"When a new restaurant called Babbo Ristorante e Enoteca took over the historic Coach House in 1998, its owners - Mario Batali and Joseph Bastianich - were worried they might alienate fans of the previous tenant. The restaurant has changed hands once again, and when it reopens this fall, its current management will face an entirely different challenge: reminding diners of everything they loved about Babbo while scrubbing away any memories of Batali's downfall or the last few years of aimlessness."
"For Stephen Starr, the new majority owner, keeping the name was a no-brainer. "It's like Coca-Cola," he says. "They fucked it up for a little while with New Coke, but then it came back." When Starr first approached Mark Ladner - Batali's onetime right-hand man and the former chef at Lupa and Del Posto - he was reluctant to sign on."
""I had eaten there recently, and it certainly didn't feel like it used to," the chef says. "I was concerned about the history and all the other juju." He wasn't fully convinced until news of the ownership change broke at the beginning of this year and the overwhelmingly positive reaction made it clear that this city is ready to love Babbo again."
A slate of upcoming openings emphasizes familiar, enduring restaurant models—coffee shops, bakeries, cocktail bars—by experienced operators expected to get details right. Babbo, a longtime Manhattan institution, changed hands and now faces the task of restoring its former strengths while distancing itself from controversies tied to prior ownership. Stephen Starr retained the Babbo name and likened its recovery to Coca-Cola returning after New Coke. Mark Ladner was initially hesitant because the restaurant no longer felt like it used to, but strong public reaction to the ownership change signaled readiness to embrace Babbo once more.
Read at Grub Street
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