Small Bites

Here’s Leah Rae’s story, which appeared in the paper over the weekend.

Batali and Bastianich plan gourmet market as Tarry Lodge offshoot

Leah Rae
lrae@lohud.com
October 04, 2009 22:18 PM

PORT CHESTER – Celebrated chef Mario Batali and partner Joe Bastianich are planning to give the village another venue for gourmet food with a market around the corner from their Tarry Lodge restaurant.

Designs approved by the village Planning Commission call for a store at Main and Mill streets, where the Columbia Elevator company ran its operations for more than 40 years.

The heart of the place will be a wood-fired oven for artisanal, organic breads, Bastianich said. A combination of pasta, cheese and sustainably-raised, aged beef will make it a kind of mini-Arthur Avenue, he said, with “the best of the best of Italy and Europe.”

Architectural drawings approved Aug. 31 show an entrance on Main Street. The “industrial chic” decor will help restore the historic look of the area at the north end of Main Street, Mayor Dennis Pilla said. He saw the plan as welcome news.

“Having Tarry Lodge in Port Chester has been really great, for all our restaurants,” the mayor said. Pilla is hoping for another infusion of visitors and a new appreciation for the area’s historic structures.

Tarry Lodge, known for thin-crust pizzas and creative Italian dishes, opened a year ago. Its location just over the line from Greenwich, Conn., was considered key because of the nearby dining clientele.

“It’s been fabulous. The reception at Tarry Lodge has been great, people like it, and it’s a natural outgrowth of that,” Bastianich said.

The venture expands the restaurant’s gourmet territory into a two-story, white-brick building at 175-179 Main St. and an older warehouse at 20 Abendroth Ave.

Both properties were sold by Columbia Elevator as the company relocated to Bridgeport, Conn., over the last two years. The warehouse on Abendroth dates back to a foundry that operated there during the 1800s, said Rye Brook resident Louis Blaiotta Jr., the president of Columbia Elevator.

The property was later used as an auto dealership, a textile plant and eventually the factory for making elevator parts. The Main Street office building dates to about 1900, Blaiotta said. Columbia Elevator was one of the last vestiges of Port Chester’s manufacturing era.

B&B Fine Foods will take about six months to complete, Bastianich said.

It will be the latest venture for the Batali-Bastianich Hospitality Group, whose New York City restaurants include Babbo, Bar Jamon, Casa Mono and Otto Enoteca & Pizzeria. The group also is planning a food and wine marketplace called Eataly in Manhattan’s Flatiron District.

The Port Chester market will be the first of its kind, Bastianich said.

“It’s going to be a little bit unusual. it’s really not about prepared food, it’s really about provisions,” he said.