The Beginning 

Carbone Hong Kong replicates New York’s charm and splendour, serving up signature dishes like the saucy Ceasar alla ZZ and (needless to say) the Spicy Rigatoni Vodka that has become synonymous with the restaurant. Dining is a sensory experience, but while the regular diner is busy satisfying their tastebuds, Mr. Carbone is listening — searching for the sound of a restaurant well run.  

“There’s a sound to a good restaurant. There’s a certain sound and it’s not the music. There’s a sound to a busy, well run restaurant that is palpable, and it’s really hard to describe. There’s a volume to it, but there’s no noise. You can hear the guests, and the staff moving at a pace that is void of any extra conversation or motion,” Carbone explains. 

He begins to tap his fingers on the table, audiating the early mornings in a really busy cafe in Italy — one of his favourite sounds. “The spoon” tap, “the saucer” tap, “the cup” tap, “drink” tap. “The whole experience lasts under a minute. It’s awesome.”

This superpower-like ability to hear a good restaurant can only belong to a man like Carbone, who has spent thousands of hours in the belly of the best kitchens in New York. After graduating from The Culinary Institute of America, he set out to work in every kitchen he could and found mentors in chefs like Daniel Boulud, Jean-Georges and Mario Batali. A decade in, he moved to northwestern Tuscany, working in a family-run restaurant and living above it. He still sends his cooks there from time to time so they have a similar training process.

“It’s important that you love both. Obviously you have to love food, but also you have to love the business. And it’s not enough to have one without the other. So the sort of introduction to the madness of the industry, there has to be something inside of you that is driven by that, that loves the sort of chaos.”

He remembers when he had to wear all the hats — working the cash register, coffee machine, taking orders, ordering the food, prepping the food…and doing things they’ve never done with a “beautiful, naive, and young” mindset — payroll, hiring, firing. “You’re gonna learn, but you’re gonna make mistakes,” Carbone says plainly, “And you just grow because there isn’t anybody else.” 

Final Touches 

Since 2021, Carbone has taken on an elaborate hobby that “lubricates his brain” — a fashion brand named “Our Lady Of Rocco”. “The stuff that I designed under the Rocco brand is very much my aesthetic,” Carbone explains, “If you are a fan of what we do (at MFG), and you are a customer of the restaurant, this is, in really small way, a way to complete the circle.” Seeing his projects through the lens of theatre, Carbone says he has dressed the cast, set the stage (and perfected the music, might I add). Our Lady of Rocco is his venture to dress the audience. 

As someone who is most comfortable in a suit and high-waisted pants, (“I’m like from the ’50s”), Carbone’s brand carries a refined range of pique polo shirts, paisley pocket squares, and leisure suits comprising zipped up bombers, and (you guessed it) high-waisted pants. On the driving force behind all his endeavours, Carbone says, “I think we need to be trying to remember where it all came from, and the unbridled enthusiasm that came from those early choices. If I’m genuinely excited about it, then I will pour myself into it.” 

At the end of 2024, Carbone will release a book with Assouline to chronicle Carbone’s first decade. “I can’t flip through it and not get emotional,” Carbone admits, “because we interviewed so many of the people that have been there from the beginning. So when I see their words on paper, I hear their voices and I know exactly what each moment sounds like. It was a really beautiful, cathartic process.”

On this hot October afternoon, sounds from a construction site echoed through Carbone Hong Kong. It is a sound that is quintessentially Hong Kong, but also somewhat fitting for Mario Carbone, a man who has built his world with two hands and a passionate soul.