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 talk about a great dish, I often get goose bumps. I'm like, whoa, I'll never forget that one. The Italians are just like that. It's not all about food. It's part of the memory.
I like the history of the Daytona 500. It's like the Kentucky Derby of car racing.
I just was introduced to the writings of Lucius Beebe, and I'm going to read him.
They have what's called the cooking school bloc, which is in the afternoon between 1 and 5. It will be interesting to see how my show, which is travel and food tied together, goes across America.
Nothing that would be as artistic as any of the four restaurants I have in the city. If I was to do anything in Las Vegas, for instance, it would have to be... idiot-proof. And I still haven't decided if I'm capable of that.
I'm not gonna tell anybody but of course I'm worried. I'm working every hour of every day. This is my main event.
If neither of the two parties are happy, then you have a closed restaurant. And if only one of the two groups is happy, you have one that will close. So, to create an opportunity for both the customers and the staff to have a superior experience is my constant struggle.
I lived in San Francisco from '84 to '88.
I like things that are fun, and I look to do them a lot, and that I have the opportunities to do them makes me a lucky guy.
The minimum time spent in any one restaurant should be a year, no matter what. You may feel that you're done earlier, but it's truly in a year that you learn the discipline and technical things you need to know about a particular restaurant.
It used to be that you would go out to the theater and get a bite or you would go to the game and get a bite or go to the concert and get a bite. At this point in our society, the bite is often the main event.
It will certainly be controversial for a couple of weeks, ... With that few restaurants in the two-star category, people will not take it seriously.
The reason that I developed the style of talking about the historical use of these ingredients is because after I've cut an onion 10 times, I can't tell you to cut an onion again.
Cooking in France and Italy has a particular high resonance, and it's hard to say how or why it developed other than that they've been smarter and there longer.