Tag Archives: Mario Batali

Mario Batali’s restaurants don’t have a secret DOH alarm system

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Elizabeth Meltz had a busy day.

The food safety and sustainability director for Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich’s restaurants spent the day debunking claims in the New York Post that Batali’s nine restaurants were wired with an alarm system designed to be triggered at the hostess stand whenever an inspector walked in.

We had an e-mail chat about real food safety stuff, and I was
mario.Bataliimpressed she found the time to engage me.

About the alarms, Elizabeth said:

Five years ago, Mario and Joe created my position — Director of Food Safety and Sustainability — in order to ensure that our restaurants are as safe as they can be. To achieve food safety, restaurants must operate in accordance with Health Department standards. Unlike the phantom alarm system, my responsibilities are very real.

Mario and Joe tasked me with developing HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point) plans, which make us (NYC Department of Health, correct me if I am wrong here) the only restaurant group certified in the preparation of cured meats in the entire city. They enlisted me to create and maintain Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), conduct internal mock health inspections, renew restaurant and food handling permits, and go to scheduled meetings and appearances with the DOH if and when the occasion arises. I am responsible for making sure all of our chefs, sous chefs and managers are certified food handlers and on top of that, I teach quarterly food safety classes in each restaurant. In short, our team works together to do everything required to comply with all of the DOH rules and regulations and to maintain transparency at all of our restaurants. Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich might even be the only Chef/Restaurateurs to have such a position on their payroll.

The NYC DOH expects of us exactly what Mario and Joe expect of me and of our restaurants: 100% compliance, 100% of the time. This makes my mandate simple. (no bells or whistles.)

So why wait for some bogus allegations? Advertize and promote food safety along with all the food porn. Consumers and patrons would eat it up.

Does Mario Batali really have a secret health inspector ‘alarm system’?

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Some say he does; some say he doesn’t.

And it’s sorta irrelevant, since any good inspector would pick up on food safety failings that could not be corrected by tidying up and
mario.top.dog.chefwearing a smile.

It started with the New York Post running a front-page exclusive yesterday claiming that celebrity chef and croc fashionizer Mario Batali, fed up with overzealous city health inspections, plans a new weapon at his eateries — a hidden alarm that alerts kitchen workers that an inspector has arrived so they can quickly trash any meals they’re cooking and scram.

A button at the hostess stand triggers a loud buzzer in the kitchen, said a Batali employee, and gives staff a chance to toss out what’s on the stove or in the oven and go on break before the inspector enters.

The story claims that without meals or chefs, a kitchen is less likely to get nailed, since infractions often involve dishes being held at improper temperatures and food workers not following rules. Fines can top $5,000 per visit and result in a “B” or “C” grade.

The alarm system is coming to each of Batali’s nine city restaurants, says the employee. A manager at Lupa and a hostess at Babbo, two of Batali’s eateries, told The Post last night the system was in place but hadn’t been used yet.

Batali did not return repeated calls for comment. But Batali partner Joe Bastianich denied such a system exists.

“You don’t have to throw away food. The rules are not that idiotic,” he said.

Asked if his eateries intended to evade inspectors, he said: “None that I know of. It’s not something I would condone.”

The employee said Batali once had a policy of firing any manager whose restaurant failed to get an “A,” which the city awards to places to.dog.chefwith 13 or fewer violation points.

But he’s now convinced that violations are arbitrary and unfair, the employee said.

A Health Department spokeswoman said an eatery found engaging in such evasive practices would have its inspection halted and be cited for obstruction, a 28-point violation. Eateries with 28 or more points fail inspection and could be shuttered.

But restaurant insiders say the tactic of quickly closing up shop is increasingly common.

“Completely ditching everything in the kitchen and stopping service is something we’re hearing about now,” said Andrew Moesel, a spokesman for the New York State Restaurant Association.

Grub Street accurately characterized the Post story as doing “a spectacular job of perpetuating misconceptions about what happens when the Health Department shows up at a restaurant’s front door. …

“One of the most recognized chefs in the country trains his cooks to adhere to a two-minute drill for very purpose, and many more restaurant servers still use the early warning system of ringing in fake table numbers to tip the kitchen off to the presence of DOH brass. A push button system, if it exists, may be new, but there’s nothing particularly novel or particularly stealthy about a restaurant’s staff making a little extra noise when the health department comes through.”

What’s the frequency Kenneth? Douchebags in a restaurant

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I never liked the band R.E.M. Everyone who thought they were cool in university was into the supposedly alternative sound of R.E.M. Their first single came out the year I started university as an undergrad, 1981. I was busy catching up on Neil Young and Rolling Stones from the early 1970s, and thought R.E.M. sorta sucked, especially the lyrical nonsense of frontman Michael Stipe. I liked the distorted guitar of What’s the Frequency Kenneth, and the mandolin of Losing My Religion, but the rest blows.

Mario Batali is a celebrity chef in New York who practices terrible cross-contamination when preparing food. I’ve got the video. And he’s showed up in barfblog.

His "Spotted Pig" restaurant in New York was found to have mice and insects. On two prior inspections, there were a high number of critical violations that required inspectors to come back for follow-ups.

So it’s no surprise Sara Barron dishes on her stint waiting tables at a New York eatery she nicknames "Hell," run by a celebrity chef she dubs "Luigi." Of all the celebs who routinely dine at Hell, says Barron, one – nicknamed "[Bleep] Waffle," after the time he demanded blueberry waffles, even though they weren’t on the menu – particularly incited the wrath of the staff.

Page Six has learned that "Luigi" is Croc-wearing doughboy Mario Batali, who’s been dubbed Fanta Pants because of his bright orange shorts. "Hell" is his eatery Babbo, and "[Bleep] Waffle" is Stipe.

And making overworked cooks run out to buy a pint of blueberries at 3 a.m. was far from Stipe’s worst transgression. Barron tells of a time when he and a posse of 19 rolled into Babbo at 12:42 a.m., 42 minutes after the kitchen closed to the public. Stipe refused to directly communicate with Barron, instead delegating a member of his entourage to place his orders. He never said "please" or "thank you," never took his sunglasses off, and refused to go to the bathroom alone, according to the book.

By 5 a.m., says Barron, Stipe and his pals had rung up a tab of more than $2,000. The meal was comped by celeb-obsessed Batali, although Barron of course still expected a tip: "Four [hundred dollars] would be ideal – four would be 20 percent – but since they weren’t being presented with a check and didn’t seem mathematically inclined, figuring on two was best," she writes.

When the group extinguished its cigarettes and filed out, Barron discovered that they’d left zero: "[Bleep] Waffle had kept our staff of seven on our feet for five extra hours . . . and he did so without tipping."

Not tipping and acting like an asshole. So alternative.