As far as I'm concerned it's never too early to crank up the grill, no matter where you live. I went to college in Iowa, and I have fond memories of grilling hamburgers and hot dogs in January wearing a ski parka. So grilling in April is a piece of cake, or should I say a piece of meat, to me. Starting this week we're going to bring you grilling tips from some of the biggest names in cooking. Batting lead-off for our brigade of grill-mad chefs is Mario Batali. His Italian Grill is a worthy addition to any serious griller's library.
Mario Batali and Tony Bourdain are a couple of champion fat chewers who know and like and respect each other a great deal, so we thought why not bring them together for the next set of Chewing the Fat episodes.
Mario Batali and Anthony Bourdain discuss what they like to order then they eat out at restaurants and the tastiest cuts of meat. What does this have to do with Paris Hilton? Watch the video to find out.
The new season of Tony's show No Reservations airs Mondays at 10 p.m. ET on the Travel Channel. Mario's show, Spain...On the Road Again, co-starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Mark Bittman, continues on PBS.
Mario Batali and Tony Bourdain are a couple of champion fat chewers who know and like and respect each other a great deal, so we thought why not bring them together for the next set of Chewing the Fat episodes.
Mario Batali and Anthony Bourdain might not agree on much, but they do agree on their ideal final bites.
The new season of Tony's show No Reservations airs Mondays at 10 p.m. ET on the Travel Channel. Mario's show, Spain...On the Road Again, co-starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Mark Bittman, continues on PBS.
Mario Batali and Tony Bourdain are a couple of champion fat chewers who know and like and respect each other a great deal, so we thought why not bring them together for the next set of Chewing the Fat episodes.
Mario Batali and Anthony Bourdain discuss music in restaurants (a topic we've discussed with Batali before), and their own music abilities (or lack of). Batali's air guitar is not to be missed.
The new season of Tony's show No Reservations airs Mondays at 10 p.m. ET on the Travel Channel. Mario's show, Spain...On the Road Again, co-starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Mark Bittman, continues on PBS.
Mario Batali and Tony Bourdain are a couple of champion fat chewers who know and like and respect each other a great deal, so we thought why not bring them together for the next set of Chewing the Fat episodes.
Mario Batali and Anthony Bourdain discuss their four essential ingredients. What are yours?
The new season of Tony's show No Reservations airs Mondays at 10 p.m. ET on the Travel Channel. Mario's show, Spain...On the Road Again, co-starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Mark Bittman, continues on PBS.
Mario Batali and Tony Bourdain are a couple of champion fat chewers who know and like and respect each other a great deal, so we thought why not bring them together for the next set of Chewing the Fat episodes.
Bourdain talks about some of the job hazards of shooting No Reservations, like eating "the last foot of poop chute of a wart hog," served medium-rare and "seven-foot long guinea worms."
The new season of Tony's show No Reservations airs Mondays at 10 p.m. ET on the Travel Channel. Mario's show, Spain...On the Road Again, co-starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Mark Bittman, continues on PBS.
Mario Batali and Tony Bourdain are a couple of champion fat chewers who know and like and respect each other a great deal, so we thought why not bring them together for the next set of Chewing the Fat episodes.
Food and Sex: Church and State? Batali and Bourdain discuss. What say you, serious eaters? [Possibly NSFW conversation after the jump].
The new season of Tony's show No Reservations airs Mondays at 10 p.m. ET on the Travel Channel. Mario's show, Spain...On the Road Again, co-starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Mark Bittman, continues on PBS.
Mario Batali and Tony Bourdain are a couple of champion fat chewers who know and like and respect each other a great deal, so we thought why not bring them together for the next set of Chewing the Fat episodes.
So what kind of delicious eats does a dad like Tony Bourdain raise his baby daughter on? Find out in this week's webisode. We'll give you a hint: wild boar is on the menu, horse meat is not.
The new season of Tony's show No Reservations airs Mondays at 10 p.m. ET on the Travel Channel. Mario's show, Spain...On the Road Again, co-starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Mark Bittman, continues on PBS.
Mario Batali and Tony Bourdain are a couple of champion fat chewers who know and like and respect each other a great deal, so we thought why not bring them together for the next set of Chewing the Fat episodes. Over a glass of wine and some tasty nibbles Mario and Tony discuss everything from the pleasures of fatherhood to what they would eat for their last supper. They truly enjoy each other's company, and their conversation turns out to be revealing, intimate, and surprisingly moving. The first webisode finds Mario getting Tony to admit that the birth of his daughter has forever changed him.
The new season of Tony's show No Reservations begins January 5th at 10 p.m. ET on the Travel Channel, so consider these Chewing the Fat episodes to be an appetizer for that. Mario's show, Spain...On the Road Again, co-starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Mark Bittman, continues on PBS.
As a part of our Celebrity Chefs Holiday series, some of America's best-known chefs and food television personalities share their favorite holiday dishes, provide recipes for them, and even tell us who will be at their holiday tables. Today we talk to Mario Batali.
What's your favorite part of the Thanksgiving meal and why? I love the stuffing and the gravy, they represent the most personal components of the meal. I don't think I'm alone in this regard. Doesn't everyone love stuffing and gravy?
What are you doing for Thanksgiving this year? Who's going to be there? What is the menu going to be? We're going to my sister-in-law's house with my wife Susi's family. I do not know the menu. It's really fun to go to somebody else's house and just enjoy the holiday.
Could you share a favorite Thanksgiving recipe with the Serious Eats community? My Goat Cheese Truffle recipe. It's good any time of the year, but somehow it just feels right to serve it at Thanksgiving.
Mario Batali and Masaharu Morimoto will be in the upcoming video game Iron Chef America: Supreme Cuisine for Nintendo Wii and DS. Eater has the full press release from the video game developer Destineer with quotes from the soon-to-be-digitized star chefs:
"I’m delighted to be involved with Iron Chef America: Supreme Cuisine," said Chef Batali. "My video game counterpart is as passionate and competitive in the virtual Kitchen Stadium as I am in real life, and I think the participation of Chef Morimoto and I adds a great level of authenticity to the game.
Adds Chef Morimoto: "Having been an Iron Chef in both Japan and America, I am pleased to partake in another exciting frontier – video games! Hopefully Iron Chef: Supreme Cuisine can inspire a new generation of great chefs."
Judging from the video game's box design, we can look forward to Cat Cora and Alton Brown in the game as well.
Mo Rocca interviews Mario Batali in a park in New York City's Chinatown as they grill recipes from his latest book, Mario Batali Italian Grill, touching upon the subjects of convection heat and prehistoric grilling. They attempt to give free samples of their grilled shrimp to the park goers, but don't get many takers. Watch the video, after the jump.
Memorial Day weekend is all about grilling. This Friday, all over America, home cooks will dig barbecue tongs, forks, and spatulas out of their kitchen drawers, and wheel dusty Webers out of their garages. Supermarkets will set up mountainous displays of charcoal, only to sell out in minutes, along with shrink-wrapped hot dogs, sacks of hamburger buns, and economy-sized bags of chips. Not to mention six-packs of beer.
Memorial Day food isn't fussy or fancy. (This isn't the time to break out your new Kugelhopf pan, or test a recipe for salmon mousse canapés.) Instead, when the flames fire up and the iron grate starts to sizzle, people want to heap their paper plates full of food with big, bold flavors. Who better to look to for menu suggestions than bad-boy celebrity chef Mario Batali?
In his new cookbook, Mario Batali Italian Grill, Batali offers up eighty recipes for appetizers, pizzas, fish and shellfish, poutry, meat, and vegetables, plus sixty full-color photographs. Italian grilling isn't about thick barbecue sauces and heavy basting; instead, the flavors are light, but they still pack a punch (think good olive oil, red wine, garlic, chili flakes, citrus, and fresh herbs).
Win Mario's Book or a Chance to Tailgate with Mario
If you'd like a chance to win to tailgate with Mario at the Texas Motor Speedway on November 2, visit this page and submit your grilling recipe and video demonstration of it. Grand prize winner will grill with Mario and grab two VIP tickets to the Dickies 500 race in Fort Worth.
In addition to that, you can enter to win one of five copies of Mario Batali Italian Grill from Serious Eats for your own backyard library. Just tell us here on this post what your favorite grilling condiment is and why.
Spain...On the Road Again is an upcoming PBS series documenting Mario Batali during his four month-long eating spree through Spain with a few of his friends. Maybe you've heard of them: actress Gwyneth Paltrow, food writer Mark Bittman, and Spanish actress Claudia Bassols. Take at peek at their fooding adventures with this four and a half minute montage of their travels. The full series will air in September.
I asked Mario for any recommendations on what to cook for Mother's Day this year and whether we could get a recipe for whatever it was. He shot back with a meat-centric menu that featured spit-roasted prime rib, focaccina with provolone and scallions, and asparagus wrapped in pancetta with citronette. Mario called this "a perfect meal." The asparagus recipe is easy and would make a great Mother's Day brunch dish served with some crusty bread or some breadsticks.
Mario Batali made the braciole from his new book, Italian Grill, on Jimmy Kimmel's show last night. Kimmel did indicate he knew his braciole. "I'm from Brooklyn," he said. That, Mario said, is known as "Western Italy." The whole exchange, after the jump.
Two weeks ago I ate dinner at Mario Batali's Babbo with Tina Wong (aka The Wandering Eater) and two of our friends for a indulgent night resulting in food comas all around. If you've thought about going but have yet to make the month-in-advance reservation, read Tina's food porn-laden review and you'll probably change your mind.
I have yet to write my review, but we're already making plans to go back, if that's any indication. My perfectly valid reason is that since we didn't have enough time to eat dessert, our meal wasn't complete. Also, I really want another bite of one of their pig’s foot “Milanese”, one of the most heavenly slabs of fat I've ever eaten.
Posted by Mario Batali, February 12, 2008 at 1:15 PM
This year for Valentine's Day, I'm taking my kids and wife, Susi, out for our traditional fondue fest at Artisanal. We all send Susi a dozen wacky flowers (never roses—way too common), and then it's out for the first seating at 5:30 p.m. for some cheese and chocolate, and then home early!
My ideal menu celebrates the most mysterious and romantic town of Italia—Venezia—and is based on Carnevale, which always falls near, and sometimes overlaps, with Valentine's Day. The celebration is simple and based on seafood and birds from the Venetian lagoon—or the closest lagoon to you.
Posted by Mario Batali, January 30, 2008 at 4:40 PM
For the Super Bowl, I love to serve what I call "team icon food"—classics
from the hometowns of the playing teams. It's especially exciting this year, as New York
and Beantown have great options.
Here's my menu and timing, from pre- to post-game. Feel free to use it yourself. If you are going to do this at home, remember to keep the portions small—it's easy to have way too much food, and quarters don't last that long.
Posted by Mario Batali, December 25, 2007 at 9:00 AM
On Christmas morning, we wake up at 8, light the fire, open presents, and eat lightly: clementines, Marchesi panettone from gustiamo.com (which will become your only panettone once you taste it), and scrambled eggs with white truffles. Lunch really does not happen, but I fire up the pizza oven as we head out to ski.
For dinner we go to the American South for inspiration. I put a ham from Nodines with cloves and a brown sugar glaze in the slow wood oven and steal the rest from the Lee Brothers' excellent cookbook; we eat black eyed peas, collard greens, biscuits with black truffle honey from Otto and then finish with a selection of chocolate gifts from my friend Katrina at Vosges Haut-Chocolate and some cool confections from Camilo de Blas in Oviedo, Spain, including glazed hazelnuts, tiny bitter chocolate creams, and a bottle of orujo de hierbas to burn the path clear.
The rest of the week is devoted to football, ping pong, and snow activities with the boys.
Posted by Mario Batali, November 6, 2007 at 2:30 PM
Music in Mario Batali's restaurants is anything but an afterthought. Find out how he likes to pair pasta and rock and roll in this episode of Unclogged. —Ed
Posted by Mario Batali, October 30, 2007 at 1:45 PM
About Mario: Mario Batali has created a thriving restaurant empire and has established himself as a top restaurateur. Together with his partner, Joe Bastianich, he operates seven New York City hotspots. Mario splits his time between New York City's Greenwich Village and northern Michigan with his wife, Susan Cahn, of Coach Dairy Goat Farm, and their two sons. More Mario: mariobatali.com.
Posted by Mario Batali, October 23, 2007 at 11:00 AM
Want to know what happened when Mario Batali, Serious Eats' Irresistible Force, collided with the culinary world's Immovable Object, Marco Pierre White, over a hotel pan full of risotto? Find out today in episode 2 of Mario Unclogged. —Ed
About Mario: Mario Batali has created a thriving restaurant empire and has established himself as a top restaurateur. Together with his partner, Joe Bastianich, he operates seven New York City hotspots. Mario splits his time between New York City's Greenwich Village and northern Michigan with his wife, Susan Cahn, of Coach Dairy Goat Farm, and their two sons. More Mario: mariobatali.com.
Posted by Mario Batali, October 16, 2007 at 4:15 AM
Editor's note: When we thought of who we wanted to star in Serious Eats' first regular video series, Mario Batali's name kept coming up over and over again. Why? He's funny, passionate, generously spirited, smart as hell, and a great cook. So we hope you'll enjoy Unclogged, Mario Batali as you've never seen him before. —Ed Levine
The Takeaway
Mario says:
"What you want to eat when you eat a bowl of pasta ... is pasta."
"The way that they refer to their sauce in Italy is condimento—condiment—and when you think about a hot dog or hamburger, the condiment is something that kind of greases it up, but it never overtakes the main event of the hot dog or the hamburger."
"Americans overdress their pasta 99.9 percent of the time. It should never be a bowl of soup. It should be noodles, with a little stuff."
About Mario: Mario Batali has created a thriving restaurant empire and has established himself as a top restaurateur. Together with his partner, Joe Bastianich, he operates seven New York City hotspots. Mario splits his time between New York City's Greenwich Village and northern Michigan with his wife, Susan Cahn, of Coach Dairy Goat Farm, and their two sons. More Mario: mariobatali.com.
Posted by Mario Batali, October 9, 2007 at 2:45 PM
Ah, prosciutto di Parma,prosciutto di San Daniele, and prosciutto di Carpegna: three hams from three places, each with its distinct flavor and yet similar technique. In each locale, the hams are salted for 30 to 45 days and then hung in the vaulted rooms and halls to cure for as little as 400 days and as much as 3 years to achieve the delicate balance of pure porcine pleasure and the fragrance of the wind and the dew of the specific geography.
I have always found the sweetest hams to come from Friuli, (prosciutto di San Daniele), where I think that the cooler climate allows them the use of a little less salt (in fact, the only ingredient other than the pig's leg).
Parma (and its Langhirano hills) is the home of those eponymous hams that are perhaps the most famous in the world. Their specific flavors are a result of their exposure to winds blown down the valleys off the Tyrrhenian Sea from Liguria, and they help create a complex perfume unique to prosciutto di Parma.
Carpegna hams from the Pesaro Urbino region of Le Marche are perhaps the most rich and porky in flavor, a tad drier in younger ages (not a bad thing), and hard to find—legally—in the U.S.
Posted by Adam Kuban, September 20, 2007 at 4:00 PM
This ain't news, people, but one of the neat and fun things about the internet is seeing how something—a meme, a scandal, or, in this case, a recipe—spreads over the series of tubes.
Last week, Mario Batalishared a chicken-with-green-sauce recipe with us that he picked up from his kids' babysitter. It was so easy and delicious-sounding that everyone in the office printed it out or bookmarked it or what not. And, judging by the comments on that recipe, many of you did, too, with at least two Serious Eaters (JerzeeTomato and LunaPierCook) reporting that they made it.
Posted by Mario Batali, September 18, 2007 at 1:00 PM
I was in Seattle for a funeral—a crappy one—one for an 18-year-old nephew. Went to the potluck and did not eat, headed out to the hotel, and stopped into a new place called the Steelhead Diner just off of 1st Avenue near Pike Place Market.
It ruled. Real dungeness crab cake with the big pieces of crab and no visible filler, served with sauce Louis from the '50s, but perfect. A plate of my dad's bresaola, perfectly sliced, dressed with great olive oil and fresh peaches. Wow ... fuck figs.
Posted by Adam Kuban, September 7, 2007 at 1:00 PM
ABCNews.com digs a little deeper into the story about Mario Batali's relationship with the Food Network. Serious Eats' own Ed Levine is quoted:
"Food Network has made a sharp turn away from celebrity chefs," he said. "They're not featuring great chefs; instead, they're creating their own stars out of good home cooks like Giatta [sic] De Laurentiis and Rachael Ray."
I just talked to Mario Batali, and he tells me that what's reported in the New York Post about his leaving Iron Chef America is incorrect and that he's actually shooting two episodes of the show next week.
"He said that if his shows weren't going to be renewed, then he wasn't going to do 'Iron Chef,' " said a network insider. "And then they essentially said 'ciao.' "
[Playwright Arthur] Miller's dream of an egalitarian system for criticism—a system that "would broaden the public's awareness of how fictional, rather than a matter of plain fact, all criticism really is, which is to say, how subjective"—is being realized today, at least in the food world, with food blogs. Because of our varying voices, our palpable passions, and—most important—our lack of editorial control, we are the distant drums in the distance growing closer and closer, our torches waving, our laptops poised for posting. Mario will disagree, but I think food blogs are the best thing to happen to food journalism in a long time. To quote a friend and mentor: we are the future.
The standing room only, overflow crowd at Borders at the Time Warner Center in New York City was eagerly awaiting the arrival of their foodie heroes: Anthony Bourdain, Mario Batali, and Marco Pierre White. White, who was in the U.S. to promote his moving, fascinating, and very British memoir, The Devil in the Kitchen. I imagine it was the same way last year when Cream—Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, and Ginger Baker—reunited for a tour.
I love the looks of the Mario Batali Pizza Set by kitchenware manufacturer Copco, with its orange colorway to match Batali's famous ponytail and clogs, and I'm sure it makes great pizza, but who's the target market for a kit like this when it's priced at $169.95—and used to cost $63.50 more?
Serious cooks will already have most of the equipment in there and the ones they don't, well—Batali's pizza cutter is well-regarded, available without the kit and affordable at $14.95, and how many people do you know who want a garlic slicer?—and it's an expensive investment that might not pay off if you don't already know your way around the kitchen, or if you're buying it for someone else who doesn't. So whom do you give it to? College graduates moving into their first apartments? Newlyweds? People with really big kitchens? [via Uncrate]
How could I resist this invitation (right), which gave no hint of what was to come yesterday around lunchtime?
Mario Batali serving roast pig, which, from a previous appearance at his house in northern Michigan, I knew I would enjoy immensely. Dave Pasternack from New York City's Esca roasting and grilling octopus, which I knew from co-writing his about-to-come-out cookbook, was just about the most delicious tentacled morsel of food you could eat. And the hospitality of Batali partner Joe Bastianich, who apparently lives large on a few acres of prime real estate in suburban Connecticut.
The first mistake I made was emailing Mario to see if he was really leaving Del Posto at 10 in the morning to go to the party. I had previously e-mailed him asking if I could get a ride to the event.
I have eaten in Mario Batali's restaurants perhaps a hundred times (and had at least very good meals 95 times), but I was extremely skeptical when I heard he was putting his name, complete with photo, on a line of General Mills frozen pasta dinners called Mario Batali's Regional Recipes, which will be sold initially at club stores like Sam's, BJ's, and Costco. So when we received some samples at Serious Eats world headquarters I volunteered to be the first guinea pig.
Turns out our Megnut's secret celebrity crush, Jake Gyllenhaal, isn't just your run-of-the-mill movie star-turned-foodie—he's also a friend of Mario Batali! YumSugar just put up clips of him, his actress sister Maggie Gyllenhaal, and their screenwriter mom Naomi guesting on two episodes of Molto Mario from 2003. YumSugar's two favorite bits:
Seattleites and fans of cured meat everywhere: Armandino Batali has retired from his acclaimed retirement project Salumi, leaving day-to-day operations in the hands of his daughter Gina Batali and her husband Brian D'Amato, who've technically been running and making the meats since 2005. Since then, "she's trained more staff and tried to improve the efficiency and minimize the wait time in a line that often snakes around the corner of the building on Third Avenue South, between South Main and South Jackson streets. "Of course, we don't want to be too efficient," she said, "because then we wouldn't be able to talk to people."
Hsiao-Ching Chou of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer says Armandino and his wife are sailing around the Caribbean on a vegetarian cruise!; when they get back from visiting son Mario (yes, that Batali—the love of meat runs strong in the family) he'll still be going into Salumi on Thursdays to deal with the USDA inspector and talk to customers.
Chris Cosentino, executive chef of San Francisco's Incanto, is a well-known fan of offal: he serves dishes like pig’s trotter cake and salt-cured pork liver in his restaurant, is working on an offal cookbook, and runs a site called Offal Good, "a guide and informational source for proper handling and cooking techniques for working with these lost cuts of meat. You will find recipes, food porn, and places to buy and eat offal." On April 22, he'll be on Iron Chef battling Mario Batali, offal's most famous proponent and afficionado in America. Ladies and gentlemen, set your TiVos!
Posted by Lia Bulaong, February 22, 2007 at 1:21 PM
Exciting news: "New Zealand fishermen have caught what is expected to be a world-record-breaking colossal squid. Fisheries Minister Jim Anderton said the squid, weighing an estimated 450kg (990lb),took two hours to land in Antarctic waters. Local news said the Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni was about 10m (33ft) long, and was the first adult colossal squid landed intact. One expert said calamari rings made from it would be like tractor tyres."
On Mario Batali: "Oh, Mario! Oh great one! They shut down Molto Mario--only the smartest and best of the stand-up cooking shows."
On Rachael Ray: "We KNOW she can’t cook. She shrewdly tells us so. So...what is she selling us? Really? She’s selling us satisfaction, the smug reassurance that mediocrity is quite enough."
On Sandra Lee: "Pure evil."
(His "IRON CHEF AMERICA match-ups I’d REALLY like to see" are pretty amazing, I'd watch them even on Pay Per View!)
Posted by Adam Roberts, February 2, 2007 at 9:00 AM
Mario Batali's in the kitchen at Otto, and I'm at a table waiting for him. There are two bottles of water in front of me: one flat, one sparkling. I'm offered coffee. I'm offered lemonade. I politely refuse, take out my notebook, and wait. And then he appears.
He appears and it's like he stepped out of the TV or the cover of one of his books. His look is iconic: orange hair, orange beard, orange clogs. He shakes my hand and sits down and waits for me to ask a question.
I have effectively suppressed my excitement. Mario's show, Molto Mario (which re-runs now on the Food Network every day at 10:30 a.m. ET) is my own personal culinary school. I TiVo it and study it, and the results have been extraordinary. I brown meat like an expert. I make pasta both from a box (perfectly al dente) and also from scratch. I roll pastry dough with authority, I get my pans smoking hot. Mario is my Mr. Miyagi, my Yoda, and yet he has no idea who I am. I'm here because Barilla is promoting its new charity cookbook, edited by Mario, and I'm supposed to ask him questions about it.
As far as I'm concerned it's never too early to crank up the grill, no matter where you live. I went to college in Iowa, and I have fond memories of grilling hamburgers and hot dogs in January wearing a ski parka. So grilling in April is a piece of cake, or should I say a piece of meat, to me. Starting this week we're going to bring you grilling tips from some of the biggest names in cooking. Batting lead-off for our brigade of grill-mad chefs is Mario Batali. His Italian Grill is a worthy addition to any serious griller's library. 
, on Jimmy Kimmel's show last night. Kimmel did indicate he knew his braciole. "I'm from Brooklyn," he said. That, Mario said, is known as "Western Italy." The whole exchange, after the jump.
This ain't news, people, but one of the neat and fun things about the internet is seeing how something—
The standing room only, overflow crowd at Borders at the Time Warner Center in New York City was eagerly awaiting the arrival of their foodie heroes: Anthony Bourdain, Mario Batali, and Marco Pierre White. White, who was in the U.S. to promote his moving, fascinating, and very British memoir, 
