This story contains mentions of sexual assault.
Mario Batali races around his kitchen as he explains the difference between Pecorino and Parmesan. Two stockpots boil away on his stovetop while he constructs the sauces for tonight’s cacio e pepe and amatriciana. He keeps up a constant flow of cooking instruction and colorful commentary. “To start with, cacio e pepe, make sure that you understand you need only two ingredients: cacio, which is a sheep’s-milk cheese,” teasing the word out with an exaggerated Italian accent, and the other ingredient, “which is black pepper.”
You’d be forgiven for assuming this was a classic scene from Batali’s long-running Food Network show Molto Mario, but you’d be wrong. This cooking class played out on December 1 in Batali’s home kitchen, as he broadcast to a virtual audience over Zoom. This was the launch of a new series he’s calling Molto a Casa—his first real foray back into the public eye after he dropped off the map five years ago following a slew of wide-ranging sexual misconduct allegations.
The first Molto a Casa began at 5 p.m. sharp, with Batali looking comfortable in his kitchen at home in Michigan, where he’s decamped since his downfall. “There are no mistakes in the kitchen,” Batali began, before animatedly diving into explanations of the dishes we’d be cooking and the ingredients he would use. After years of relative silence, Batali made no mention of his past wrongdoings as the show began. Speaking directly to the camera as if it were a studio audience, he didn’t miss a beat during the class, which lasted approximately an hour. Multiple cameras caught every angle, including overhead shots of the busy cooktop, and the audience asked questions in the chat that Batali would answer as he cooked. Throughout the event, Batali barely hinted at his extremely troubled past. Nevertheless, a kind of tension seemed to hang in the air, particularly when it was time for the Q&A.
It’s hard to overstate how popular and influential Batali was at the height of his career. Molto Mario, Batali’s popular Italian-centric cooking show, was one of the Food Network’s original hits and ran from 1996 through 2004. He released cookbooks, debuted a jarred pasta sauce, headlined a wildly successful chain of Italian food emporiums, and was close friends with food-world darlings like Anthony Bourdain and David Chang. At the height of his 20-year partnership with restaurateur Joe Bastianich, the pair ran dozens of restaurants and businesses around the world. The flagship of their restaurant empire, Babbo, became a celebrity hot spot, and Del Posto, which they opened in 2005, received four stars from The New York Times in 2010—the first Italian restaurant to do so since 1974.
In December 2017, Eater released a bombshell report detailing multiple allegations of sexual misconduct against Batali spanning several years. Almost immediately, Batali stepped away from daily operations of his restaurants, and was suspended from The Chew, the daytime chat show he’d cohosted on ABC since 2011. Days later, Batali was implicated in allegations of sexual harassment at Ken Friedman’s the Spotted Pig, where he had reportedly been seen drunkenly kissing and groping a woman who appeared to be unconscious in the restaurant’s third-floor VIP area, referred to as “the rape room” by some employees.
Despite the fallout, just four months later, in April of 2018, Batali was reportedly taking meetings with friends and business contemporaries to plot some kind of comeback. A month after that story broke, seven more women came forward alleging sexual misconduct. His once-sprawling empire collapsed, and in 2019 Batali was completely bought out of the restaurants he’d opened with Bastianich. Two years later, Batali and Bastianich Hospitality Group, the restaurant management group Batali shared with Bastianich, paid $600,000 to at least 20 women and men who were sexually harassed while they worked at Babbo, Lupa, or Del Posto. The next year, he settled two more sexual misconduct cases brought against him for an undisclosed amount of money. In 2022, he was acquitted of an indecent assault and battery charge that had allegedly taken place in 2017.
Days after the initial allegations broke in 2017, Batali issued an apology via his newsletter. It was accompanied by a recipe for pizza dough cinnamon rolls. (The cinnamon rolls-as-penance went over quite poorly.) Since then, he’s been absent from the public arena—until late October of this year. “Mario Batali Virtual Events Coming Soon,” he captioned an October 20 photo of red sauced pasta on his Instagram. The comments were full of fervent fans warmly welcoming him back—and a near-total lack of detractors, suggesting, perhaps, some thorough comment moderation. The first batch of three cooking classes would cost $50 per session, and be held on December 1, 2, and 3 via Zoom. As a rep for Batali confirmed to the New York Post, 850 people attended the classes over three days, bringing in more than $42,000.
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While the cooking portion of the December 1 class felt familiar, some moments from the Q&A portion were telling. When one audience member asked Batali's favorite wine, he began by responding, “I don’t drink anymore,” a revelation from the chef whose alleged misconduct was reportedly colored by heavy drinking. Another tense moment came when one viewer asked if he had plans to return to New York for live demos at Eataly, where Batali was once a part owner. “Me and New York, we have parted ways,” he said with a sigh. “New York? There’s a lot of great people. I love most of them. But there’s enough assholes in New York City that I’m done with that town. And I wish everyone the best there.”
It seems Batali has big plans for the future, though. “Provided that everyone seems to think this is a really good idea, we’re going to consider doing it for a really long time,” he said. When another viewer asked if he would revive Molto Mario, Batali was even more explicit: “This is it. This is where we’re going to be.”
The fallout following the revelation of Batali’s wrongdoing was swift and widespread, and it’s unclear who “everyone” is in the chef’s mind. It is hard to imagine Batali staging a comeback that amounts to more than online cooking classes for his remaining fanbase. Online cooking classes provide a convenient bubble for Batali to work in: He can reconnect with a more concentrated audience of fans without confronting the critics who would inevitably voice their disapproval if he were to stage a larger, more mainstream comeback. Though a majority of home cooks and once-fans may not be begging for Batali’s return, the chef seems unfazed—he’s moving on, whether the rest of the world wants him to or not.
For Batali’s victims, though, his reappearance is no doubt a painful confrontation with the past. When the Crocs-wearing chef first endeared himself to home cooks, he presented as a goofy, inviting authority on Italian cooking—the kind of figure you might want in your own kitchen. Now, it’s hard to say who will want Mario Batali in their home.