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
I think that the rise of a group of people called the slow food movement is doing a lot to try to protect and preserve traditions.
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.
There's a pretty equitable distribution in the restaurant industry of how money gets paid, except for in the kitchen. The kitchen is the lowest-paid group of people.
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 started to train in economics, and I hated it. I never really entered that world, and went to a cooking school in London. Since then I've been cooking in great places all over the world: mostly California, Italy, and a little bit of France.
The whole thing of the risotto as a side dish with pasta: If no one is ever going to ask for risotto on the side of their spaghetti again, we have won something. We've turned them around.
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.
English food in the last 30 years has come to grips with English products, their dairy culture and their cheeses and their creams and their seafood.
Every region has its own specialties, and whether it was Christmas Eve and the seafood dinner and the seven courses, whichever family you were from, it's a visceral part of your life.
At this point in my career it's very hard for me to turn down opportunities that I think are auspicious.
There's not a speck of fruit by the time March or April rolls around. Citrus is gone, and there's not a berry in sight. You're stuck with passion fruits and pineapples. Which isn't bad, but it's a tough time of the year, and chefs need to know how to work through it.
Keep in mind that in 1975, when you became a cook, it was because you were between two things: you were between getting out of the military and... going to jail. Anybody could be a cook, just like anybody could mow the lawn.
I can teach a chimp how to make linguini and clams. I can't teach a chimp to dream about it and think about how great it is.
French and Italian cooking have been elevated to a really high art form.