How many Moscatelli gherkins is too many Moscatelli gherkins?
No amount, says Nicola Farinetti, the manager of brand-new food emporium and gourmet food court Eataly. The pantry aisle of Mr. Farinetti’s 50,00-square-foot food palace on 23rd Street is stocked with hundreds of the speckled, knuckle-size gherkins, and they are flying off the shelves.
Occupying the historic Toy Building formerly operated by Cipriani, Eataly is the first American outpost of a mini-chain that has stores in Italy and Japan. The effort’s big-name partners are Mario Batali, Joe Bastianich and the latter’s mother, Lidia Bastianich, as well as Eataly founder Oscar Farinetti. A fifth partner is Mr. Farinetti’s youngest son, Nicola, a blue-eyed 26-year-old who spends 15-hour days on the job and speaks in looping, Italian-accented English.
‘In Italy,’ Farinetti said, ‘people are not so interested in food because they think they already know everything. Here the people come to learn.’
“I’m having fun with the customers!” the younger Mr. Farinetti told The Observer last week as he showed off Eataly’s mozzarella-making operations, panetteria, gelato stand and crudo bar, where the television personality Kelly Choi stopped to say hello. Ms. Choi was enjoying a snack with a male model.
“In Italy,” Mr. Farinetti said, “people are not so interested in food because they think they already know everything. Here the people come to learn.” Wearing sturdy Carhartt pants and sneakers, Mr. Farinetti bustled past shelves of rose hip compote, squid-ink packets and a sign that touted the benefits of Italian candy: “Italian chocolate is light and healthy,” the sign read, with “pure cocoa and noble vegetal oils.” When Eataly opened, on Aug. 31, patrons formed a line that snaked around the block and up Fifth Avenue-a show of interest that startled Mr. Farinetti. “I could not believe it!” he said. “Ten years ago, my father sold electronics, and then he sold that company and made this new one. Here I am!”
Mr. Farinetti is a jubilant presence and has found much to love about New York. Of the West Village, where he lives, he told The Observer, “I love the trees all over and the small houses-it is Europe.” He also enjoys the broad availability of eggs Benedict (“I can’t stop myself to eat those!”) and when he has a moment to take a proper dinner break, he loves to spend two or three hours at a neighborhood restaurant. “For Italians, dinner is like a little vacation.” Reflecting upon the differences between New York, where he’s lived for five months, and his home country, Mr. Farinetti observed that “the way you serve food is really different from us. There’s much more waiters and managers involved in any situation. And the number of customers you can have in a restaurant is crazy!” Here, Mr. Farinetti clarified, he was referring to customer turnover. “In Italy, restaurants never get to do twice the table. You get there at eight and you don’t leave until midnight, because you want to talk, you want to drink. Here is much faster. Everything is faster!”
As he made the rounds at Eataly, Mr. Farinetti stopped to chat with customers in his native tongue. On a Thursday afternoon, the store’s shoppers were mostly trim, well-dressed and foreign; The Observer overheard conversations in French, Portuguese, Russian and Japanese. Despite the space’s six restaurants and its bakery and cooking school, the air inside the Toy Building smelled like a fresh breeze. (One way to tell a ritzy eatery from a non-ritzy one is that the former won’t smell even faintly of food.) “We are opening a store in Rome that is three times the size of this one,” Mr. Farinetti noted. He is “pretty sure” a San Francisco outpost is on the way-a plan that Ms. Bastianich confirmed in a later phone call.
Would he relocate, in that case, to the West Coast? Mr. Farinetti looked heavy-hearted at the prospect and admitted that he sometimes felt sad about living away from home. “I miss the salumi,” he said. But Eataly was full of salumi, The Observer pointed out. “Yes, but because of the laws, you cannot import certain cured raw meats,” Mr. Farinetti explained, “so you have to make them here. I cannot say that they are worse or better, just that they are not the same as I am used to.
“But I am learning a lot here,” he continued, perking up. “For example, I love the way you organize kitchens. The way that Mario Batali runs his kitchen is close to perfect. Everything is tracked. Nobody loses anything!” Does Mr. Farinetti operate his own kitchen in a similar fashion? “Well,” he laughed, “I have not many hours to be cooking these days.”
When he does find the time to cook, Mr. Farinetti added, he doesn’t wear orange Crocs.
