45years behind the stoveChef & owner
Mike Cordero
Carbonara is the Cordero family’s cooking, carried down from New York City and set down in Virginia — handmade pasta, a forty-year-old meatball recipe, and old-school Italian technique practised rather than remembered.
Chef Cordero has forty-five years behind the stove and a reputation in the DMV as a trailblazer. What comes out of his kitchen is the food he grew up on: Clams Oreganata, Nona’s meatballs finished in Sunday sauce, Gnocchi della Mamma, the Chicken Parmigiana the room is known for.
Wilson Boulevard is the room he opened first, in 2023, and the one Yelp went on to name among the twenty-five best new restaurants in the country.
Written up in
- The Washington Post
- The Washington Times
- USA Today
“Rated Best New Restaurant”
One of Yelp's Top 25 Best New Restaurants in the country
The kitchen
Clarendon, Arlington
Carbonara is a tribute to authentic Italian cooking, carried down through the Cordero family from New York City. The kitchen is built around handmade pasta and the practice of old-school Italian technique — Clams Oreganata, Chicken Cutlet Parmigiana, Gnocchi della Mamma, Shrimp Scampi.
The room borrows from the Italian restaurants of old New York: rustic at the edges, contemporary in the middle, loud in the right way. An exquisite wine bar sits alongside it, curated to hold up to the food rather than sit politely beside it.
Chef Mike Cordero has forty-five years behind the stove and a reputation in the DMV as a trailblazer. His cooking at Carbonara has been written up in the Washington Times, the Washington Post and USA Today.
The room
Inside Arlington
A patio under the awning on Wilson Boulevard, a wine wall down the length of the dining room, and a bar built to be sat at on its own.
The corner entrance of Carbonara Arlington, with its striped awning and the patio alongside
The patio at Carbonara Arlington — bistro chairs and a red umbrella under the awning
The wine wall at Carbonara Arlington — bottles racked floor to ceiling beside the banquette
The bar at Carbonara Arlington, under a suspended brass rack of wine bottles
The long centre table at Carbonara Arlington, with the meat slicer on the counter beside it
Tables and booths at Carbonara Arlington, beside the mural on the far wall
Banquette seating at Carbonara Arlington in front of the lit wine racks
In the press
“Rated Best New Restaurant”
One of Yelp's Top 25 Best New Restaurants in the country
Read the coverage