Babbo has so swelled in stature and legend that even thinking about it can give you a coronary attack. You get so excited about it, especially if you’ve been before; you plan which starter, which primi, which secondi to have, often with which wine, so that when you actually get there, your heart is pumping at double the normal rate you might actually collapse before you even get to the bread.
The other problem is that once you taste a Babbo dish, you can’t not order it again. And yet you know there are plenty more gems on the menu that you have to try in order to broaden your culinary horizons.
This was exactly the problem my daughter and I were facing when we got to Babbo that Monday evening—our first dinner in NYC. My daughter had been to Osteria Mozza in Singapore, which served a few renditions of Babbo’s standbys, and already she was in a bind: should she have the Orrecchiette with Sweet Sausage and Rapini or the Goose Liver Ravioli with Balsamic Vinegar and Brown Butter (which she loved) or try the Pumpkin “Lune” with Sage and Amaretti or the Goat Cheese Tortelloni with Dried Orange and Wild Fennel Pollen (both of which sounded gorgeous)? I fared no better, having almost fainted at the sheer tyranny of choice.
After much collective sighing, my daughter settled for the Pumpkin ‘Lune,’ while I went for the spaghettini with spicy budding chives and a one pound lobster. The image of this last dish from the pages of my Babbo cookbook at home swam before my eyes, and it seemed fitting and small. (Spaghettini—always my spaghetti of choice, ah the civilized thinness of it, and don’t you just love those words ‘spicy budding chives’—all wicked innocence in one bowl? As for the lobster, woman can’t live on chives alone.)
Turned out I was right on the money on the ‘fitting’ part but way off mark on the ‘small’ part. For one, I had forgotten that a one pound lobster is a one pound lobster, and—here is the clincher—the overall dish was at least three times the size of the cookbook version. It didn’t only taste huge, it looked huge. And it was this hugeness more than anything that rendered the dish, for lack of a better word, somewhat pedestrian. For the first time in my life, in a favorite restaurant no less, I was already huffing and puffing by the fifth or sixth strandful. And the darnedest thing about it was the wine recommended by the sommelier was so divine that I found myself, again, in a very rare situation in which I much rather savor the wine than the food. I felt so ashamed of myself, both for failing to rise to the occasion as well as for having to own up to something so honest yet so treacherous: “I had a not so great pasta experience at Babbo.”
My daughter, on the other hand, had chosen the perfect pasta dish. The crescent moon-shaped little beauties soaked up the sage and amaretti sauce so effortlessly, and the whole dish was so fragrant and delicate. She was home free when I wasn’t even a third through my dish.
The epic failure of my first course turned out to have long repercussions. I told my daughter I would tell the waitstaff to give me at least fifteen to twenty minutes to recuperate, but before I had the chance to do so, he was already out with the quail, which also turned out to be bigger, darker and richer than I thought it would be. I’m sure that the scorzonera alla Romana that accompanied it was lovely, and so was the saba, but the finer points of such details were already lost on me. Again, the wine was too superb for words and was all that I managed to take in. For the first time in my life, I was suffering through a first class meal.
Meanwhile, my daughter continued to be on the roll, her impeccable sense of proportion all but undimmed. She had chosen the fennel dusted sweetbreads with sweet and sour onions, duck bacon and Membrillo vinaigrette, and, again, it turned out to be the perfect main course. The bedrock of our senses (and immune system!) The Batali magic writ large.
Yet, for all my defeats, we couldn’t end the evening without a taste of that famous olive oil cake and olive oil ice cream. Strangely, it was during this sweet, satiated hour that I was able to take in, more calmly, the other tangibles of the Babbo experience: the elegant but utterly comfy rooms, bathed in burnished amber light; the staff who never missed a beat; the flower arrangements; that world class sommelier. And then the overwhelming rush of wellbeing you get from merely being there.
‘So what do you think?’ I asked my daughter as we were walking back to our hotel, only ten minutes away on W. 13th St.
‘Awesome, Mum,’ she said, ‘Best meal ever. Sorry you didn’t have such a good time.’
‘No way,’ I said, ‘I still had a great time. Anything we find in Babboland, great, good or not so good, will still live in the memory.’
And I meant it, budding chives or no budding chives.
…. plus Eleven Madison Park (11, Madison Ave. (24th St.), Flatiron, tel. 212-889-0905, www.elevenmadisonpark.com), for one of the most stunning culinary experiences the city has to offer, in one of NYC’s most recognizable art nouveau temples, all high-ceilinged splendor and equally soignee food courtesy of Daniel Humm, Blue Hill (75, Washington Place (bet. MacDougal St. & 6th Ave), W. Village, tel. 212-539-1776, www.bluehillfarm), Dan Barber’s ode to farm-to-table perfection, where nothing that arrives at your table is short of sublime, and the service second to none, and yes, still, Nobu (105, Hudson St. (Franklin St.), Tribeca, tel. 212-219-0500, www.noburestaurants.com) for starting it all. Japanese-Peruvian has never had it this good, thanks to this almost 20-year old stalwart, and without it, America wouldn’t have had its sushi revolution. Even after all these years, and after all those countless global imitations, good or bad, no one does a better black cod in miso or rock-shrimp tempura than Nobu Matsuhisa. As for exquisite, ultra-pristine Edo-style sushi, look no further than Sushi Yasuda (204, E. 43rd St. (bet. Madison & Park Aves, E. 40s, tel. 212-972-1001, www.sushiyasuda.com). Its eponymous chef might have left, but his hallmarks remain: the rice grains—tender and moist, the fish—flawless, supreme. It is expensive as hell, but there is still the $23 dinner prix fixe that is among the best deals in town.
