By Foster Kamer 5/30/12 8:00am

Babbo's Big Boy

Joe Bastianich

Joe Bastianich and The Gospel of Restaurant Man

Joseph Bastianich isn’t content being a mere Restaurant Man, as he’d have it. Or even a haute grocer.

“Hopefully, we’re going to change the way people consume,” he said, sitting at a table in Eataly, the Flatiron grocery store he opened in August 2010 in a partnership with Mario Batali, his mother, Lidia, and Italian businessman Oscar Farinetti. Before him was a plate of lentils and a glass of red wine. Asked about the rising price of food, he quickly fired off his reply in his distinctly outer-borough-bred baritone: “We’re going to change the balance of the plate. Less proteins, more carbs, more legumes, more rice, more barley. The era of cheap, abundant food is gone.” Read More

By Foster Kamer 3/19/12 6:12pm

Great Quotes

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Keith McNally Reveals Secret to Success, Did Not Invent the Cosmopolitan

Keith McNally is the famed New York City restauranteur behind Pastis, Schiller’s, Bright Lights Big City locale The Odeon, Minetta Tavern, and of course, Balthazar (which just today recieved a James Beard nomination), to name a few. They are restaurants as much as they are scenes (figuratively, as they’re stacked with celebrities, or literally, as they’re occasionally television backdrops). Tellingly, Keith McNally’s interview responses couldn’t be better if they were scripted by a brilliant writer (which they basically have been), if not moreso. Take, for example, like the one posted to the site of Bon Appetit today, with news of McNally’s forthcoming first London restaurant. Read More