Babbo
Mark Ladner is the executive chef in the Waverly Place carriage house now, and his Del Posto years show on the card. The question is whether the room is his yet.
Why go
It opened in 1998 under Mario Batali. Eater NY reported sexual misconduct allegations against him in 2017, and Fitzpatrick's review still links that reporting. It closed, renovated and reopened under a new owner with Ladner in the kitchen. The restaurant describes itself now as bold regional Italian. It promises classic rock, tableside presentations and a candlelit dining room.
Molly Fitzpatrick, in The Infatuation, went to the reopening and rated it 7.5. Her headline says the new Babbo is basically the old one. She is generous about the floor. Servers with twenty years on staff carry linguine vongole and veal chops around an island piled with decorative walnuts. She is blunt about the kitchen. The menu leans on nostalgia and comes out uneven.
His Del Posto years arrive on the card as an orecchiette with crisp lamb sausage and sweet carrot sauce. Fitzpatrick says that is the pasta that does not cohere. What works is older than he is. The warm lamb's tongue comes tender under maitake, oyster and shiitake sautéed in porcini oil. A black truffle dressing goes over it. The black spaghetti with rock shrimp has anchored this kitchen for years, and now carries Calabrian sausage heat.
Fitzpatrick's own point is that the city has more ambitious and more consistent Italian rooms than this one.
Order this / avoid
- Order: the warm lamb's tongue, and the black spaghetti Fitzpatrick tells you to order. Start on the shellfish trio for the scallops, which come perfumed with tangerine oil and pink peppercorn, and finish on the saffron panna cotta the kitchen finishes at your table.
- Order: the Babbo Tour if you want the whole shape of it, seven plates over four courses at $115 a head with supplements on the lobster fusilloni, the veal chop and the porterhouse.
- Avoid: the beef cheek ravioli at $45, which turns overwhelmingly rich after the first bite, and the orecchiette.
What locals & experts say
- Molly Fitzpatrick, The Infatuation, 27 February 2026, at 7.5:
unless you're already on a first-name basis with the host, like most of the martini-clutching regulars who still pack the bar, there's no need to run over to see why it was such a big deal in 1999.
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Good to know
- Jeff put this on the list himself, 3 September 2026.
- Getting in: dinner only, and you need a booking.
- Music: the classic rock is a house signature and it can run to an uninterrupted hour of Led Zeppelin.
Jeff's take (his words)
Not on Jeff's saved list. He named the place on 3 September 2026, in the paragraph he wrote on what New York is to him, and asked for it.
Verdict
could-visit — If you are eating a main, make it the charred beef rib-cap. Fitzpatrick pairs it with a bright, firm eggplant sott'olio and calls it a solid way to round out the primi.