Mario Batali's Indy restaurant picks
Chef also talks tipping, Thanksgiving turkey and the dish that always makes him cry
- Batali's 4 favorite ingredients
- Batali picks 3 chefs to watch
- Batali's guilty pleasure
When Mario Batali's handlers told me I had seven minutes, from precisely 12:06 to 12:13 p.m., to interview the chef while he was visiting Market District in Carmel Nov. 21, I thought, oh boy, what a prima donna. Maybe it was his Italian charm, but Batali won me over. He's a nice guy, a fast friend taking extra time not just with me but just about everyone who wanted whatever little bit of time they could get with one of America's most famous chefs.
Batali was at the grocery store to hawk and sign his cookbook, “America-From Farm to Table: Simple, Delicious Recipes Celebrating Local Farmers” (Grand Central Life & Style, 2014). Twelve hundred free tickets to see him were scooped up quickly. Even with heavy snowfall, the line stretched from the upstairs conference room down to half the length of the Market District sales floor.
To fill my seven minutes with Batali, I put out this call to my Twitter and Facebook followers: "If you could ask Mario Batali anything, what would you ask him?" I posed those questions while Batali signed dozens of cookbooks — in orange ink, of course.
Q: What is your Thanksgiving signature dish?
A: “Thanksgiving is the way I take all of the bones out of my turkey. I roll it up with the stuffing. This year, it’s a turkey stuffed with red beans and rice. I’m doing a New Orleans. Not a thick layer, just a thin layer (of red beans and rice). And then the stuffing on the side is andouille sausage cornbread.”
Q: What are your four favorite ingredients?
A: “Obviously extra-virgin olive oil. Parmigiano-Reggiano, prosciutto di Parma and dried spaghetti from Italy. I like thick or middle (spaghetti). Thin for me is always overcooked by the time I’m eating it.”
Q: What is the one lesson you learned that forever changed your approach to cooking?
A: “When I lived in Italy, less is more. What they talked about was always constantly, ‘Don’t put any more stuff in there. You already have peas, you have butter, you have pappardelle. Why would you ever want to put smoked eggplant or ham in there, because the peas are so perfect.’ ”
Q: What is your "Ratatouille" moment, that unforgettable dish from your past that makes you cry every time?
A: “My grandma did a ravioli stuffed with calves brains and Swiss chard, and she served them in an oxtail ragu. And we each got 11. Eleven pieces. ‘Can’t we have 12?’ Well, no, because she always brought out the main courses after. And we were perplexed because when we were growing up, like, pasta was a main course for us. We weren’t, like, real Italian. We were Italian-Americans.”
Q: What is you stance in the no-tipping debate? No-tipping has come up at a Danny Meyer restaurant in New York City this week.
A: “It’s come up all over the place because they’ve decided to raise all the minimum wages even for tipped employees. We’re trying to figure it out. We don’t have an answer yet. We’re watching carefully. This is about the sustainability of our industry, so obviously there’s going to be some change and we just have to make sure that no one … as it stands, 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. How this is going to affect it is hopefully help the kitchen get some more money. That said, if you have a really good waiter that’s making, like in New York City, we have a lot of waiters who are making one hundred grand a year and that’s because they do a good job and generate sales. I don’t want to diminish their greatness or their happiness or take money out of their pockets. So, I’m trying to figure it out and, you know, Danny made a big, important, risky stab and, you know, we’re all watching him. He has always been a leader in hospitality, and I will follow him almost everywhere he goes, maybe a little bit further back this time just to watch.”
Q: What’s next for restaurants in America?
A: “I don’t think fine dining is dying, but I think those rare occasions when you really want the fanciness are diminishing … I think a lot of people are going to find simpler, more casual ways to enjoy an experience, very much like Market District. Like, that’s a fascinating piece of the restaurant industry (here) because you can go in and get something hot, cooked to order by professional chefs in a casual environment, not break the bank and still feel really good about it.”
Liz Biro: Yes, they sell python at Market District
Q: Name three chefs on the rise to watch around the country?
A: “Leah Cohen, who has a place called Pig & Khao on the Lower East Side. I was there a couple weeks ago. Fantastic. Flavors of Southeast Asia and the Philippines as interpreted by … I just couldn’t imagine how great it was. Another guy is a guy named Anthony Sasso, who works for me at Casa Mono, and he is just in for big things. He’s really smart, really great. One of my favorites right now is in a place called Bunk Sandwiches in Portland, Ore., a guy named Tommy Habetz. I think he’s got the idea of what this sandwich culture is and the greatness of simple stuff can really be. And he’s local and he’s sustainable, all the right buzzwords, but more importantly, delicious.
Q: If you’re sticking around Indianapolis for dinner, where are you going to eat?
A: “Unfortunately, I’m going home, but where I would like to go, obviously, the classic St. Elmo. I would like to see what’s going on out here. I would like to go to Black Market. I would like to go to Goose the Market because they have something named after my dad, and I want to see it. (That’s the Batali Sandwich, named after Salumi Artisan Cured Meats in Seattle, Wash., co-founder and principal salumist, Armandino Batali. Coppa, provolone, capocollo, soppressata, giardiniera, fresh arugula, pickled onion, tomato preserves and aioli on crusty Italian bread) What intrigues me right now is multi-unit, and I know Michael Symon opened a B. Spot (here). I would like to see how well he’s doing out here.”
Q: What do you eat when no one is looking? Cheese Doodles?
A: “Ha! No. I eat cold Chinese food out of the refrigerator with a lot of hot sauce on it.”
Q: Final thoughts?
A: “I think in times of bizarre strangeness like we’ve been seeing this week with terrorism and fear and politicians blustering around, what you can and should do is spend time with your family eating lunch or dinner. And if you can do that, you will restore us to the peace, and this will pass. Everything will pass. What will always remain is love, passion and family time. And if we can do that during this time, that’s our best way to find normal again.”
Call Liz Biro at (317) 444-6264. Follow her on Twitter @lizbiro, Instagram @lizbiro, Facebook and Pinterest.