Succes 2011: Mario Batali, american chef, writer, restaurateur and media personality. Co-owner of restaurants in New York, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Singapore

Mario Batali (born September 19, 1960) is an American chef, writer, restaurateur and media personality.

In addition to his classical culinary training, he is an expert on the history and culture of Italian cuisine, including regional and local variations. Batali co-owns restaurants in New York, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and Singapore. Batali's signature style includes shorts and orange Crocs.

Batali was born in Seattle, Washington, the son of Marilyn and Armandino Batali, owner of the restaurant Salumi in Seattle. His family moved to Yakima, Washington shortly thereafter. When Batali was about 8, his family moved back to Seattle when his father got a job as an engineer for Boeing. His father worked for Boeing for thirty years, then, after retirement, opened a meat-curing shop in Seattle.

He is of Italian ancestry on his father's side, and English and French Canadian ancestry on his mother's side.

According to research done by Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (of Harvard University, in 2010 for the PBS series Faces of America), his maternal great-great grandparents opened an Italian foods store in 1903. Batali's family roots are found almost entirely in the Western United States. Mario’s great-great-grandfather left Italy in 1899, going to Butte, Montana to work in the copper mines, but later moved west to settle in Seattle.

Mario moved to Spain with his family in 1975 and returned to the U.S. in 1978 to attend Rutgers University, where he majored in Spanish Language, Theatre and Economics, and graduated in 1982. He later went to attend Le Cordon Bleu, though he left because he found the pace too slow and that the best way for him to learn was in a professional kitchen. Mario currently lives in New York City with his wife Susi Cahn (of Coach Dairy Goat Farm) and two sons, Leo and Benno. He also owns homes in Northport, Michigan, and Red Hook, New York.

Batali is one of the principal subjects of Bill Buford's 2006 book, Heat.

During college Batali worked as a dishwasher at "Stuff Yer Face" restaurant in New Brunswick, New Jersey, quickly moving up to pizzaman.[citation needed] Batali went on to serve as an assistant in the kitchens at the "Six Bells" public house in the Kings Road, Chelsea, under Marco Pierre White, La Tour d'Argent in Paris, Moulin de Mougins in Provence, and the Waterside Inn, outside London. In 1985 he worked as a sous chef at the Four Seasons Clift in San Francisco before being promoted to helm the Four Seasons Biltmore Hotel's La Marina restaurant in Santa Barbara. At twenty-seven, Batali was the highest paid young chef in the company. In 1989 he resigned and moved to the northern Italian village of Borgo Capanne to apprentice in the kitchen at La Volta, where he sought to master a traditional style of Italian cooking inspired by his grandmother, Leonetta Merlino.
In 1993 Batali opened "Po". In 1998, with business partner Joseph Bastianich (son of Lidia Bastianich), he went on to start "Babbo Ristorante e Enoteca".

The pair have since opened seven additional restaurants, Lupa (1999), Esca (2000), Otto Enoteca Pizzeria (2003), Casa Mono (2004), Bar Jamon (2004), Bistro Du Vent (2004, closed in 2006), Del Posto (2005), Enoteca San Marco (2007 in Las Vegas, Nevada), B&B Ristorante (2007 in Las Vegas, Nevada), Tarry Lodge in Port Chester, NY, CarneVino (2008 in Las Vegas, Nevada) and a shop named Italian Wine Merchants (1999) which is no longer under Batali's ownership.

The New York Post reported in September 2007 that Batali’s contract with the Food Network would not be renewed, and that he would no longer be featured on its Iron Chef America series. The article further reported that although Batali had not initially been dismissed from Iron Chef America, he decided not to make any further appearances on the show after the network made the decision to cancel his cooking show, Molto Mario, which had been airing on Food Network since 1997. A Food Network spokesperson confirmed to ABC News that Molto Mario would no longer be aired, but said that "Mario Batali is still part of the Food Network family. Sometimes family members go off and do other things. We completely blessed his decision to go to PBS ... He is still going to appear on Iron Chef America." No new episodes of Molto Mario have been filmed since 2004, but the network continued airing re-runs, with reruns currently airing first on Fine Living and currently on Fine Living's replacement channel Cooking. Batali was absent on the season finalé of The Next Iron Chef, but he appeared twice during Iron Chef America's 2008 season, and his likeness has been licensed to appear in the Nintendo game Iron Chef America: Supreme Cuisine. As of episodes airing in 2010, Batali's name and likeness do not appear in the show's opening credits.

Batali is featured in PBS’s show Spain... on the road Again with Gwyneth Paltrow, Mark Bittman (of The New York Times) and Claudia Bassols (a Spanish actress) featuring Spanish cuisine. The 13-episode series was filmed from October 2007 into early 2008. This will be the first of a series of shows that will be developed for PBS over the next several years. Batali is also in negotiations with Travel Channel to develop a series on Italian cuisine and culture with Anthony Bourdain that reportedly will be an "exhaustive, definitive Italy series with the kind of production values that Planet Earth had".
Batali teamed up with premium drum stick producer Vic Firth to create custom kitchen tools. Together they designed a line of wooden rolling pins, pepper grinders and salt grinders.

In 2009, Batali announced the creation of the Mario Batali Foundation "to educate, empower and encourage children". The foundation is an event-driven fundraiser for children’s disease research, children’s hunger relief, and literacy programs.

Batali has been critical of fellow international chef Gordon Ramsay, calling his cooking styles dated and boring. Although the New York Post reported, in 2009, of a feud between Ramsay and Batali, Batali has stated, "We really don't even know each other.... I'd love to hang out with him."

In 2009 Batali made his film debut in Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr. Fox.

Batali recently lost 45 pounds, hoping to shed about 80 pounds total. Batali said he decided to lose weight after he saw a picture of himself. He counts on light exercise and portion control to lose the weight. Batali said, "It’s really about calorie intake and calorie outtake. You just have to eat enough to get you to the next meal."

Mario is featured also in the MMORPG World of Warcraft: Cataclysm: in Stormwind City there is the NPC Bario Matalli (almost Mario Batali with the initial letters swapped) which is regarded as "Sous Chef" and feature the highest-level cooking recipes available.