Del Posto
85 10th Ave.
NY, NY 10011
www.delposto.com
As dinner unfolds at Del Posto, the new addition to the Mario
Batali–Bastianich-family fine-dining empire, it's hard to know whether
you’ve entered restaurant nirvana or some strange, slightly comical
pastiche of what an opulent five-star restaurant should be. The plush,
darkly glowing room has towering columns and tall curtained windows
like those you'd find in the lobby of a grand Roosevelt-era New York
hotel. The menu is stuffed with $60 dishes of lobster risotto for two,
and old Batali favorites like bollito misto, a medley of rustic Italian
offal products that are carved, with elaborate ceremony, tableside.
With Mark Ladner (formerly of Lupa) in the kitchen, the cooking is
generally superb. But if you’ve managed to fight your way into Babbo
over the last few years, none of it is exactly revelatory. Among other
things, Del Posto represents Batali's conspicuous, somewhat strained
attempt to put Italian cooking on the same level as high French
cuisine. Somehow, in that grand, cavernous space with its tall columns
and endlessly tinkling piano music, a little of the [food's] essential
flavor is lost.