Restaurant Review: Babu | The New Yorker

On my first visit to the original Babu’s — gosh, that must have been twenty years ago — I remember being awestruck upon my first bite of the cheek-meat ravioli. (“Of all pasta dishes – in fact, of everyone “The dishes — on the menu, these are probably the ones most associated with Babu,” Batali writes of the recipe, in “The Babu Cookbook,” from 2002.) She froze. I think I stopped chewing. I was amazed that a bite of food could be so firm and so soft at the same time. I wish I could say I felt the same way about the release in the new Babu. Some of the disappointment, I’m sure, had to do with the difficulty that on one evening the filling was strangely crumbly and dry, and on another evening the thick ravioli made with chicken livers – a startling departure from the light, buttery emulsion that dressed Batali’s original dish – was broken and greasy Great food at Babbo’s, putting its own spin on Batali’s signature dishes, as any chef of his calibre should do, but these changes only work if they make the dishes better.

Mark Ladner serves a plate.

Why does Babu continue at all? This to me is the big question. Babu was cool and era-defining, but he was He was. Her revival, like any revival, is a kind of exhumation, and inevitably also a kind of autopsy. We know what went wrong. The investigation into Batali’s misdeeds helped win the award times Pulitzer, for goodness sake. The big, loud, wonderful era that came before all of that, when a Manhattan island studded with Batali’s joints, each one exploring a different side of Italian cuisine, came to an abrupt and ignominious end. Babu Star may be generously understood as an attempt to surgically separate art from the artist: it asks us to revel in Babu’s peak, his warmth and vitality, while assiduously avoiding any recognition of the man who created and embodied him. This is not an unusual request, as we are adept at selective sterilization; Not many Great Gatsby-themed parties involve bodies in a pool, but in this case they’re pointless. So strong is Batali’s presence at Babu’s, even now, that his orange Crocs might as well be hung above the door.

What this new pope needs to do, to own his history and to justify his self-obsession, is astonishing. This is even more true when it comes to attracting (and returning!) new diners, ones who can avoid all the uncomfortable questions surrounding a restaurant’s revival simply by not knowing its background at all. Maybe you haven’t been following the news; I don’t know, maybe I was just born. You’re probably aware, broadly speaking, that Babo is important, that its reopening is noteworthy, and that it’s very buzzing right now. And then you come for dinner, have a nice meal and a glass of their signature Barolo or a frothy tomato martini, and then leave thinking that Babbo’s is just an Italian restaurant in Greenwich Village, but it’s expensive, with a lovely atmosphere, great service, and hit-or-miss food. It may not particularly stand out in the landscape of dining rooms serving up amazing pasta, osso bucos and zaballeone in New York City right now. Sure, it was all about red sauce and Sinatra in this city, but then some force took hold a couple of decades ago and shook it all up, bringing all the richness and character of Italian cuisine into delightful focus. Thanks to Batali, in every way, things will never be the same. ♦