A VISIT TO EATALY
Greetings!
I recently paid a visit to Eataly, an Italian gastronomical paradise of epic proportions.
Eataly, a cute play on the words “Eat” & “Italy” has several branches in various cities around the world, but I recently visited the New York City location.
A visit to Eataly has been on my bucket list ever since the NYC store opened 5 years ago. Mario Batali, my favorite celebrity chef, is a partner in Eataly. Because I so respect Mario as a true authority on authentic Italian food, I just had to visit. I also have a soft spot for Mario ever since I met him in 1997 after dining in his small West Village restaurant called PÓ, the restaurant that launched his culinary career. After a long hard night in PÓ’s kitchen, Mario was sitting at the small bar you see in the photo below. After enjoying the delicious meal he had prepared for me, I stopped to compliment him and we launched into a long conversation about shared commonalities: new babies, life in Italy & Spain, etc. I told Mario how I had recently given birth to my 3rd son and how his show on the Food Network helped me get through long sleepless nights of nursing a fussy baby. He explained how he and his wife had also just had a baby boy, so he could commensurate. Having since dined in many of Mario’s restaurants, I was anxious to experience Eataly.
Another example of a highly regional Italian food is Focaccia. Also hailing from Liguria, you’d be hard pressed to find Focaccia in Italy unless you were in Liguria. I had a favorite Focaccia bakery that our family used to frequent when we were in Italy. Each morning we would walk to the Foccacia bakery, where we would pick up huge slabs of this delectable soft bread that is sold both plain and with any number of varied toppings. In Italy we would eat our Focaccia strictly for breakfast. In fact, the Focacceria was always sold out and closed before noon. So it was with great delight that I enjoyed a piece of Focaccia smothered in fresh ricotta cheese on my visit to Eataly. It’s the only Focaccia I have eaten outside of Liguria that was truly authentic!
Eataly encourages visitors to shop, taste and learn, which can be accomplished by visiting its 7 boutique eateries, and its retail counters which include a meat market with both fresh and cured meats…
a wonderful fish market…
an amazing fresh pasta shop…
a pastry shop and bread bakery…
and a cheese shop where they have an incredible array of cheeses!
They also make fresh mozzarella cheese. My son just had to taste it immediately, so he purchased not only the fresh mozzarella but a tomato and fresh basil to eat along with it.
Eataly is lined with stand-up style tables where one can enjoy its many wonderful food items right then and there. So, if you visit Eataly, GO THERE HUNGRY!
There is an area that displays more than 100 different types of olive oils and they feature dozens of varieties of dry pasta (pastasciutta).
I even found my favorite: Pasta di Gragnano.
There are 2 Italian trademark coffee bars within Eataly: LaVazza and Vergnano; there is a Nutella corner as well. Here they prepare fresh Italian style crepes and fill them with many varieties of Nutella and Gelato.
There’s a housewares section, a bookstore filled with recipe books, and a” Vino Libero” wine bar and store.
Eataly also has a microbrewery, a cooking school and various private event spaces. And there are also several sit-down restaurants inside Eataly. We decided to have lunch at the restaurant featuring both pizza & pasta.
Seated at a mezzanine level table, we could look down into the open kitchen and watch our food being prepared.
A delightful and attentive waiter delivered to our table some of the bread we had seen being made earlier. It was wrapped in paper to retain its freshness and was served with a generous saucer of great olive oil for dipping.
Austin ordered lasagne, which the waiter smothered in freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano. Taylor tried the pizza…
Brad had a seafood pasta, and I enjoyed a delicious pappardelle pasta with sauted mushrooms and fresh thyme. Sorry about the blurry photo!
All things considered, it was a delicious day! What I wouldn’t give to have an Eataly in my backyard. I can only dream of the dinner parties I could host using amazing ingredients from Eataly, and I could even pick up fresh flowers for my table.
So, if you are ever in New York or Chicago you must pay a visit to Eataly! Other locations coming soon to Boston and Los Angeles. Then, of course, if you are in Italy you can visit their many stores throughout the country.
So there you have it: A VISIT TO EATALY
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