preparing his food and he got real close to kind of the preparation of it. But I don't remember them like tasting it ahead of time. I thought they were going to. That briefcase is doing something. There's like a whole, yeah, there's a whole kit of something in that briefcase that never

came out. Interesting. whole, yeah, there's a whole kit of something in that briefcase that never came out. Did Daniel Balloud ever congratulate you, validate you, give you your flowers? Is there ever a moment that he had with you that was really important to you? Well, we're very close now still, which is great with Danielle and Jean-Georges. Danielle, sorry. You know, it's important for Rich and I that we're close with that generation because they were our heroes and they're still operating at a really high level, which is amazing. Rich was even closer to Danielle because he had worked there for like far more years than I had.

So that relationship is really important to him, but it's important to me as well. He definitely gives us our flowers, as does J.G., Jean-Georges, and I think that that relationship means the world to us, because those coming up, reading the review every Wednesday in the New York Times as kids to see who got reviewed, and to see their names, and to eventually work with them, and now to be their kind of colleagues and peers

Is everything have you ever had a personal moment with him where he's like, hey, I'm really proud of you or even Mario And these people yeah, I mean I've had I've had I've had a lot of moments of Mario spent a lot of years in Mario I've had moments with you know Danielle telling him that story about like the resume and having that moment with him where I get to tell him that story What'd he say? You know, he doesn't remember it, but he loves that that that happened He loves that we're alumni that means a lot to him So to see the pride that that we came from his kitchen that we made it is The greatest possible reward for us that that goes back to that

We made it in New York and that was the biggest thing we could have ever imagined. I never thought about a restaurant in Hong Kong. I just wanted to be, I wanted to be big here. Yeah. And then asked us. Oh, real quick, and then with Rich specifically, you have to have an ego to be a chef,

but you and Rich seemingly have navigated the fact that you both have a lot of ambition and egos and have built this like incredible company. Maybe with the Zelinsky he did a little bit or whatever. But we love you, Jeff. But I don't think like a lot of times bands break up. You guys have done this thing. Like I imagine there's been difficult times, but has there ever been any reflection where you both look back and you're like, holy shit, we both got big egos,

we're like really ambitious, we're really confident, but we managed to kind of stick together and build out this amazing company. Do you talk about that ever? We talk about it from time to time for sure. I mean, there's definitely moments, especially because you're creating something, so you're sensitive to it.

So when we're criticizing each other for the betterment of whatever that thing is, you can't help but get emotional about it. I made that, so I'm sensitive to it. That still happens today. I think the confidence that we have in that whole the band's not gonna break up thing is that, especially with Rich, I've known him my whole life.

I've known him since I was a kid, since we were teenagers. So we know that if we're fighting about something or we're not agreeing or butting heads about something, that it's just like when you're doing that with your actual brother. Like you don't- You built a friendship before the business. You're not gonna break up with your brother.

Like you're gonna fight with him, you're gonna call him a dick and something's gonna happen and then tomorrow's gonna be tomorrow because that's your brother and he's going to be there. And like you're not going to break up with your sibling. So I think that that's what we have. And there's never, it's never going to get so blown out of proportion that this whole

thing is going to be a house of cards. I will say one thing on the menu. We were talking about like the sneak things on that Teresa menu, the zeppoles, Zeppole and ham. Holy shit. Yeah. And it'sole and ham. Holy shit. Yeah. And it's like a pineapple. Pineapple, yeah. Hmm.

You had the avocado? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I like an avocado. I like the shaved part of it. Yeah, the avocado's good. But as much shit as we get from that zeppole thing. I get it every time I go. It's fun.

That, I think that's really cool. I think it's easy when people get successful to kind of rupture, break up or whatever. I think it's something that like, not saying that we've achieved your guys' success, but like it's something that is important to us to like maintain, like the friendship comes first. Something that Akash always reminds us every single time that there's any kind of confrontation like, why do we do this?

Because we're friends. The confrontation is good. Yeah, we should bump heads. The confrontation is good. If you guys just agree with each other all the time, then like what are we doing? What are you doing? Right? Like you want to have people that are challenging you and you're going to be sensitive about it. You like made this, you made this thing, you wrote that. That was my joke or I, that was my idea. Like you got to just acknowledge that, that we are all creatives and we're

sensitive artists and you know, at our core, but it's not going to break us. The whole point is that we're going to make each other better. Some of our parts are going to be greater than us as an individual. Okay, before we get out of here, why is New York City the greatest city in the world? I mean, there's just not another city that looks like this, right? There's not another city that looks like this, right? There's not another city that looks like New York. I think for those that sort of complain about the classic New Yorkism, what it was, I think you're misunderstanding the point of New York.

New York's job is to change. Exactly what he's saying. I say this all the time. Exactly. New York's job is to... It's so annoying what he's saying. I say this all the time. New York's job is to... It's so annoying that you say he's saying the same fucking thing. I can't tell you how annoyed I am. There's a generation of 18, 19, 20-year-olds that are getting their first taste of New

York. It's the great tournament of New York. How long are you going to be here? How many rounds are you going to make? It's here to be the great editor. There's so much to learn from this place. New York is not the one that our parents remember. It's not the one from my grandparents when they came to LSI.

It's not the one from our childhood. It's not the one from our childhood. That's what makes New York great. It's malleable. It's here for the next generation. It's going to challenge the next one. And for those that are still here, right? It's the great tournament of life that is Manhattan or New York City. Yeah. Yeah. Do you still look here? I do not still look here.

Before we go, before we go. That's my camera. As you were, I don't want to say given opportunities, but earned opportunities from these great chefs, are there any young creative chefs that you're seeing right now in New York City that we can shine a light on? I think it's important to us, definitely as New Yorkers, to shine a light on young comedians that are coming up in New York, but also any industry for someone that we bring on the podcast.

Are there any young restaurateurs out here that you really believe in? Like people you're seeing with promise. Yeah, it's hard when the financial world is in a questionable place, right? It's hard for young aspiring restaurateurs or any industry to get the backing in a shaky financial moment to do something. So in times like this, you're going to see less creativity

because it's too risky. You're going to see more status quo. You're going to see more safe plays. You're going to see people taking chances when it's safer to take chances. When the economy is healthy and money is cheap and there's investors out there looking to take chances on you. So it's a tough time for that generation like it was for us, you know, coming out of 08. There's not a lot of us that are going to get that break and we had to do crazy shit to get to get those six tables. So I'm here for those who are who there who are challenging. Guys like Kwame, Tatiana who are doing incredible work right now.

It's a tough time, man. It's a tough time to take a chance. Any other little guys. It could be six tables. Like anybody that you've seen, tasted recently. Industry. I remember when industry was just starting, right? These two guys who looked and felt a lot like me and Rich when we first got to that pizzeria. But you see it in their eyes. It's like Tony Montana, man. It's the eyes, man. You can see that that guy, they're going to make it, man. I don't care. There was that guy that was making pizza, I think Chrissy's Pizza or something, in the oven in his apartment. Oh, in Brooklyn?

Yeah, in Brooklyn. I think Chrissy's pizza. Yeah. Similar. Bye bye. So you're not going to, you're not going to tell them, no, like they're going to, they're going to figure it out. You know, they're going to make it through it. Are tariffs affecting the restaurant industry at all? They're going to. Yeah. I mean, we're just starting to see it, um, but it's going to.

And I think that its greatest effect is going to be in cost of the customer. Yeah. It's going to get, it's going to get passed on. I think certainly for us, if my options are choose a lesser ingredient than what I'm accustomed to bringing in because it's too expensive or bring that ingredient in at the additional cost and pass it on to the customer. We're going to choose that one, right? Because I feel like I've made a promise to my customers to give them the best ingredients in the world.

And if I'm saying that I need that, I'm not going to choose something else. So it's going to get passed on to them. Unfortunately, right? I think that's where it's going to manifest itself is in rising costs to customers. Okay, last one. Italian American. You put a spotlight on Italian American cuisine, as you said. It becomes one of the most successful restaurants in the world. I'm not even talking about financially, but in terms of notoriety. Is there like a moment where you kind of like look back and you feel this sense of pride in your culture? You know, this is you're doing like a saw, this is a sauce joint that now is being mentioned in Drake songs.

Yeah. What does that kind of feel like? Do you feel the community? Are they supportive of it? Are they happy of it? I feel like it is a function. I feel like Carbone is a functioning museum, right? I think that it's Italian Americans, not dissimilar to any sort of other immigrant path, right? The whole point of this journey, if you follow it back to your ancestors, my ancestors from Southern Italy leaving a place to come to the United States

for the betterment of the next generation, right? The entire point of the experiment was for us to assimilate into just becoming Americans and to eventually become less and less Italian as each generation passes you become just Americans. That was the whole point of this assimilation. To me, for community, for what we're doing, what I'm leaving behind, I have great pride in that Carbone stands as a nightly functioning museum that you can go to, you can visit, you can consume what was the wooly mammoth that is the Italian American in New York in 1950s. Because my children will be less Italian than I am as I am less

Italian than my parents are. And that's the point when you lament the fact that there are no Italians in Little Italy, you are also proving the point of what the purpose of that was. They weren't supposed to stay here. They were supposed to just become Americans. That's why they left their country. So when it was at its most potent and I chose that period, the first generation of Italian Americans in 1950, to make this thing, to make this play that's thankfully had a very long run. We're fucking cats over here. We're 10 years in and we're still going.

You get to experience this museum because over time, the Italian American will just become the American. So I get to do this thing. So you get to maintain your culture while at the same time embracing this new identity which was the point of it all. I believe the point of it all. That's beautiful. Mario Carbone everybody.