For Carbone the man (and, one could argue, the restaurant), that story begins in a very Italian part of Queens, New York, where he grew up: on special occasions such as birthdays or first communions, his family would go to a restaurant called Park Side. “A lot of questionable people hung out in that area, and it was owned by a man named Tough Tony,” Carbone remembers fondly.

“We weren’t a family that was well off enough to just go on a Tuesday; there had to be a reason to go. So, whenever there was a celebration in our family, all I cared about was, ‘We’re going to Park Side. We’re eating good tonight’. As a 13-year-old, chubby Italian kid in Queens, it didn’t get better than that.”

Now that Carbone the restaurant has become a go-to venue for people celebrating life’s big moments, from birthdays to promotions and even marriage proposals, Carbone says, “When I look around the dining room at Carbone and see the birthdays, the singing, I directly associate dining out like that with celebration. I think back to growing up and celebrating at Park Side, and it all makes perfect sense.”

“What we do is intrinsically strange,” Hussain laments. “The stories that are so personal to us—from travel, from childhood memories—to recreate that in this format and share it with strangers night upon night is a strange and intimate thing that we do.” 

Hussain’s story is also one that comes full circle. In the mid-Nineties, when he returned to Hong Kong from boarding school in Pakistan every summer, he would work at his father’s restaurant, The Mughal Room on Wyndham Street, cleaning bathrooms and taking out the rubbish. It was also there that he had his first after-service beer— an important and defining rite of passage for anyone working in hospitality.

That same space on Wyndham Street is now Black Sheep Restaurant’s New Punjab Club—the world’s first Punjabi restaurant to win a Michelin star.

“The training started then; the seed was planted, and I didn’t even know it,” says Hussain. “It was in my blood and bones. I’m doing what I was born to do.”

Despite being continents apart, looking after their respective empires in Hong Kong and New York, Hussain and Carbone seem to have grown in the same direction both professionally and personally—a kind of kindred, long-distance symbiosis.

A decade ago, the pair were restless and hungry—“rattling the cage” was how Hussain described what they were doing in our first interview. 

Today, they’re still passionate, but also more grounded—less “rattle”, more intention and finesse.

“I’m trying to shift my focus onto things that have more gravitas and weight and value,” says Hussain, adding that before sitting down for our conversation, the pair played tennis in the morning and spent time with Hussain’s father. “I never used to take time for things like this before—but now I do. [Mario is] my brother; I want to hang out with him.”

“It takes us a while to realise there isn’t a finish line,” says Carbone, referring to his journey as a chef and restaurateur. “When you remove the idea that there is a destination you’re heading to, you realise the gift is the journey. There’s no tape you’re going to break at the end, because there is no end.”

Agreeing, Hussain adds, “I’m not as obsessed with the next stage of this journey any more. If someone told me ten years ago that I’d have over 40 restaurants in the best cities in the world, I’d say, ‘Sign me up now!’ But now that I’m here, I want to do things in a more meaningful manner.”

Carbone continues: “We’ve occupied the same boat from the beginning, which is a beautiful thing. We didn’t sign a deal to open in Hong Kong—we signed a deal to work with Black Sheep. We were on the exact same journey and we’ve always leaned on each other. There’s not a lot of colleagues we can really open up to like that.”

That bond—that trust—is ultimately what has made Carbone Hong Kong the success that it is today. “When Mario and I decided we were doing this, one thing he said to me is, make sure it’s a Hong Kong restaurant,” says Hussain.

And although much of the restaurant echoes its Thompson Street counterpart—the maximalist interiors, dizzying patterned floors and, of course, its signature spicy rigatoni vodka— Black Sheep has managed to make it uniquely its own. For example, the buttons in the banquettes in New York are NYPD buttons; at Carbone Hong Kong, they’ve used buttons from the Shanghai Police Department. Diners are also presented with the now famous “Jackcello”, a homemade limoncello brewed by Black Sheep’s beloved maître d’, Jack Gonsalves.

“It was important for us that we have references in the room that give a quiet nod to where and who we are,” says Hussain. “Carbone Hong Kong is a phenomenon, the same way Carbone New York is. For it to succeed the way it has, it can’t be a Disneyland copy of the Carbone on Thompson Street. What I’m proud of is that Mario gave me something that is his legacy—his name’s on the door—and not only have we looked after it, it’s flourishing.” 

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