Mario Batali Confirms Fan Pier Babbo Location
AH! It’s finally happening. Mario Batali and his bright orange Crocs are setting up shop at on the ground floor of Eleven Fan Pier Boulevard, with a winter 2014 open date.
The Boston Globe confirmed that the celeb chef will open an 8,7000-square-foot restaurant named Babbo Pizzeria e Enoteca, an offspring of his ever-popular signature Greenwich Village spot, Babbo Ristorante, in New York City. The Globe reports, “It will feature three bars — one each for cocktails, pizza, and antipasti — as well as an expansive patio and private dining space for large parties.’’
The fanfare for Fan Pier wasted no time, launching @BabboBoston Twitter handle this morning, where Team Batali has been tweeting the hype.
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Plans for Batali’s Boston takeover were temporarily halted last August after a South Boston property, also named Babbo Pizzeria e Enoteca, was nixed for property planning issues. Rumors began again in November, when there was speculation whether the chef was planning a Hub-area location of his Italian mega mart Eataly.
According to the release, Batali and Joe Bastianich’s B&B Hospitality Group will begin construction on the new property “within the next few weeks,’’ and assure that the space will be a Certified Green Restaurant. The Boston location’s menu will focus on brick oven Italian-style pizza, antipasti, and gelati. The group also confirmed Caroline Conrad of Eataly Chicago and Mario LaPosta, chef of B&B’s Tarry Lodge Enoteca Pizzeria, will be involved in the new location as General Manager and Executive Chef, respectively.
We don’t have many more details to report just yet, but for now, we’ll just quote Batali himself:
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