Walking around Madison Square Park yesterday, on a sunny Saturday afternoon, I stumbled upon an Italian heaven, while simply looking for a cute European coffee shop. I went in and to my surprise, found more than I expected. Some of Italy’s best food, in what seemed a very crowded popular spot for many weekenders.
Eataly, that’s its name, is a 50,000 square-foot emporium devoted to the food and culinary traditions of Italy, opened at 200 Fifth Avenue in New York, across from Madison Square Park. Manhattan’s Eataly is the new sister of the original in Turin, founded by Oscar Farinetti. Mega-chef Mario Batali and his longtime restaurant partner Joe Bastianich and Bastianich’s chef/restaurateur/TV food personality mother Lidia (from here).
I randomly went in for coffee, but ended up walking around for more than an hour. You can have coffee at the traditional espresso bar, gelato, pastries, tiramisus and what not, all of a kind (I don’t like sweets and I was still drooling), prosciutto, cheeses, a tapas kind of bar, a supermarket, a restaurant, cookbooks, you name it. I simply couldn’t make myself leave. If you enjoy good old genuine Italian food and you dig the Italian/European scene, you will love it as well. I didn’t buy the whole store, just some prosciutto and breadsticks. And my favorite coffee Lavazza.
Don’t go there too hungry or you will end up spending your week’s worth of groceries, it’s too good to resist. Two downsides: too crowded, making it hard to move around; hard to figure out where to pay for different things, there are many registers spread out throughout the market.
A mangiare!
