Replacement revealed for legendary Picasso restaurant on Las Vegas Strip
Carbone is heading to the coast, plunging to the briny deep and setting sail.
The restaurant that celebrates traditional Italian-American cooking (while tasting better than tradition ever did) — with its original in New York City, a location in Aria and several others around the world — is unveiling a new expression of the Carbone brand created by Major Food Group, the famed hospitality empire.
Carbone Riviera, a coastal Italian seafood spot, is planned to debut this fall in the former Picasso, one of the most beloved dining rooms in Las Vegas, overlooking the Bellagio lagoon on the Strip. Picasso, a mainstay of the Vegas fine dining movement that began in the 1990s, closed in August after more than a quarter century — an epoch in Vegas restaurant years — with celebrated chef Julian Serrano helming the kitchen the whole time.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported on the new restaurant in June, but its name was not publicly known at the time, and MGM Resorts International continues to decline comment on a reported $16 million cost.
Carbone Riviera is the first restaurant of its kind in the MFG global portfolio, and the remodel leading up to its opening includes a thoroughgoing redesign of the interior, an expanded terrace, and the construction of a dock for a 33-foot mahogany mini yacht.
“This is without exaggeration one of the most important, not to mention gorgeous, restaurant spaces in America — to say it is an honor to be its latest steward does not do this moment justice,” chef Mario Carbone, co-founder of MFG with Jeff Zalaznick and chef Rich Torrisi, said in a Tuesday statement.
“We at Major Food Group take tremendous pride in carrying forward storied culinary legacies … We intend for CARBONE RIVIERA to be the culmination of the decades we have dedicated to our craft.”
The right operator
The retirement of chef Serrano and the closing of Picasso presented an opportunity to reimagine the space for the first time in more than a quarter century, to “continue to be the crown jewel of Bellagio restaurant offerings,” said Patric Yumul, senior vice president of food and beverage development strategy for MGM Resorts.
“We started narrowing what operators could accentuate this opportunity. Major Food Group was always one of the operators in the conversation,” Yumul continued, citing the success of Carbone at Aria and Sadelle’s at Bellagio.
Although discussions occurred over the past year or so leading to a deal with MFG, the Carbone Riviera concept was only decided in the past three or four months, Yumul said. “We went round and round trying to land on something.”
Seafood served with flair
Martin Brudnizki, the Swedish architect and product designer known for his work on restaurants and hotels, is fashioning the look and feel of Carbone Riviera. MGM is keeping mum about most design details, but one element is known: A towering seafood display opens the restaurant, providing a lavish showcase for Dungeness and king crabs, oysters, langoustines, ricci di mare (sea urchin), razor clams and other ocean bounty flown in daily.
The display reflects that signature Bellagio mingling of elegance, abundance and attention to detail while also setting the stage for a menu anchored by whole fish like salt-baked branzino and Dover sole presented tableside by captains continuing the MFG hallmark of deft service with flair.
“It’s a little bit of magic and fantasy woven into the experience,” Yumul said.
The menu also features chef Carbone’s spicy lobster meatballs, pastas like 2-pound lobster pasta and spicy vodka rigatoni, and what the statement described as “delicately cooked seafood of exceptional provenance.”
Nods to Picasso, as Yumul put it, will be included in the design. “The MFG team is excited about some of the art and plateware. You’ll see some of that surfacing in different touch points. Frankly, we’d be foolish not to celebrate that history.”
Around the lake
Riva Yacht, the 183-year-old Italian boat maker, built the miniature yacht that will sail the waters of the Bellagio lagoon (also known as Lago di Como). The yacht is one of only 18 produced for Riva’s Anniversario collection, making the boat an immediate collector’s item.
The details are still to be settled, but plans call for the yacht to ferry guests about the lagoon — perhaps delivering them by water to dinner at Carbone Riviera or shuttling them across the lake (and back) to the Bellagio Fountain Club during the Formula One Las Vegas Grand Prix or simply providing close-up waterside views of the surging Fountains of Bellagio.
The Riva voyages, the design and menu of Carbone Riviera, and its charismatic service all combine to create a balmy sprezzatura that Yumul described as “a love letter to the Amalfi Coast. All of a sudden, you’re in the Amalfi Coast. You’re on vacation; you have escaped.”
To the next chapter of a legendary dining room.
Contact Johnathan L. Wright at jwright@reviewjournal.com. Follow @JLWTaste on Instagram.
