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Mario Batali Bio

Mario Batali

Mario Batali is a celebrity chef known for his ebullient personality and his traditional orange clogs. He specializes in preparing simple food from high quality ingredients, owns some of New York City's most acclaimed restaurants, and has starred in several television shows.

Mario Batali was born on September 9, 1960, in Seattle, Washington. His father, Armandino, was a restaurateur, and even as a small child he loved cooking, helping his grandmother to collect blackberries for pies and jams. His family later moved to Spain, where he spent his high school years before returning to study Spanish theater and economics at Rutgers University in New Jersey.

There he paid his way with jobs that kept him close to food, as a dishwasher in a New Brunswick branch of Stuff Yer Face and as a pizza delivery boy.

After graduating, Batali moved to London looking for a hands-on way to learn more about cooking. He was lucky enough to secure an apprenticeship with Marco Pierre White at the legendary Cordon Bleu, though he found it less interesting than he had expected. Later he moved to Borgo Capanne in northern Italy, for three years of intensive training in a family restaurant. Upon his return to the U.S., he built up his reputation by working in several on New York City's most famous restaurants before eventually launching his own, Po .

But it was two years later, with the opening of Babbo Ristorante e Enoteca, that he achieved national acclaim, receiving the James Beard Foundation's Best New Restaurant of 1998 award. Three star reviews from the New York Times' Ruth Reichl and Frank Bruni assured Babbo's status amongst NYC's finest restaurants. Batali and his business partner Joe Bastianich went on to open the trattorias Lupa and Esca, the taverna Casa Mono, the tapas bar Jamon, Bistro du Vent, and Otto Enoteca Pizzeria, as well as Italian Wine Merchants off Union Square.

These restaurants attract a host of celebrity diners, with the footballer David Beckham a particular fan.

Even before the launch of Babbo, Batali had an interest in television, hoping to use it to bring his love of simple cooking to the masses. With this in mind he appeared in the documentary series Molto Mario. The experience would prove useful when, in 2001, he got the opportunity to star in his own talk show, Mario Eats Italy; and two years later, Ciao America with Mario Batali, in which he travelled around the introducing people to Italian food. He has made regular appearances on Martha, Martha Stewart's television show, and The Tony Danza Show, but is perhaps best known as one of the stars of the Iron Chef programs, taking on other top chefs, such as Bobby Flay, in a series of culinary challenges.

Besides his television work, Batali is known for his books, of which he has written seven, mostly on the subject of Italian food and wine. For this and his other work he has become one of the few individuals celebrated in the D'Artagnan Cervena Who's Who of Food & Beverage in America book, acknowledging his lifetime contribution to the industry.

Batali lives with his wife, Susi Cahn, and their two sons, Benno and Leo, splitting time between homes in Greenwich Village in New York City and Northport, Michigan.

YUDDY