Restaurateur and entrepreneur Mario Batali has worn many hats in his time. He has worn the hat of thespian and, on multiple occasions, that of litigant. Currently he wears the hat of “Iron Chef” on the eponymous Food Network reality show.
Now the portly, beclogged cook has a new hat to add his collection: that of purveyor of the most expensive meal on planet Earth.
The International Business Times reports that Batali’s restaurant Del Posto, in the Meatpacking District, has surpassed sushi emporium Masa as the priciest spot for dinner. The 12-course Collezione Grand Tasting with mandatory wine pairings is $1,126 for two. (Collezione is Italian for “collection,” a name presumably given to the dinner because the repo man comes by to collect your car and other worldly possessions after you’re defaulted on your check.)
The menu (which curiously carries the name of Chef Mark Ladner but not Batali's) includes a fonduta with black truffle, a 100-layer lasagna with duck and goose liver, and grass-and-corn-fed veal osso buco.
So, as New York Times critic Sim Sifton asked recently in his review of Masa, is it worth it? Perhaps the best answer to that question was provided by another restaurant reviewer, the great Seymour Britchky. In his 1979 review of the then-most expensive New York restaurant, The Palace, Britchky wrote:
This is the point at which prices anesthetize. People there go through the motions of eating without actually tasting.
The prix fixe Britchky was reacting to was a previously unheard of $75 a person.
As for Del Posto, if spending of $1,000 on dinner leaves you with a foul taste in your mouth, you can spend approximately half that amount at David Chang's Momofuku Ko, where dinner with wine pairings for two comes out to around $550.
And if that’s still out of your ballpark, you can always enjoy the feast vicariously by watching the video of Del Posto’s collezione dinner accompanying this article. It won’t cost you a cent, and you won’t have to suffer through another Batali acting performance. Del Posto, 85 Tenth Avenue, nr 15th St, 212-497-8090.
Related Articles
- Win an $800 dinner at Per Se
- Mario Batali makes his silver screen debut
- Mario Batali gets sued again
- Mario Batali in hot water again?
- New York City restaurateur and TV celeb Mario Batali in hot water (financially speaking)
- Mario Batali sued by ex-employees
- New contender for the "World's Most Expensive Sandwich" title?
- You want fries with that? New York's most expensive fast food
- If you have to ask, you can't afford it: New York's most expensive restaurant experiences
Click Subscribe at the top of the page to have my articles sent directly to your e-mail inbox. Follow me on Twitter or join me at Facebook. You can reach me at howard.portnoy@gmail.com or by posting a comment below.
Comments