Run, do not walk, to Eataly. -

September 03 2010

Run, do not walk, to Eataly.

If you live in New York and love food, Eataly will no doubt become your culinary mecca, awakening every sense imaginable.

I love everything Mario Batali (Babbo, Otto, Casa Mono), so clearly I was going to love Eataly, a gigantic Italian combination of grand food hall, farm stand and unstoppable urban market that just opened its food-frenzy doors three days ago in my old neighborhood next to Madison Square Park.

You’ll no doubt feel overwhelmed when you step inside the massive 50,000 square foot Eataly. In fact, I stood still for a couple minutes not knowing where to go, what to eat, or what to think.

As mentioned in The Atlantic, Eataly is “an irresistible realization of every food-lover’s gluttonous fantasy, paired with guilt-cleansing social conscience. The emphasis is on local and artisanal producers, education, affordable prices, and a lightened environmental footprint”. Suffice to say, I think I could easily live in Eataly and never get bored.

Inside, you’ll find every type of food department (meat, cheese, vegetables, bread, pasta, seafood, cured meats, wine, pastry, etc), as well as seven full-staffed restaurants from the casual wine/cheer bar modeled after Otto to the Pizzeria Rossopomodoro, run by two guys who just arrived from Naples. I was there to do some shopping for dinner and was so pleased with the Eataly’s 300-person staff who are there to answer any and every question you may have, including offering up tasty samples to help make the tough decisions that much tougher.

I wanted to stay longer….or forever, for that matter.

My only wish is that I still lived around the corner and could dine in and take out every single evening.

For those of you not in New York, here’s a virtual tour of Eataly:

Eataly is so big, there are entrances on 23rd, 24th and 5th Avenue.

These signs actually provide immense help when trying to navigate the 50,000 square foot space.

I don’t even like Olives, but their incredible selection looked tasty.

Got vinegar?

Since I wasn’t sure what kind of Olive Oil to get, I asked one of the THREE HUNDRED staff. They were incredibly helpful and in the end, I went with the “Roi” brand, which apparently is what Batali uses.