Word: batali
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...testa is far better than it sounds--like a fatty but delicately flavored sausage, topped with a little vinegar salad for bite. But is that really what passes for fine food in New York City? No, and that's Batali's point: he is serving dishes most fancy restaurants in the U.S. wouldn't dare to put before high-paying customers...
...does this for three reasons. One, most Babbo customers are rich Manhattanites spoiled by big hunks of filet mignon and Alaskan halibut. "Testa brings a depth you don't get by using the biggest, best cut of meat," Batali says. Two, as he says in his new show, Mario Eats Italy--shot on location in the motherland--Batali believes that the true basis of a lot of Italian cooking is poverty. Those who can't afford much don't waste something as precious as pig lips. Three, Batali thinks it's funny to serve headcheese for 10 bucks...
...Batali doesn't charge a fortune for his delectable meals. Though Babbo can easily set you back $60 a person before drinks, you can dine at his other two New York City restaurants, Esca and Lupa, for half that, which is cheap in Manhattan for top-notch meals. (One midtown restaurant offers a prix-fixe dinner...
...Batali has had offers to open ristorantes in other cities, and he may one day, but he doesn't like to be more than an hour from his kitchens. He and his business partner do have a wine shop in New York (the Italian Wine Merchant, of course). Next summer, he may open an ice-cream shop, where the servers will use a flat spatula, not a scoop, just as they do in Italy...
...regular guy, in other words, Batali can get pretty fussy. And he has a rather extravagant sense of the role cooking can play in our lives. In Holiday Food, he talks of his family's joy at coming together to chop and blanch and bake and consume. When he was a kid, he says, "any meals served at our house were mapped out at least a month in advance." To many home cooks who can barely heat up a pizza after a long day, Batali's heavenly kitchen may sound like hell...