Mario Batali
Mario Batali
Mario Francesco Batali is an American chef, writer, restaurateur, and media personality. In addition to his classical culinary training, he is an expert on the history and culture of Italian cuisine, including regional and local variations. Batali co-owns restaurants in New York City, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Singapore, Hong Kong, Westport, Connecticut and New Haven, Connecticut Batali's signature clothing style includes a fleece vest, shorts and orange Crocs. He is also known as "Molto Mario"...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionChef
Date of Birth19 September 1960
CitySeattle, WA
CountryUnited States of America
When I was a cook and 24 years old... I read the kinds of books that were the inspiration to understanding the value of simplicity in cooking.
Working at the Food Bank with my kids is an eye-opener. The face of hunger isn't the bum on the street drinking Sterno; it's the working poor. They don't look any different, they don't behave any differently, they're not really any less educated. They are incredibly less privileged, and that's it.
When I go out to a restaurant, I definitely order dishes that I know take either a long time to make or are difficult to source. Unless it's a really special steak, there's no reason for me to go out and eat that.
A lot of these people I'm traveling around the country and meeting speak Italian at the house. Third- or fourth-generation, and they're still speaking Italian.
This is what we think is missing in New York City. A luxurious and comfortable Italian restaurant expressing everything we know about Italian culture in a slightly rarefied atmosphere. The food is to be elegant and simple without losing the essential heart of the Italian purity. As a gastronomic experience it's everything I have to offer.
As far as TV, I have a new show... It's me traveling around to Italian-American families and enclaves throughout the States and learning about the dishes and ingredients that these people love.
This is food that can be made at home without too much shopping,
The whole concept of the supremacy of the family unit in the Italian culture... That's all based on the relation of the mom and the children and the bambino.
Some things are being destroyed, because the Italians are just as tired of their basic food as the Americans and French were 20 years ago. So they're reinventing to avoid palate exhaustion.
D.C. is a complicated market that I don't understand very well. The restaurant business is a slippery slope, and it gathers speed very quickly when it's going downhill.
Think of the cooking of the Southwest: Arizona, anything on the border of Mexico, the rich chili culture, the unbelievable stews.
Think of American food. In my generation, growing up in the '60s and '70s, Banquet Fried Chicken and TV dinners were the thing. Now people are back into roasting their own chickens, and TV dinners are a point of kitsch. It will be interesting to see what survives another hundred years.
Just because you eat doesn't mean you eat smart. It's hard to beat a $1.99 wing pack of three at a fast-food restaurant - it's so cheap - but that wing pack isn't feeding anyone, it's just pushing hunger back an hour.
Kids today want to eat their risotto with curry and shrimp and sour cream, not risotto alla Milanese, like they should, in my opinion.