Carbone's Iconic Spicy Vodka Sauce To Join Its Grocery Lineup - Sort Of
From the outside, Greenwich Village's Carbone Restaurant appears unassuming, like any other little Italian joint in New York City. Its neon moniker glows on top of the previous restaurant's sign that was never taken down. Although Carbone is strongly reminiscent of Italian American restaurants of the past (specifically the 1950s), it has gained a reputation as being the place to snag a coveted reservation in part due to the wildly popular spicy rigatoni pasta dish. If you want a taste of what has celebs like Rihanna, J-Lo, and basically all of the Kardashians swooning, you can now make the dish at home — as Carbone's spicy vodka sauce will soon be available to purchase.
A number of Carbone's jarred sauces are already sold on the Carbone Fine Food website and through Amazon including classic marinara, arrabbiata, and roasted garlic, but this will be the first time that spicy vodka is available outside of the restaurant. But, there is a catch if you are looking to recreate the iconic rigatoni that you'd find at Carbone. To get the creamy, ethereal sauce that coats their rigatoni like a dream, you're going to need to add cream, something the jarred sauce does not contain.
Add cream for the most authentic Carbone experience
Carbone's small batch spicy vodka sauce includes Italian tomatoes, onions, and Calabrian chili peppers, along with other simple, classic ingredients. Until now, the sauce, created by Carbone's founders Mario Carbone, Rich Torrisi, and Jeff Zalaznick, could only be sampled at the restaurant's four locations across the globe: New York City, Las Vegas, Miami, and Hong Kong. It would be delicious untouched in all kinds of pasta, over steak pizzaiola, or chicken parmesan. But if you want that restaurant experience, the jar label indicates that cream should be added. From there, you can add the sauce to rigatoni or your pasta of choice, but some pastas are better than others when it comes to clinging onto creamy sauces.
In a press release, Mario Carbone explained why this is like no other vodka sauce on the market, stating, "As I like to say, our process is beautifully simple, but impossibly difficult in creating a product of superior taste and quality."
The spicy vodka sauce will be available for purchase beginning in July along with the debut of Carbone's original and spicy pizza sauces, but don't expect to find them in stores initially; The jars will only be found on Carbone's food website and Amazon Prime.