Carbone London: Corkage Is £75 a Bottle

Bringing your own bottle of wine to Carbone costs £75. A magnum costs £150.

That is the corkage fee, published plainly on their own site:

“We welcome guests to bring bottles of their own wine for a corkage fee of £75 per 750ml bottle (£150 for a magnum). If you are interested in bringing more than 3 bottles, please contact reservations@carbonelondon.com to coordinate with our team.”

Seventy-five pounds to have a waiter pull a cork. In most of London corkage runs between £15 and £35, and plenty of restaurants charge £25. At this level the fee is not really about service, it is a toll for displacing a bottle from their own list.

Note the practical half of that sentence too: more than three bottles needs arranging in advance by email. Turning up with a case is not a plan.

The logic only works if you are bringing something genuinely good. For a £40 bottle you are paying £115 to drink a £40 wine. For something from your cellar worth several hundred, £75 is reasonable.

A £50 per person deposit, forfeited after midday

The booking terms are stricter than almost any restaurant in London, and the deadline is earlier than you would guess.

“A £50 per person deposit is taken upon booking your reservation, and will be applied to your final bill at the restaurant.”

So a table for four means £200 taken upfront. It comes off the bill, so it is not an extra charge, but it is money gone from your account at the point of booking.

Then the cancellation rule:

“Cancellations after 12PM the day of your reservation will forfeit their deposit.”

Midday on the day. Not 24 hours, not two hours before. So if you have an 8pm dinner and cancel at 1pm, the £50 a head is gone. For four people that is £200 for a change of plan made seven hours ahead.

One redeeming detail, and it is unusual enough to mention: “a portion of the proceeds from these fees will be donated to StreetSmart, supporting vital work to help tackle homelessness in London.”

So the forfeited deposits part-fund a homelessness charity. That does not get your money back, but it is a better destination than most no-show fees.

Book only through them, or the table may not exist

An unusually firm warning, and it exists because tables here are resold.

“Reservations for Carbone can be made directly through our website, authorized reservation platforms, or by contacting our restaurant teams via email at reservations@carbonelondon.com. We cannot guarantee the validity of reservations made through any other channels and hereby disclaim all liability in connection with your use of unauthorized channels to book a reservation.”

Read “hereby disclaim all liability” as what it is: if you paid a broker for a Carbone table, Carbone is telling you in advance that they will not help you. If in doubt, email them and ask whether your booking is real.

This is the same pattern as Horizon 22 and Frameless: London’s most in-demand bookings attract resellers, and the venues all say the same thing.

The dress code is three specific bans

More useful than the usual “smart casual”, because it tells you exactly what will stop you at the door.

“Guests are encouraged to dress for the occasion. Any guest who does not appear sufficiently well-presented may be refused entry. No shorts, open-toed shoes, or tank tops.”

No shorts. No open-toed shoes, which rules out sandals for everyone, not just men. No tank tops.

And the catch-all above them: anyone not “sufficiently well-presented” may be refused. That is a judgement call made at the door, so the three named bans are the floor rather than the whole test.

It fits the room. Service captains wear burgundy tuxedos by Zac Posen.

Closed every afternoon between 2.30 and 5

Open seven days for both services, with a hard gap in the middle.

Lunch: Monday to Sunday, 12:00 to 14:30.

Dinner: Monday to Sunday, 17:00 to 22:00.

Two things follow. There is no late dinner: the kitchen’s last sitting is inside a window closing at 22:00, which is early for a Mayfair restaurant of this profile. And there is nothing between 14:30 and 17:00, so no late lunch and no pre-theatre drink here.

Lunch every day including Monday is the useful part. Many restaurants at this level do not open for lunch at the start of the week.

Carbone London is cashless.

What you are actually eating

Italian-American, played straight and played loud.

Carbone was founded in New York in 2013 by Mario Carbone, Jeff Zalaznick and Rich Torrisi, and honours the Italian restaurants of 1950s New York. The London site is its European debut.

The named dishes: Caesar alla ZZ, Octopus Pizzaiolo, Spicy Rigatoni Vodka, and Veal Parmesan.

Two of those are theatre rather than just food. The Caesar alla ZZ and the Dover Sole Piccata are prepared table-side, and dessert arrives as a performance: “ferried through the dining room on a grand tray so that guests can gaze upon the evening’s bounty before making their selections.”

The house philosophy is printed at the top of the menu as A Piacere, “As You Like It”, built around what they call the abbondanza, a spirit of over-the-top generosity.

The New York Times called it “a fancy red-sauce joint as directed by Quentin Tarantino”, and A.A. Gill wrote simply, “I love this place.”

The building, and the art on the walls

Worth knowing because the address has a history.

30 Grosvenor Square was once home to the American Embassy, which makes the arrival of a New York institution in the building a reasonably pointed piece of casting.

Interiors are by Ken Fulk, across two floors holding several dining rooms, cocktail lounges and a private dining suite, with velvet banquettes, mosaic tile and lacquered wood.

The art is curated by Vito Schnabel, and the list is serious: Rene Ricard, Rashid Johnson, Francesco Clemente, Ron Gorchov, Julian Schnabel, Rita Ackermann, Ai Weiwei, Angel Otero and Lola Montes.

An Ai Weiwei on the wall of a red-sauce restaurant is not something London had before.

Where it is

Carbone London, 30 Grosvenor Square, London W1K. Reservations and enquiries: reservations@carbonelondon.com.

Bond Street and Marble Arch are the nearest stations, with Green Park walkable.

Carbone is part of Major Food Group, which also runs THE GRILL, Dirty French, ZZ’s Club, Sadelle’s, Contessa, Parm and Torrisi, across more than fifty venues in fifteen cities.

How to plan it

Booking: £50 per person is taken upfront and comes off the bill.

Cancel before noon on the day, or the deposit is forfeited.

Book through carbonelondon.com or by email only. They disclaim liability for anything else.

Bringing wine: £75 a bottle, £150 a magnum, and email first if you want more than three.

Dress: no shorts, no open-toed shoes, no tank tops.

Lunch 12:00 to 14:30, dinner 17:00 to 22:00, seven days, with nothing in between.

No late dinner. Dinner service ends at 22:00.

Bring a card. The restaurant is cashless.

Order the Caesar alla ZZ or the Dover Sole if you want the table-side show.

Carbone London

Address

30 Grosvenor Square, London W1K

Nearest

Bond Street and Marble Arch, with Green Park walkable

Hours

Lunch Monday to Sunday 12:00 to 14:30, dinner Monday to Sunday 17:00 to 22:00, with no service between 14:30 and 17:00

Booking

Through carbonelondon.com, authorised reservation platforms, or reservations@carbonelondon.com only. The restaurant disclaims liability for bookings made through any other channel. Cancellations after 12pm on the day of the reservation forfeit the deposit

Price

A 50 pound per person deposit is taken at booking and applied to the final bill. Corkage is 75 pounds per 750ml bottle and 150 for a magnum

Standing

The European debut of the New York Italian-American institution founded in 2013 by Mario Carbone, Jeff Zalaznick and Rich Torrisi, in the Grosvenor Square building that once housed the American Embassy, with interiors by Ken Fulk and art curated by Vito Schnabel

How to get in

A 50 pound per person deposit is taken when booking and is forfeited on any cancellation after midday on the day of the reservation, with a portion of forfeited fees donated to the homelessness charity StreetSmart. Corkage is 75 pounds a bottle and 150 a magnum, and more than three bottles must be arranged by email in advance. The dress code bans shorts, open-toed shoes and tank tops, and anyone not sufficiently well-presented may be refused entry. The restaurant is cashless, and warns that it cannot guarantee reservations made through unauthorised channels.

Where to go next

Mayfair restaurants covers the rest of the area, and London dress codes covers what other rooms expect.

Italian restaurants in London cover the alternatives, and Rosewood London is the other room where the small print is worth reading first.

Questions we get asked

How much is corkage at Carbone London?

£75 per 750ml bottle and £150 for a magnum, which is several times the London norm of roughly £15 to £35. Bringing more than three bottles must be arranged in advance by emailing reservations@carbonelondon.com. The fee only makes sense for a genuinely good bottle: on a £40 wine you would be paying £115 to drink it.

Does Carbone London take a deposit?

Yes, £50 per person when you book, which is then applied to your final bill rather than charged on top. A table for four therefore means £200 taken upfront. Cancellations after 12pm on the day of the reservation forfeit the deposit entirely, and a portion of forfeited fees is donated to StreetSmart, a charity tackling homelessness in London.

What is the dress code at Carbone London?

No shorts, no open-toed shoes and no tank tops, stated explicitly. Beyond those three bans, the restaurant says guests are encouraged to dress for the occasion and that anyone who does not appear sufficiently well-presented may be refused entry, so the named items are a floor rather than the whole test.

What are Carbone London's opening hours?

Lunch runs 12:00 to 14:30 and dinner 17:00 to 22:00, seven days a week. There is no service between 14:30 and 17:00, so no late lunch, and dinner service ends at 22:00, which is early for a Mayfair restaurant of this profile. Lunch is served every day including Monday.

How do you book Carbone London?

Through carbonelondon.com, an authorised reservation platform, or by emailing reservations@carbonelondon.com. The restaurant states it cannot guarantee the validity of reservations made through any other channel and disclaims all liability for them, so if you have paid a broker for a table it is worth emailing to confirm the booking exists.

Where is Carbone London?

30 Grosvenor Square in Mayfair, in the building that once housed the American Embassy. Bond Street and Marble Arch are the nearest Underground stations, with Green Park within walking distance. It spans two floors designed by Ken Fulk, with several dining rooms, cocktail lounges and a private dining suite.