Orange shoes
Posted on 11/09/2011 7:42:28 PM PST by nickcarraway
Del Posto and Babbo have the same celebrity chef as an owner, reputations for impossible-to-get reservations, and customers who can afford, say, Del Posto’s seven-course “menu tradizionale” at $145 a person. It is not unreasonable to imagine that a good number of those customers make a living on Wall Street.
So their reaction after word spread on Wednesday that Mario Batali had mentioned them in the same breath as Stalin and Hitler was to let their hefty wallets do the talking and threaten to cancel their hard-won reservations.
Some complained on Twitter, some on the Bloomberg terminals they use to follow the markets. A food Web site, Eater, said one investment bank had even circulated a memo saying it would not reimburse receipts from Babbo or the other restaurants in Mr. Batali’s group.
“The irony is that he has made millions of dollars building a restaurant empire off the backs of Wall Street wealth,” said a senior executive at a large investment bank who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters. The executive, who said he had eaten often at Babbo and Del Posto, said he would not go back to any restaurant that Mr. Batali was involved with.
Mr. Batali made the remarks at a Time magazine event on Tuesday promoting its “Person of the Year” issue, which will appear next month. Time assembled a panel of celebrities to talk about who should be chosen Person of the Year and continue a tradition dating to 1927.
There, in comfortable tan chairs, were personalities like Brian Williams, the NBC News anchor; the law professor Anita Hill, who accused Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment 20 years ago; and Jesse Eisenberg, the actor who played the Facebook billionaire Mark Zuckerberg in the film “The Social Network.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Good! Hope he goes out of business. I wonder why he didn’t mention Mussolini? Maybe he’s related to him.
Batali is a punk. He’s grown with success in a capitalist enviroment and he trashes the system. Go to Europe shmuck.
That would be a laugh.
Fat sweathog commie chef.
I never liked that guy but I couldn’t quite pin it down.
Well a few light bulbs just went on!
Good luck selling $150 prix-fixe entrees to “the 99%”, gneius.
Unlike Wall Street inhabitants, neither Hitler nor Stalin would pay the exorbitant prices for Mario Batali’s dishes. This ingrate is about to learn who has been buttering his bread.
Idiot should SHUT UP and COOK...
He can always load that overpriced crap on a cart and hawk it to the geniuses occupying the park!!!
I agree with him to some extent. If you want to talk about people like Lloyd Blankfein and Jamie Dimon, yes, they gamed the system badly. They got in bed with government, and their firms receive the newly minted, inflation-free money from the Federal Reserve. Goldman gets to issue government bonds and derives huge profits by indebting this nation. Of course the Democrats politically own these banks Super Mario decries, but I doubt he knows that.
Mario Batali has quite a reputation. He is an extreme liberal from a family of means. He despised George W. with a passion (and with expletives). He also tends to shoot off his mouth and made quite an ass of himself (do a search for "king juan carlos mario batali"). I've heard some really nasty allegations of his behavior towards the women from an attendant when he was at the at the affair with King Juan Carlos, but I won't repeat those as they are hearsay. I still find him to be likable for certain reasons. I hate to be Polyanna, but he's not all bad.
threatened to cancel??
Boycott them like the Men’s Warehouse. How many suits and $145 dinners do you suppose the OWS will be buying?
I can get better food at my local Greek and Italian restaurants.
Don’t need to give a greedy pig my money.
Just flip the burgers, cookie. I’d call the Health Department on him.
If I recall correctly, Batali had his staff wearing anti-”W” buttons during either the 2000 or 2004 campaigns.
arrogant pigs....
I wonder if these remarks will get him booted from “The Chew” TV show?
Mario Batali had mentioned them in the same breath as Stalin and Hitler... "The irony is that he has made millions of dollars building a restaurant empire off the backs of Wall Street wealth," said a senior executive at a large investment bank who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters. The executive, who said he had eaten often at Babbo and Del Posto, said he would not go back to any restaurant that Mr. Batali was involved with.
Orange shoes
Mario Batali Apologizes for Comments Comparing Bankers to Hitler, Stalin
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