Jeff Zalaznick.
Jeff Zalaznick
Managing Partner at Major Food Group
In April, Jeff Zalaznick was in South Beach to celebrate the opening of the new edition of his firm’s naughty French steakhouse, Dirty French.
It was the 17th restaurant he’d opened in 16 months. “No one has done that,” Zalaznick said. “And they’re all quite significant.”
The managing partner of restaurant group Major Food Group started off that astounding run with the opening of the firm’s signature Carbone, also in Miami Beach, in January 2021. It was perfectly timed to kick off the exodus of New Yorkers — along with their companies, capital and go-to restaurants — to sunny South Florida as the pandemic peaked. It also indicated Major Food Group’s ambitions to expand far beyond its home base of New York City.
In between those two openings, there were a lot of firsts.
Major Food Group opened its first coffee shop in their brunch-concept Sadelle’s; partnered with the Israeli chef of HaSalon; expanded to Dallas; opened Contessa in Boston; premiered its first member-only club with ZZ’s; collabed with Kith in Paris and built an entire private supper club at Miami’s first Formula 1 Grand Prix to host an “over-the-top bacchanalia.”
On top of all that, Zalaznick partnered with developer Michael Stern of JDS Development to plan the tallest condo building in Miami, to be branded MAJOR. The condo building is part of Zalaznick’s strategy to expand Major Food Group’s signature style into hospitality. The partnership at the Newbury Hotel in Boston, where Major Food Group was responsible for all the food and beverage and amenity spaces, was the first step. Major Food Group is also a partner on the makeover of the venerable Boca Raton Resort & Club, where it’s helming four of 12 restaurants.
While Zalaznick, a scion of the Milstein real estate dynasty, and his two partners, chefs Mario Carbone and Rich Torrisi, have set their sights on global domination, they will soon be returning to their roots in Lower Manhattan to reopen Torrisi — the restaurant that started it all — this fall.
Every new project is a chance to innovate and learn from the past, the two things Major Food Group does best. Like at South Beach’s Dirty French. “I’ll always love the original bistro, but this is a whole different animal,” Zalaznick said. “We thought we built a bistro but we really built a great steakhouse.”
