Mario Batali Gives Up Rights to All Restaurants Amid Year-Old #MeToo Scandal

Chef Mario Batali and the Bastianich family have ended their 20-year relationship by dissolving all partnerships in restaurant holdings.

The move comes more than a year after Batali was accused by several women of sexual harassment and assault, The New York Times reported.

Batali “will no longer profit from the restaurants in any way, shape or form,” said Tanya Bastianich Manuali, who will take over day-to-day operations at a new, unnamed company that will replace the Batali & Bastianich Hospitality Group.

The new company will manage all of the 16 restaurants that Batali and the Bastianich family ran together. Bastianich Manuali and her brother, Joe Bastianich, have officially bought all of Batali’s shares in the eateries but would not discuss the terms, the Times reported.

Batali is also selling his shares in Eataly, the chain of luxury Italian supermarkets.

“Eataly is in the process of acquiring Mr. Batali’s minority interest in Eataly USA,” said Chris Giglio, a spokesman for that company.

Batali’s history of sexual aggression launched police investigations, torpedoed his career and cast a shadow over all the restaurants he was involved with in December 2017. Reservations at Del Posto, the group’s luxurious Manhattan flagship, tanked as more and more began to shy away from Batali’s compromised reputation.

Six of the group’s restaurants, in Las Vegas and East Asia, closed soon afterward, when the Sands casino group ended its contracts with Batali & Bastianich.

Bastianich has insisted that he was unaware of Mr. Batali’s sexual aggressions against women since news of the allegations first broke.

“While I never saw or heard of Mario groping an employee, I heard him say inappropriate things to our employees,” Bastianich said in a statement on Tuesday. “Though I criticized him for it from time to time, I should have done more. I neglected my responsibilities as I turned my attention away from the restaurants. People were hurt, and for this I am deeply sorry.”