Steve Cuozzo

Steve Cuozzo

Food & Drink

Like chief’s anti-gay comments, Barilla eatery leaves bad taste

Pasta maker Barilla apologized four times for its chairman’s goofy, gay-dissing remarks last fall. But the company’s culinary orientation is beyond forgiving, judging by its recently opened, quick-serve Manhattan cafe.

Tasteless spaghetti with meatballs.Brian Zak

Since Academia Barilla launched a few months ago, reviewers have ignored it, even though the press couldn’t get enough of Barilla during last year’s uproar.

Maybe it’s a boycott as demanded by gay-rights organizations after Barilla chairman Guido Barilla said he’d never use gays in commercials because he prefers “traditional” families.

My pasta-loving gay pals have patronized the new joint with no hard feelings. In bustling Midtown, lunch is lunch. But Academia Barilla borrows more from neighboring, quick-serve ilk like Cafe Metro than from Barilla’s cooking school in Parma, Italy, “where the first Barilla pasta and bake shop was born in 1877.”

Barilla’s packaged product cooks easily and bears sauces well. But Academia reduces it to the sexless mush of cheaper chains, which don’t wear you down with video displays of environmental pyramids and menus stating, “good for you, good for the planet.”

Say this for Academia Barilla: It doesn’t waste your time with exacting preparation. Dishes (pasta, $8.25 to $10.95, small pizza $6.50 to $8.95) came to our seats in what seemed like 60 seconds after placing our orders at the counter.

The fusilli montanara has a bizarre glow, but still looks better than it tastes.Brian Zak

A sign says chefs “train at the academy,” but hardworking cooks evidently misheard “al dente” as “al cemente.” Undercooked, understirred orecchiette stuck together in half-dozenear clumps.

Eerily glowing fusilli montanara, like no Italian dish I’ve had between Sicily and the Swiss border, “looks like Campbell’s cream of chicken poured over pasta,” my friend said. It should taste so good. Watery minestrone recalled the midnight diner variety.

Not everything was terrible. Fusilli puttanesca came with persuasively spicy tomato sauce and good olives and capers. But tomato-basil sauce tasting out of a jar drowned spaghetti with meatballs.

Barilla, the world’s largest pasta maker, says the eateries are supposed to increase its “brand recognition” in the US. But pasta-loving New Yorkers of any sexual orientation will recognize a stinker.

Back to the kitchen, Guido!