Eataly

I finally got to go to Eataly, it's near my office and everyone knows of my love of restaurants and love of going early to the hot new places.  I had to hide the fact that I hadn't gone...even lie once or twice...how could I admit to such a thing?  My glam BF and I planned to go a few times and for some reason each attempt was postponed.  Last week I put my foot down and said that if he wanted me to continue to wait for him we had to go this week.  So we did.  It is quite the place, let me tell you.

It is part fancy Italian high end grocery store and part fancy high end Italian food court.  It's part of the Mario Batali and Lydia Bastianich kingdom and we saw Lydia (very fun!) and that was at night, this morning at breakfast with a friend at Maialino (yes, again, I know...but the coffee and the experience really is that good) we saw Isaac Mizrahi.  It's similar to the food court idea that Todd English created in the basement of the Plaza Hotel but the food is better here, though it is less overwhelmingly busy there and much easier there.  At the Plaza you can sit at one of the several bars and order anything off the complete menu of any of the bars.  At Eataly you can only eat at one bar at a time.  We started out at the fish counter because 2 seats happened to open up-we shared a lovely spicy tomato fish soup (cioppino) and a skewer of grilled shrimp, lemon, croutons, and squid which was delicious.  I had a prosecco that I really liked and he had a red wine that he started out liking but by the end didn't love it, I guess it didn't go with the food...?  We talked over the din and then moved to the cheese counter and ordered the cheese platter-gorgonzola, parmesean, ricotta, talleggio,and one other served with honey, candied orange peel and stewed dried figs. The bread and the honey with the cheeses was almost perfect and unexpectedly I liked the parmesean least and the ricotta the best (I adore parmesean generally).  We thought about sharing a pasta next but the line for the counter was so long we gave up but gave in to the divine gelato.  The front door opens right to the street and the ice cream counter is right there-as my glam BF points out-for the winter they need to come up with a better solution. 

The food was delicious but since it was so crowded it all became a pain.  I want to go back during the day to see if it's less crowded but most of all I want to back, by myself to concentrate on groceries!!  And the gorgeous produce.  And I want to taste the coffee.