Possibly my favorite place on earth

A little over two years ago I first walked into the Eataly in New York City and was massively overwhelmed.  We had just eaten lunch in Chelsea before we walked our way here not knowing what to expect, and ended up only having some gelato.  Don't get me wrong, the gelato was amazing, but I wanted so much more!

Flash forward two years and this time I was prepared.  My husband and I woke up and made our way to Eataly.  We arrived a little after 10:30, so we had time to walk around before any of the restaurants started serving at 11am.  There are so many to choose from, but today we decided on La Pizza and La Pasta.  Can you guess what they serve?  La Pizza and La Pasta share a dining room, but are two separate kitchens meaning that if you order one dish from each that they could be served at different times.

First up was The Classic.  Honestly, after one bite, I didn't need to eat anything else - ever.  Everything about this simplistic dish was amazing.  I don't think I had ever thought of drizzling olive oil on mozzarella before, and now I can't imagine not doing so.  The mozzarella was perfectly soft, but not mushy.  The olive oil added the right amount of sweetness, with the sea salt adding the complimentary salty bite that you need and bringing out the flavor in both the mozzarella and the olive oil.

The Classic Mozzarella (buffalo mozzarella with sea salt and extra virgin olive oil)

The mozzarella was served with three slices of house made Italian bread, which was great to sop up the remaining olive oil left behind after the mozzarella was gone.  While the bread was perfect (crispy on the outside, soft on the inside), I just didn't want to fill up on bread.

House Italian Bread

For our pasta dish we decided to go with the gnocchi.  As you might be able to tell from the picture, it wasn't smothered in sauce.  Instead, it was complimented by just the right amount of lamb sausage and showered with fresh cheese.  Each gnocchi was perfectly soft, yet dense, unlike any potato gnocchi I had before and by which all future gnocchi will be judged.  Simply amazing.  Oh, and that bread?  Yeah, my husband used it to clean this plate.

Gnocchi con Salsiccia di Agnello e Melanzane (housemade gnocchi and lamb sausage with roasted eggplant and pecorino romano)

And finally we had to have pizza, of course.  The menu has two margherita pizzas on the menu: the basic and the fancy.  The two were separated by a mere $5, so of course we had to go with the fancy, or as they like to call it, the Verace.  So what makes it fancy?  Buffalo mozzarella from Naples instead of cow mozzarella, and extra virgin olive oil from Sorrento.  Simply amazing.  I'm sure the basic was just as good, but why go with basic when there is fancy?

Verace TSG (tomato sauce mozzarella di bufala from Napoli, fresh basil and extra virgin olive oil from Sorrento)

We finished off our meal by walking over to the gelateria to get some black cherry gelato just because we couldn't leave without experiencing even more of the food.  Eataly is literally heaven on earth and 2017 can not come fast enough when they finally open their first location in Los Angeles.  I'll probably be there every Saturday....all day.  Thank you Batali and Bastianich.