Mario Batali rants he’s done with New York because of ‘a–holes’ as he makes online comeback bid

nypost.com:

public return to cooking on screen Friday, in a livestream of his virtual cooking show “Molto A Casa,” from his home in tiny Northport, Michigan.He fled there after a string of accusations of sexual harassment and sexual assault, including rape, became public in 2017, ending his TV career and forcing him out of restaurants including Babbo, Lupa and Casa Mono, and his Eataly food markets.Batali, 63, denied all sexual misconduct but quit public life until Friday, when he held a $50-a-head live cooking class on Zoom followed by a Q&A.Asked by The Post in the Q&A if he would ever do live cooking demos back at Eataly in New York City, Batali responded: “Me and New York have parted ways.

I’m done.“It was a great town. It worked for me for the longest time. “But now I live in Northern Michigan in a tiny little town of 600 people with a community of magnificent like-minded creatives all of whom think everyone in our community is a great assistant and helper to the full movement of the community.”Then he boiled over: “New York, there’s a lot of great people I love most of them, but there’s enough a–holes in New York City that I’m done with that town.

And I wish everyone the best there,” Batali said. Batali had first found fame on The Food Network with “Molto Mario,” then went into business in New York with Joe Bastianich, son of TV Italian cooking fixture Lidia Bastianich, also becoming a co-host of ABC’s syndicated show “The Chew.”But his career imploded in 2017 over a series of sexual harassment allegations and an allegation of sexual assault at The Spotted Pig, the West Village restaurant where he was an investor.A woman accused Batali of sexually assaulting her, while she was unconscious, in the gastropub’s alleged.