YERRR – the guys sat down with Mario Carbone to chop it up about the hustle behind building a restaurant empire. From old-school red sauce joints to celeb-packed hotspots, Mario breaks down the flavors, the business, and the pressure of keeping it all fresh. He talks about Michelin stars, wild celebrity dining stories, and why good hospitality is the real secret sauce. All that and more on this week’s episode of FLAGRANT. INDULGE.
00:00 Intro
00:37 Getting a reservation at Carbone? Greasing the right people
8:07 Quick Tip, Restaurants’ intel + Maitre Ds
13:18 Michelin Star Experiences
17:42 How much do waiters make at Carbone?
21:58 Politics in dining, Michelin Stars + Finding a good restaurant
26:25 The staff is banging each other
27:38 Can Michelin star be bought? Paying influencers
30:21 Sorry Justin Bieber! Scummiest PR move
33:01 Starting out + Power of the Review
41:51 Worst tipper? Tip 20%
46:31 Racial busboy harmony
48:51 Mexicans are the best
53:29 Sandwich Shop to Carbone + Getting a backer
1:00:34 Throwing a critic out + Respecting a negative review
1:04:51 Aiming for the old school + Torrisi’s super power
1:08:30 Relationships with celebs + Banned celebs
1:12:39 Rap mentioning Carbone
1:23:49 Rules to sending food back
1:24:46 Better Italian food in NYC than Italy
1:28:13 Getting people to leave + Not being kid friendly
1:32:22 Outside Dining, Maintaining Quality + Entrepreneurial
1:37:30 Too difficult to replicate, The Spicy Rig + Iconic dish
1:43:02 Biggest bomb + Secret menu
1:46:48 Pet peeves + Giant menus
1:54:21 Moving to Italy + New dining trends now
2:00:58 Pinnacle for a Chef + Rewarding talent
2:04:08 Best places in New York?
2:11:42 Judge an Italian restaurant? Underrated pork chops
2:14:44 Charging for Wine + Impressing a date
2:17:43 F1 Weekend in Miami
2:20:15 What’s next? + Performance + Obama protocol
2:25:24 Getting your flowers from the Older generation
2:27:18 Navigating Egos
2:30:14 Why is New York the greatest city in the world?
2:31:41 Next generation coming through + Tariffs impacting
2:34:44 Being proud of heritage + Assimilation
36 Comments
2:22:09 Ricky the goat.
50:26 holy shit bro please get some sleep
Possibly Schulz best interview
This should be the new bar for Flagrant. Amazing unique and fun insight into culture.
Accepting a cigar and putting it away for whatever is so cringe, if you accept a cigar fucking smoke it. Props to Akash for not accepting
Carbone is one of the most overrated restaurants I’ve visited. Food was not better than any mid-tier Italian American restaurant in a big city. Very overpriced and this guy’s arrogance and attitude towards customers… “can’t just let randoms in” …is frankly disgusting. Michelin stars are nonsense to him because his restaurant will never get one….because it just isn’t that good 😂.
New rich love carbone. Wealthy people don’t even know where it is.
His reference for Michelin star inspectors is a disney movie. 😅😅😅😅
"They can't get a reservation up at Carbone's. Telling you how they'd rather stay home " 😅
What a cracker of a podcast. Absolutely fascinating – Also a point you mentioned about Europe and how relaxed we seem about life. We get free healthcare and don’t get charged lots of money for saying having a child. In America sadly you do which makes you have to work harder for everything. In Ireland we work a lot harder than Spain, Italy and our life balance isn’t as good as its very expensive here.
Greattt content as a waiter myself
Always good when you barf over the rtrd guest and not just the usual horrid fake laughter.
OMG the cackle bot guy is an actual comedian? I can't even imagine how bad that is. Whole rooom just drooling. Can't be much worse than Shultz I guess.
How many rtrd d bags does it take to make the fakest lamest podcast on ytube?
One question: What watch is Mario wearing? 1:43:02
One of the best interviews – that was a great dialogue.
cool Episode
Mario Carbone is an excellent guest. But the ensemble cast still doesn’t gel well with Shultz. They need to sync better and execute their role more in harmony. It’s awkward when the other guys ask non sequitors and when they don’t vibe.
So you can just walk into Carbone, one of the nicest restaurants in NYC/the world, all dressed up, and holding 2 cases of bud heavies? And they will let you walk in with it? What if I didn’t bring it to the kitchen? No way they allow this or someone would ever do it.
Imagine doing that?
White trash city, this is not a real thing at Carbone
I remember him from “mind of a chef “ and “ugly delicious “ with David Chang. They have some beef over who invented pasta, the Chinese of the Italians😂
Imagine picking up date, your dressed in a great suit, been waiting months for this res, and you pick her up
With 2 cases of bud heavies in the back seat?
“Wtf are you doing, are you bringing that into the restaurant?”
“It’s fine babe, have you listened to Flagrant with Schultz”
Getting paid 6 figures at a restaurant is rare most restaurant should pay they waiters good and you’ll see how long they stay
guys, this is a great show, but if you ask question about best restaurants in New York for tourists, it will be really nice to put names and links below, very hard to catch names and even harder to find it online, or we all like Andrew will be eating in Noz
first things first, it was a very interesting episode. Second, F your beers, F your hostess, and F your 20% minimum tip. I am not bringing any beers just to sit and overpay for my food, I dont care about your hostess's attitude and I am not gonna tell you "I just have 40 mins – Plz let me sit down for a few mins and overpay for my food". Also, 20% minimum tip? I dont think the italians were paying 20% tip when you worked in Italy buddy.. This is getting ridiculous.
I'm pretty poor and enjoyed this throughly. Thanks fellas
The ignorance is real in the US, holy crap
that slavery line was crazy funny🤣🤣
I thought this was a comedy podcast
If you go to a restaurant because of some influencer I’m gonna avoid it. Some skinny gen z tells me that it’s the best place I’m gonna go to the next place.
If you drop a case of beer (30$) to the kitchen, you'll get an entrée (5$) lol
1:25:16 You will not find better Hungarian Cuisine anywhere else outside the heart of Hungary. Regarded as one of the best cuisines in the world, and extremely difficult to replicate the quality of it.
Hey Schultz, intellectually deconstruct this; why do I have to listen to 10 f-ing ads when I’m already paying for ad free YT premium?
Loved this episode.. and I get that you run ads for revenue, but the amount of ads on here is ridiculous!
Remember when they used to host comedians?
they need to reign this in a bit. too scattered. too many people talking. too many attempts at off colored jokes that aren't funny and put a guest in a bad spot. get some stories out of this guy. all these scattered questions – they're not bad – but it feels messy
im fast forwarding past akash