A Visit to Eataly/New York

On our way to Italy for our recent tour, Nancy and I stopped for a few days in New York to see Rob, Janet and Cece. I had read earlier this year about the opening of the latest Eataly store in the Flatiron District (23rd and Fifth), and in fact Rob had managed to visit and get his photo taken with Mario Batali, part of the group behind the US venture (I am surprised the crowd of rabid New York foodies did not descend upon Mario like a school of piranha).

When I first heard the name “Eataly” it sounded so tacky that I assumed it must be an American creation. However, in fact the first Eataly was opened in Torino in 2007 by a fellow named Oscar Farinetti who had previously owned one of the largest electronics retailers in Italy (which I guess means if you can sell tape recorders you can sell artisanal cheese and salumi). Although I do not know the details, the Slow Food organization reportedly serves as a “strategic consutant” to the company.

Additional stores in Italy followed that first store in Torino, and, in fact, while on our tour we drove past a new one in Monticello d’Alba in Piemonte that was scheduled to open the following week.

So one morning while we were in New York I hopped a subway and headed downtown to see the new store. The following layout shows the broad range of products offered.

The store is quite impressive although a bit overwhelming (especially given the crowds). As can be seen from the layout, it is in an “L” shape with entrances on both 23rd and 5th. The individual product areas are somewhat compartmentalized and there is really no where in the store where you can get a real overview of the entire space. A nice touch is that most of the signs are in both English and Italian, and they spend a good deal of effort to identify the producers of the products and the regions from which they come. It would take quite some time to carefully explore everything they have to offer, but would be fun to do so. Here is a video I came across that gives a pretty good sense of the place.

After wandering around a bit I grabbed a seat at the bar in the Manzo [i.e. beef] Ristorante and ordered a carne cruda made with “Piemontese beef.” This is apparently beef from a breed called the Razza Piemontese which originally came from the Piemonte region. Given that raw meat cannot be imported from Italy, the beef is currently being raised for Eataly/New York by Brewer Ranch in Miles City, Montana.


According to the Eataly materials, “In addition to its unparalleled taste, Piemontese beef is beloved by Italy, America and Eataly for being lower in saturated fat and higher in poly-unsaturated fat (the good fat). It’s the avocado of beef!”

The beef was excellent, although I can do without phrases like “the avocado of beef.”

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Wine & Cheese @ IWM in New York

On Saturday afternoon during our recent trip to New York, Nancy kindly babysat Cece and freed up Rob and Janet to take me to a wine and cheese tasting at Italian Wine Merchants just off of Union Square.

I had been to IWM a couple of times on previous visits to New York and it is always a fun place to go. It does not look like much from the outside, but it is very nice inside. It is owned by Sergio Esposito (author of “Passion on the Vine”) together with Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich (the co-author of “Vino Italiano” (the best book I have seen on Italian wine), not to mention being the son of Lidia Bastianich), so it certainly is well connected with the Italian food and wine movement here in the U.S.

IWM offers an excellent selection of Italian wines and a good deal of useful information on their website. They even have opened a branch in Hong Kong to tap into the growing Asian market for wine – see this entry on their blog from Josh Rubenstein who moved there from New York last year.

IWM’s tasting programs are held in its Studio del Gusto and let by one of their staff, in this case John Camacho Vidal, a portfolio manager. Upon our arrival, we wandered around the main display room for a bit, then were admitted to the Studio.

IWM’s Studio del Gusto is a very pleasant and well-appointed room Rob, Janet and I had our own table which was set prior to our arrival with the afternoon’s pairings with very generous quantities of both the wines and cheeses. The glasses at each place setting were placed on a place mat (pictured further below) with circles on which the glasses were placed with the names of the corresponding wines – a nice touch.

Here are the wines and cheeses we were served.



They were presented in the order shown and we were encouraged to try each wine with the corresponding cheese. I thought this was not the best approach since in my view a number of the pairings were not optimum (Gorgonzola with a Chardonnay?). I would have preferred more encouragement to try each cheese with different wines – something that is done at the Cheese School of San Francisco where we have taken a number of classes.

It was a very enjoyable class, although it was a bit hard to hear some of John’s comments and I thought a few of the things he said were not completely accurate. Here is copy of my placemat on which I kept some of my notes.

As indicated there, our favorite wines were the Bruno Giacosa Barolo (Rob) and the Quintarelli Valpolicella (Janet and me) – two of the more expensive offerings - and our favorite cheeses were the Rosso di Langa from Caseificio dell'Alta Langa and the Fontina. As Janet Fletcher recently wrote in a review of Rosso di Langa:

“If you love the garlicky, barnyard smells of a ripe Taleggio, Rosso di Langa
may strike you as wimpy. But for those unaccustomed to strong cheeses, Rosso di Langa provides a gentle introduction to the category. My mother liked it, which is one way of saying that the cheese is not remotely scary.”

Hmm, the IWM tasting notes for the Rosso di Langa didn’t mention anything about “wimpy,” but if the shoe fits...

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Back from New York

Nancy and I just returned from a great trip to New York. In addition to the chance to visit Rob, Janet and Cece, and to stay with our friend Lisa, we also enjoyed fabulous early Spring weather and some wonderful meals, primarily on the Upper West Side where all of them live.


Here is a video that Rob put together from one of our outings with Cece down to the lower East Side to visit the High Line and Chelsea Market.

Among my favorite things that we had to eat were:

1. $1 oysters at Mermaid Inn during happy hour (photo below);

2. Bacio gelato at GROM with Gianduja chocolate and Tonda Gentile hazelnuts from Piemonte;

3. Rosso di Langa cheese at our Italian Wine Merchants cheese tasting;

4. Almond croissant at Margot Patisserie next to the Ansonia;

5. Scrambled eggs with lox and onion at Fairway Market;

5. Daikon Duck Hash at Barbao (photo below); and

6. Orecchiette, house made pork sausage & broccoli rabe at ‘Cesca.

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