Created 10 years ago at the original Carbone New York, Hong Kong has gone mad for the Spicy Rigatoni Vodka, and it tells us everything about how and what we eat. Co-founder Mario Carbone spills the tea
The Obamas have dined there, the Biebers have been papped at this spot, and the Kardashians are regulars. In the 11 years since Carbone opened its inaugural location in Greenwich Village, New York, the Italian-American restaurant has enjoyed a lightning-fast reception for its hearty red-sauce fare.
Only a year later, Carbone found a home in Hong Kong, opening an oaky and raucous space in LKF Tower in August 2014. Founder Mario Carbone’s first foray into Asian dining, a joint partnership with Black Sheep Restaurants, has been successful for nearly a decade.
Co-founding Major Food Group, the restaurant operator that disseminates the Carbone message globally, Mario and the eponymous family conglomerate are famous for one dish that has nurtured a fanatical love with diners globally: Spicy Rigatoni Vodka.
The Spicy Rigatoni Vodka was a defining front-runner on the first Carbone menu in 2013, performing a tribute act to a red-sauce culture of Italian-Americans popularising vodka sauce (a tomato sauce spiked with vodka for tang and cream for colour and texture) in New York restaurants during the 1950s.
Mario elucidates that the Spicy Rigatoni Vodka was a mere afterthought from masterminding the opening of Carbone a decade ago. “The Rigatoni was one of the last additions to Carbone’s original menu as we were in need of a vegetarian pasta option,” he tells Foodie in an email.
“My idea was to create a cheeky pizzeria-style pasta dish that could be elevated to Carbone’s standards. Little did I know that the Spicy Rigatoni would become a huge hit and take on a life of its own.”
Back in Hong Kong, the Spicy Rigatoni Vodka has diners enamoured with its creamy, spicy, bright sauce. The dish is so powerful, it can explain everything about Hong Kong’s dynamic food scene.
Phone-eats-first culture is strong in Hong Kong. Forks cannot be shoved into plates without first snapping for Instagram, and the Spicy Rigatoni Vodka is no exception to the rule – it almost exists as a defining image in a picture dictionary of Hong Kong dining, a hypothetical Guide to Food Instagram in Hong Kong.
With the power of Instagram, diners in Hong Kong have become ravenous in chasing the exclusivity of the Spicy Rigatoni Vodka at a restaurant difficult to reserve and begging a price of HKD278 for each plate. Like a virus, Hong Kong food Instagram is infectious with hundreds of tagged pictures of the pasta dish, complemented by short reviews of the flavours. A mere picture of the pasta dish on your Instagram story can represent an exclusivity that others cannot attain.
With the dish in New York, Miami, Las Vegas, Dallas, Doha, Riyadh, and Hong Kong promoting the power of Carbone and red-sauce cuisine, Mario argues that the success of the Carbone chain cannot solely be attributed to the spicy red-sauce plate.
“The global success of Carbone and the exclusivity of our offerings, such as our iconic Spicy Rigatoni Vodka, certainly play a role in our reputation. However, our approach is far more holistic.”
In Hong Kong, the Spicy Rigatoni Vodka has supported the virality of Carbone’s Lan Kwai Fong location. It is a powerful statement when a restaurant can craft and market one dish that wholly epitomises its culinary direction and mission. Spicy Rigatoni Vodka is luxury red-sauce cuisine, restaurant excellence, stylish Black Sheep service. In Hong Kong, the dish is Carbone.
Mario can’t point to a “single answer” as to what has made Carbone a global success. “Our brand of refined nostalgia resonates with a wide demographic of people,” he says.
However, without a deep-rooted history of Italian-American cuisine and immigration in Hong Kong, the nostalgia factor of Carbone and the pasta dish itself could be translated into an association with celebrity chefdom.
Since the early 2010s, Gordon Ramsay, Jamie Oliver, Alain Ducasse, Pierre Gagnaire, Judy Joo, Akrame Benallal, and Janice Wong have all opened restaurants and later closed shop in Hong Kong. Mario Carbone has outlasted many Michelin masters and beat them at their own game. He’s held out for a decade serving his Spicy Rigatoni Vodka and other red-sauce classics.
The Mario Carbone name might not hold as much weight in dining circles here as it does in New York’s Soho, but the New Yorker’s celebrity feeds the pumping heart at the Lan Kwai Fong restaurant with life.
Mario stated in a 2016 interview with the Post that “Hong Kong chose [Carbone]”, alluding to an already close relationship the co-founder had with Black Sheep staff residing formerly in New York.
“I messaged them about where to go eat in Hong Kong and that led me to [Black Sheep co-founders] Chris [Mark] and Asim [Syed Asim Hussain]. We really liked each other. I think our companies mirror each other’s well as we are similar in age and ambition,” he told the newspaper.
“We are both centrally located in our indigenous cities. So not long after we got back to New York, Asim sent me a message asking me if I was interested in a space that they were looking at and doing a partnership with them in Hong Kong.”
Thus, it was the pull of Black Sheep Restaurants, a mammoth restaurant group operating 30-plus venues in the city, that propelled Carbone to the public stage in Hong Kong, soon rendering the restaurant and its pasta dish a viral hit.
It was a repeat of the formula that preceded the import and mergers of restaurants Messina and Motorino into the group, boosting the profiles of chefs and concepts seeking to tap into an adventurous Hong Kong market. Carbone has done it, with the help of their Spicy Rigatoni Vodka.
Other Italian-American restaurants in Hong Kong number very few – FINI’s Italian American, Frank’s Italian American Social Club, and Mo Bros are Carbone’s direct “competitors”. Yet, for reasons pertaining to Hong Kong’s obsession with phone-eats-first culture, celebrity chefdom, restaurant hype, and a Black Sheep touch, Carbone and its Spicy Rigatoni Vodka have won hearts with this sub-cuisine.
“Italian-American cuisine is known for its genuine and comforting dishes. It can find a home in almost every culture. Its universal appeal lies in the warmth of shared meals and the joy of simple, hearty flavours,” says Mario on a final note.
“Hong Kong knows good food, and our concept will continue to fit this evolving culinary scene we’ve seen over the years.”
If you’ve never had it before, book a visit to Carbone here and taste for yourself what makes the Spicy Rigatoni Vodka great.
