Assouline The Classics Collection: Carbone

Developed in close partnership with the trio behind Major Food Group, CARBONE includes more than a dozen recipes from the restaurant that have never been shared before. Throughout the journey, anecdotes and recollections from the founders and the restaurant’s inimitable cast of characters give readers a captivating inside look at what it takes to create a New York City legend.

It’s an early-spring day in downtown Manhattan, and Mario Carbone, Jeff Zalaznick, and Rich Torrisi are back on the block where it all started a little over a decade ago. Here at 181 Thompson Street, the newly formed trio would seize on the energy that Rich and Mario had generated nearby at Torrisi Italian Specialties to breathe new life into a culinary style that few chefs with their pedigrees would deem worthy of their dedication. In short order, The New York Times would conclude that the three friends had managed to bring “back the punch-in-the-guts thrills of a genre that everybody else sees as uncultured and a little embarrassing, while exposing the sophistication that was always lurking there.”

Ten years since its founding, Major Food Group’s CARBONE is a New York City institution: a destination that draws endless crowds, makes constant headlines, and lights up historic Thompson Street every single night with the warm red glow of its iconic neon sign. Propelled by an extended interview with writer Gabe Ulla and exclusive photography by Oliver Pilcher, this volume captures a night at the restaurant in all its soulful, thrilling glory.