Post restaurant critic Steve Cuozzo refuses to take unfounded accusations from restaurateur Joe Bastianich sitting down. (
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I never thought Joe Bastianich, Mario Batali’s partner and TV “MasterChef” judge, was dumb — until now.
When a restaurateur questions a critic’s intelligence, it’s incumbent on the restaurateur not to sound like a street-corner lunatic himself. This rule is toast in Joe’s “Restaurant Man,” a meltdown dressed up as a memoir.
In the book, Joe, the alleged business brain behind Batali’s marvelous places including Babbo and Del Posto, suggests I’m “f - - king stupid.” He’s still seething over a 6-year-old column about Del Posto and Stephen Starr’s Morimoto, which had opened across the street from one another.
Joe’s carried a particular grudge over the headline. “The headline was ‘Dumb and Dumber,’ ” Joe fumes in the book.
Never mind that columnists don’t write headlines — the words that pushed him over the edge were not written by anyone. They never appeared in the New York Post, but only in Joe’s hypersensitive head.
The February 2006 headline that set off his pissy-fit did not say “Dumb and Dumber.” It said, “Bum & Bummer.” Different words, different meaning. We weren’t impugning anyone’s IQ, but detailing how both jumbo restaurants were off to difficult starts.
In “Restaurant Man,” Joe calls me a “jack of all tirades,” a cute moniker I just might borrow from time to time. Thanks!
But then he writes: “Steve, are you a real estate reporter, a restaurant critic, or just plain f - - king stupid?”
I’ve written favorably about several Batali-Bastianich restaurants — Babbo, Esca and even flop Bistro du Vent, scene of an infamous videotaped sex orgy reported on Page Six.
But poor Joe never got over my Feb. 15, 2006, column about the bumpy openings of Del Posto and Morimoto. The column — not a “review” as Joe claims — was rougher on Morimoto than on Del Posto, which I criticized mainly for its grandiose design. Starr wasn’t thrilled, yet we’ve had a mutually respectful relationship.
On the other hand, when I congratulated Joe at the opening of his gourmet emporium Eataly a few years ago, he snarled at me as my wife looked on mystified, “Thanks — are you going to kill me again? ‘Dumb and Dumber?’ ”
I was dumbstruck myself because I had no idea what he was talking about.
Why does Joe remember it wrongly? Did Mama Lidia beat him with a zabaglione whisk for the mess he made of Del Posto’s launch, when it was nearly evicted for violating its lease?
Was his writing brain fogged by the mega-lawsuit against his company for misappropriating employee tips? When the case was filed in 2010, blowhard Bastianich roared he’d never settle over a “shakedown.”
Last month, his company agreed to pay a staggering $5.25 million.
Bummer!
No wonder Joe’s hung up on Post real estate coverage. My late colleague Braden Keil broke the news of Del Posto’s legal struggle with its former landlord, a story on which the Times and the rest of the world had to play catch-up.
And Joe hated that plans for Del Posto were first reported not in the Times food section, but in my Realty Check column on May 11, 2004.
But he should know better than to call me a “puffed up real estate columnist who moonlights as a restaurant critic.” (Real estate people say it’s the other way around.) I awarded Babbo 3½ stars in 1999, before I ever wrote about bricks and mortar. Batali likely remembers that even if Joe doesn’t; he sent me a thank-you note.
Despite Joe’s bloviating, Batali and Del Posto chef Mark Ladner have been friendly whenever I’ve run into them — maybe due to the many kind words I’ve written about the place since 2006. My last time there, they sent over a complimentary course of 100-layer lasagna alla Piastra, a house special.
But with Joe at the throttle, that $5.25 million labor payout might be just the start of trouble. Lidia, talk to your boy before he costs you real money.
scuozzo@nypost.com