Carbone's Dirty French Opens With Modern French Menu

One of the most anticipated restaurant openings this fall, Dirty French, is Jeff Zalaznick, Mario Carbone and Rich Torrisi's newest project.  It just opened its doors for the first time last night at Sean Macpherson's new Ludlow Hotel at Ludlow and Houston. This is the Parm team's first venture into French restaurant territory, having first wooed the New York culinary crowd with decadent (and expensive) chicken parmesan.  

The atmosphere is much like a classic French bistro with banquettes and chandeliers, mixed with the charm of the Lower East Side.  The menu — as the restaurant's name implies — takes a stab at updating familiar French fare, and is full of tartars and rotisseries.

The full menu can be viewed here, but some highlights include a tuna tartare with piri piri sauce and a crepe, as well as lamb carpaccio with yogurt and pita for hors d'oeuvres (just from the starters, you can see that the Carbone team isn't too strict with the idea of a French restaurant). The restaurant offers a wide variety of fish options like porgy with green tomato and Cajun spices, as well as what may be the menu's rising star: the rotisserie. Here, meat-lovers will swoon over the lamb saddle with cumin, or the classic duck à l'orange.

If you're wondering why Major Food Group turned to French food, Rich Torrisi was actually trained under chef Daniel Boulud, so his background was bound to come out sooner or later.

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Joanna Fantozzi is an Associate Editor with The Daily Meal. Follow her on Twitter@JoannaFantozzi