Babbo Is Back: Three Early Takes!!!
Plus: Bánh Anh Em's amazing ribeye bánh mì and pork floss doughnuts! But first: Ligaya Mishan's NYT review of the Vietnamese hotspot
We’re back to our regularly scheduled programming!
My throat is a little scratchy today — the wintry air always gets me — so I’m about to heat up some spicy beef flank soup from Dunhuang. That rich broth always straightens me out.
Three quick items, then we’ll get to it.
One: I’m very curious about Vato, the Park Slope bakery, tortilleria, and cafe from the crew behind Corima, one of the best restaurants of 2024. The team will serve yuzu-curd conchas, Chihuahua-style burritos with burnt ends, and sourdough tortillas by the dozen. Vato debuts on Thursday for daytime service. In December, the space will open for dinner, with a menu of Northern Mexican and Basque dishes. Here’s Eater’s Nadia Chaudhury with the opening report.
Two: Michelin on Tuesday will announce its starred selections for New York City, Washington, Philadelphia, Boston, and Chicago. But some of the biggest news has already dropped: The avant-garde Alinea has been demoted to two stars, chef Grant Achatz wrote on Instagram — a development that comes on the heels of a two-star NYT review by Ligaya Mishan. And Masa, the country’s most expensive sushi bar at $1,000 per person, has also been demoted to two stars. Will Sushi Sho or Noz get the bump to three? We’ll see!
Three: Year-end restaurant lists are already starting to drop! I’ll likely talk about them all together at some point, and of course The Lo Times will have its own “best of” coverage later in December. But for now, here’s New York Magazine and The Infatuation with their top restaurants of 2025.
Alright! Let’s move onto our main items…
Three early takes on Babbo 2.0
Stephen Starr and chef Mark Ladner have resurrected Babbo, the aughts-era hang that skyrocketed to fame on a combustible mix of squab livers, white tablecloths, beef cheek ravioli, and Led Zeppelin. The Greenwich Village townhouse was the polar opposite of what a sedate Midtown meal felt like, with all the flavors cranked up as loud as the rock soundtrack.
Then came December 2017. Mario Batali stepped away from the business amid multiple allegations of sexual misconduct. He was acquitted in a criminal trial in Boston, but he settled two groping lawsuits. And the former Batali & Bastianich restaurant group paid $600,000 to at least 20 women and men who were sexually harassed or discriminated against while working at Babbo, Lupa, and Del Posto, as part of a settlement brokered by the New York State attorney general.
Against that backdrop: Babbo reopened under Starr’s helm in October. Here are some notes from three early takes, all of which explicitly or implicitly juxtapose the joy of Ladner’s cooking against the heavy baggage of the space. And the name.
It’s still Babbo.
Take No. 1
First up is Robert Sietsema, who published these observations from an early dinner service:
The place was mobbed by 7 p.m., and as we sat, colleagues from the New York Times, Grub Street, FOUND, and other publications filed in, with cheerful greetings all around and excited conversation. This happens periodically with big-ticket openings — the restaurant glitterati all show up the same evening, and what seems like a house party ensues. Near the end of our meal owner Stephen Starr came in and sat down with his wife in a banquette next to ours. We had a chin-wag about Cream…
Sietsema writes that the “spirit” of Batali lives on at Babbo, and adds that Stevie Ray Vaughn, Jimi Hendrix, and others played through the sound system, “as if Batali’s famous classic rock iPod were still plugged in behind the bar.”
Take No. 2
Next up is Luke Fortney, who writes the excellent “Where to Eat” newsletter for The New York Times. In this week’s column, he offers a few words about some of the fall’s biggest openings, including Wild Cherry by the Frenchette team, The Eighty Six in the old Chumley’s space, and of course, Babbo.
Fortney digs the vibes, though he observes a few obnoxious guests passing around an Elf Bar vape pen. He finds things to love about the food, but he also details a few misses, and he’s (rightly) bemused by the $100 Detroit-style lasagna for four:
The pasta is baked with a cheesy crust, clumsily presented table side and then scurried back to the kitchen where it’s cut into pieces. It tastes good enough, but I’m not sure it’s the social media revelation the kitchen thinks it is.
Both Fortney and Sietsema include prominent links to a candid and clear-eyed NYT profile of Babbo’s chef, Mark Ladner. The title of that piece: “This Chef Is Bringing Babbo Back. Can It Move Past Mario Batali?”
A key line: “Mr. Batali’s influence is so deeply rooted that neither Mr. Ladner nor Babbo, which is now controlled by the restaurateur Stephen Starr, will ever be truly Batali-free,” Pete Wells writes.
Take No. 3
Finally, we have Foster Kamer, writing for Found NY. He enjoys his meal but he expresses skepticism about some of the holdover dishes from the Batali era:
“And while much of the menu is new, still on the menu are dishes that put Babbo (and Batali) on the map: beef cheek ravioli, mint “love letters,” spicy “lifeguard style” calamari, et al. It’s more than a little weird…whether you have the context for it or not. One of these dishes would be weird. Several of them feels Lynchian.”
He goes on: “With so much talent in pocket, there’s really no need to be stuck in a past nobody wants to remember,” though he suggests that Ladner and Starr might find a new path forward for the space if they cook more for the present.
I wrote a short review of post-Batali Babbo for Eater in October 2019, but that was six years ago. Indeed, there’s no one right or wrong way to interpret a restaurant as complicated as this one, and I hope you all enjoy reading these three takes!
The joy and labor of bánh cuốn
Ligaya Mishan, chief restaurant critic at the New York Times, awarded two-stars to Bánh Anh Em by chef Nhu Ton and John Nguyen in last week’s review. Right on!
It’s a very good restaurant!
Mishan places the East Village hotspot alongside the late An Choi and Bunker as restaurants “seeking to broaden understanding of Vietnamese cuisine.” I couldn’t agree more, and I’d also include in that group the pre-pandemic offerings from Di An Di, where I remember sampling modern Vietnamese dishes that were somewhat rare in New York at the time (the menu is quite different these days).
Do read Mishan’s whole review, but my favorite part is this bit, where the critic observes one of the staffers making bánh cuốn. She writes about this moment with the studied precision of David Gelb’s camera documenting Jiro Ono crafting sushi:
But I would choose the counter by the kitchen, just to watch the cook who makes bánh cuốn to order, briskly ladling the batter onto a cloth drawn taut over a steel frame atop a steaming pot. A few swirls with the ladle’s bottom, a pop of the domed lid, and then she fearlessly slips a flat bamboo rod under the round of dough and lifts. Half noodle, half crepe, the dough clings and droops, but doesn’t tear. This is daily labor; this is mastery.
Four great takeout dishes from Bánh Anh Em!!!
What follows are reviews of the ribeye bánh mì, the pork floss doughnut sandwich, and other tasty dishes at the East Village Vietnamese restaurant
