Background

Ethnicity: Batali's father is of Italian descent and his mother is of part French-Canadian.

Mario Batali was born on September 19, 1960, in Seattle, Washington. He was born to Armandino and Marilyn Batali and was one of three children. Mario was raised in Seattle. His father, an engineer for Boeing for 30 years, opened a meat-curing shop in Seattle as a retirement project, attempting to recreate the Italian foods store Mario's maternal great-great-grandparents opened in 1903.

Education

Mario Batali attended high school in Madrid, Spain. He then became a student at Rutgers University where he studied drama and business management. He got there a Bachelor of Arts. Mario also spent some time at the Cordon Bleu School of Cooking in London in the United Kingdom.

Career

Mario Batali quickly dropped out the Cordon Bleu school in London for a more hands-on experience in a London French restaurant, where he trained for three years under Marco Pierre White. He returned to the United States in 1984 and began working at the Four Seasons hotel chain until 1989. Then Mario quit his job to work in a family-run restaurant in Borgo Capanne, Italy. Batali received no wages, he worked in exchange for lessons in traditional Italian cooking.

Eventually, Batali returned to the United States and worked for a year upgrading an Italian restaurant in New York City before opening his first restaurant, "Po," to stellar reviews in 1993. Five years later he began a fruitful partnership with restaurateur Joe Bastianich, with whom Batali would later open more than a dozen additional restaurants around the world as part of the "Batali & Bastianich Hospitality Group." Since then the duo has opened up 7 other restaurants which include Italian eateries like "Lupa," "Esca," and "Otto Enoteca Pizzeria." Also, Batali opened up "Italian Wine Merchants," a retail shop.

Mario Batali gained much more fame via his appearances on televised cooking programs. The gregarious Batali's first foray into television was "Molto Mario," where he would typically cook for three guests seated alongside his kitchen. Batali's other notable television appearances included the cooking competition "Iron Chef America," where he was one of the program's original "Iron Chefs" from 2005 until he departed from the show in 2009, "Spain… on the Road Again," a travelogue of the titular country that featured Batali and a group of his celebrity friends, and the daytime talk and cooking show "The Chew."

In 2005 Batali was named outstanding chef of the year by the Beard Foundation. That same year he opened the upscale "Del Posto" in New York's trendy meatpacking district, which later joined "Babbo" as one of the two Batali restaurants to receive a star rating from the prestigious Michelin Guide. He and Bastianich shared the Beard Foundation's best restaurateur award in 2008. In 2010 Batali helped open a New York outpost of "Eataly," a chain of massive stores that contain groceries and several Italian restaurants under one roof. He also was involved with the 2013 opening of an "Eataly" store in Chicago.

Batali's success and popularity, coupled with his love of authentic Italian cuisine, has led him to write several renowned cookbooks.

Batali's first book, "Simple Italian Food: Recipes from My Villages," focuses on the use of pristine ingredients combined with the simple and sensible Italian cooking techniques he learned from his Italian teachers. The cookbook includes more than 200 recipes for kinds of pasta and numerous other Italian foods. Writing in Publishers Weekly, a reviewer noted, "Batali's first cookbook will surely please those who want Italian easy and quick."

In his book "Holiday Food: Family Recipes for the Festive Time of the Year," Batali once again showcases simple Italian foods, focusing on four complete menus. The cookbook includes numerous baking recipes, from traditional Italian recipes to recipes from Batali's own family that he enjoyed as a child. The book includes a discussion by Batali of his own family's holiday meals, in which he notes that "any meals served at our house were mapped out at least a month in advance."

Batali's numerous cookbooks included "The Babbo Cookbook," "Molto Italiano: 327 Simple Italian Recipes to Cook at Home," "Molto Batali: Simple Family Meals from My Home to Yours," "America: Farm to Table" co-written with Jim Webster, and "Big American Cookbook: 250 Favorite Recipes from Across the United States."

Organisations Mario Batali is involved with include The Lunchbox Fund, which provides meals to schools in Soweto, South Africa. He with his wife Susi Cahn founded the "Mario Batali Foundation" which focuses on helping children.

In December 2017 Batali was accused of sexual harassment by multiple women. He subsequently apologized for his behavior and stepped down from the "Batali & Bastianich Hospitality Group." That month he was also fired from the TV show "The Chew," and several stores stopped carrying his products. In 2019 Batali sold his stake in "Batali & Bastianich Hospitality Group" and minority ownership in "Eataly."

Achievements

• Mario Batali is one of the most celebrated chefs. He has opened highly successful restaurants in New York City, including "Esca," "Del Posto," and "Babbo Ristorante e Enoteca." Batali is a familiar television personality, from his Food Network cooking show, "Molto Mario," to his series, "Spain… On the Road Again," and his appearances as a competitor on "Iron Chef."
  
  Mario Batali was named GQ Magazine's 1999 "Man of the Year" in the chef category and, in 2002 and 2005, he won James Beard Foundation awards for "Best Chef: New York City" and "Outstanding Chef of the Year." Batali is also a recipient of the 2001 D'Artagnan Cervena prestigious lifetime achievement award, "Who's Who of Food & Beverage in America." Besides, Mario Batali got Three Stars from The New York Times for "Babbo Ristorante e Enoteca" from Ruth Reichl in 2004 and One Michelin star for "Babbo Ristorante e Enoteca" from Michelin Guide in 2008.
  
  Mario Batali is known as the author of cookbooks including "Molto Italiano: 327 Simple Italian Recipes" and "Molto Batali: Simple Family Meals from My Home to Yours."
  
  Batali and his wife Susi Cahn founded the Mario Batali Foundation, which focuses on funding children's educational programs and pediatric disease research.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Simple Italian Food: Recipes from My Two Villages

    (More than 200 of Mario Batali's irresistible recipes for ...)

    1998
  • Molto Batali. Simple Family Meals from My Home to Yours

    (In "Molto Batali" features 120 of the favorite recipes of...)

    2011
  • Holiday Food

    (In his new book, Mario Batali captures all the flavors of...)

    2000
  • Molto Gusto: Easy Italian Cooking

    ("Molto Gusto" is a glorious collection of mouth-watering ...)

    2010
  • Spain...A Culinary Road Trip

    (From Mario Batali, superstar chef and author of "Molto It...)

    2008
  • Molto Italiano: 327 Simple Italian Recipes to Cook at Home

    (Easy to use and simple to read, some recipes from this bo...)

    2005
  • The Babbo Cookbook

    (Some of the most inspired (and acclaimed) Italian food in...)

    2002
  • Italian Grill

    (Easy to use and filled with simple recipes, Mario Batali'...)

    2010
  • America - Farm to Table: Simple, Delicious Recipes Celebrating Local Farmers

    (In this book, Mario Batali celebrates American farmers: t...)

    2014
  • Mario Batali - Big American Cookbook: 250 Favorite Recipes from Across the USA

    (Mario Batali's delicious deep dive into American Regional...)

    2016
  • Mario Tailgates NASCAR Style

    ("Mario Tailgates NASCAR Style" features regional favorite...)

    2006

Politics

Mario Batali is an outspoken critic of President Trump, extrapolated his views to include environmental regulations, which have been rolled back significantly under the current administration. In one interview Batali said: "As we look at torturing our planet, beating the carbon out of it, and looking at the way these people are going to manage what we consider to be the big things that we should all be sharing, I don't see violence as out of line." Batali clarified that he does "not condone" revolution but also does not "think it unrealistic to think that people forced into an untenable situation without the option of improvement or a path to a better life may be faced with very few options other than a radical change of government."

Views

Quotations: "Life is not a recipe. Recipes are just descriptions of one person's take on one moment in time. They're not rules. People think they are. They look as if they are. They say, "Do this, not this. Add this, not that." But recipes are just suggestions that got written down."

"There are two activities in life in which we can lovingly and carefully put something inside of someone we love. Cooking is the one we can do three times a day for the rest of our lives, without pills. In both activities, practice makes perfect."

Personality

Mario Batali's idiosyncratic appearance - the heavyset, bearded, with long red hair in a ponytail and almost always wore shorts and bright orange molded clogs - helped him stand out among the dozens of television personalities who rose to prominence with the popularization of food-based programming in the 1990s and early 2000s.

Connections

Mario Batali married Susi Cahn in 1994. They have two sons: Leo and Benno Batali.

Father:

Armandino Batali

Armandino Batali is a former process engineer for Boeing and a founder of the "Salumi" restaurant in 2006.

Mother:

Marilyn Batali

Sister:

Gina Batali

Brother:

Dana Batali

Wife:

Susi Cahn

Susi Cahn is famous for being the daughter of the founders of Coach Incorporation. Her parents started this family-based business 79 years ago. It produces luxury products such as handbags, jewelry, and men's and women's high-end clothing.

Son:

Leo Batali

Son:

Benno Batali

colleague:

Marco Pierre White

Marco Pierre White is an influential British chef and restaurateur who is dubbed as the first celebrity chef of the United Kingdom restaurant scene.

colleague:

Joseph "Joe" Bastianich

Joe Bastianich is a restaurateur and vineyard owner. He is also a judge on the competitive cooking shows "MasterChef" and "MasterChef Italia."

colleague:

Jim Webster

Jim Webster is the co-author of two New York Times best-selling cookbooks and the "Casa Mono Cookbook." He has developed recipes for contests, and won twice, with dishes called "pig-wrapped, pig-stuffed pig" and "avocado + avocado." In his work at newspapers, he has been named the best headline writer in the country five times and has tested recipes for the Washington Post and cookbooks.

References

• Mario Batali (@Mariobatali) - Twitter
• Mario Batali - YouTube channel