In February of this year, a grand outpost of the New York Italian restaurant Carbone opened in Miami’s South Beach and was anointed as the hottest joint in Magic City. On a visit during its first weeks, I spotted the music executive Clive Davis at one table, the art-collecting real estate developer Aby Rosen at another, and Mario Carbone glad-handing the big spenders who occupied the plush corner booths. In July, the hand of God intervened, and the restaurant was damaged by a fire. But Carbone could not be stopped, and by September, Drake made a stop at the Sinatra-washed rigatoni fantasia to hang out with Jordan Belfort, the Wolf of Wall Street himself.
That is all to say that next week, during the madness that is Art Basel Miami Beach, for all but the close friends of the owners and, say, Clive Davis, a table at Carbone is a pipe dream. Which is how we ended up with…another Carbone, just a few blocks up Collins Avenue. It’s called “American Express Platinum x Carbone,” a pop-up erected on the grounds of the Edition hotel.
“You’ve been to the restaurant in Miami, and you’ve seen that there’s no shortage of people who want to go to Carbone,” Alex Lee, vice president and general manager of the American Express Global Dining Network, which includes the reservations app Resy, told me over the phone this week. “We thought, what better opportunity to do something in addition to the restaurant—they’ll have a chance to interact with Mario Carbone himself, in a very special setting.”
