On Tuesday, food ed Heather Meldrom and I were lucky enough to attend an Italian wine tasting event at Eataly, the new Italian-foods super-store that Mario Batali and his partner, Joe Bastianich, recently opened in NYC. Plenty has been written about the place, and by all accounts the crowds are insane (sometimes there's a line to get IN), so I held off on going. The place is incredible—50,000 square feet of Italian specialty foods, an espresso bar, several restaurants, a wine store and beer depot, cookware (including plenty of Mario's orange clogs for sale), fresh fish, a meat counter, a sandwich and panini bar, a fabulous bakery, and a staggering array of beverages and condiments you've never seen before. There's no indication that the crowds are thinning, either, so head over with an open schedule and calm demeanor (we had no trouble scoring a table at the pasta and pizza restaurant at 5:30pm). Here's a little slide show that I hope captures some of what you can see and taste there.
1 Cheeses and salumi
2 Fresh mozzarella made in-house
3 Packaged dried sausages
4 More cheeses
5 Is Italian butter better? The packaging sure is cute!
6 The meat counter, where we spied a suckling pig and whole rabbits
7 Just in case you feel like making some extraordinary roast potatoes . . .
8 The fish counter
9 Boxed Italian wine, sold in 3 liter containers. Not bad, actually.
10 Bitters
11 More bitters and Italian sodas
12 Jams, jellies, preserves.
13 A gorgeous bottle (who cares what's inside)
14 Adorable pastille candies
15 House-made desserts.
16 The bread selection was pretty fab . . .
17 This poppy seed loaf looked divine.
18 Fresh pasta? OK!
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20 How about a white truffle to go with that, a bargain at only $3400/lb!
21 Spectacular dried pastas (they better be, at $18/lb).
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23 We were smitten with these giant shells.
24 The cutest canned tomatoes we've ever seen.
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26 The scene at the espresso bar . . .
27 The fish restaurant . . .
28 The pizza and pasta restaurant . . .
29 And the wood-fired pizza ovens.
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31 Great pie.
From: Kait | 10/27/10 at 4:08 pm
I weep. I am not kidding. I could weep. Is there anywhere I can just curl up and live in that place? Oh we would kill to have a place like that here. Our little slice of Italy is not what is used to be.
Kait
Vancouver, BC