What Have They Done To The Four Seasons?

The guys behind Carbone want to turn the place that invented the power lunch into an actual food destination.

- Eric Konigsberg

A few weeks ago, in an empty dining room of what used to be The Four Seasons restaurant, Jeff Zalaznick arrived late to a meeting with his business partners, the chefs Mario Carbone and Rich Torrisi. He was winded and his cheeks flushed beneath his beard. Normally, his attire consists of open-collared shirts, limited-edition Nikes, and drawstring pants. But today, he wore a blue Tom Ford suit. He had just been interviewed live on television, where he was asked to explain how their six-year-old restaurant group, which had given downtown New York no fewer than six meticulously orchestrated new destinations, with two Michelin stars among them and ten stars cumulatively from the New York Times, would remake one of America’s most historic restaurants.

For the past 20 months, the three young men—all are between 33 and 37—have begun work on the first floor of the Seagram Building on Park Avenue at 52nd Street, where, from 1959 until last summer, The Four Seasons had resided. Soon, the place will adopt the cumbersome title of the Landmark Rooms at the Seagram Building, and the famed Grill Room and Pool Room will be run as two separate restaurants, named the Grill and the Pool. The Grill, a retrospectively influenced chophouse with Continental flourishes, to be overseen by Carbone, will open in early April. The Pool, an inventive seafood restaurant under Torrisi’s direction, is expected to open this fall.