Joe Bastianich WAS in LA Scouting Eataly Spaces, "Pretty Sure" He Found A Location

Somehow we missed this on Wednesday, but The Hollywood Reporter confirms our swirling rumors: "Food television star Mario Batali and MasterChef judge Joe Bastianich have plans to open a Los Angeles outpost of Eataly, their high-end Italian food mega-store, which debuted in New York last year. A representative of Bastianich confirmed that the restaurateur and winemaker recently was scouting locations for the potential L.A. branch of Eataly while in town to film the second season of Fox's MasterChef, which premieres June 6." BadaBOOM.

Earlier this week we broke a HUGE story regarding partners Joe Bastianich and Mario Batali potentially bringing NYC's ridiculously amazing massively huge massively Italian uber gourmet market Eataly to Los Angeles, orange Crocs and all.

Two industry friends tipped us off on the details, one saying Joe was in town scouting locations, the other saying Joe was in town scouting locations and had picked a spot in the WeHo vicinity. We checked back in with tipster number two regarding that dinner with Joe, and he repeats that Joe said that Team Eataly is "pretty sure they found a location" perhaps around in the Fairfax District.

Over the past few years the Los Angeles dining scene has grown tremendously, but what we still lack is gourmet markets. Sure, LA has amazing farmers markets, but other than that Angelenos are mostly left with Whole Foods and Bristol Farms which really don't count. On with Eataly, then!

On another random note, at dinner with tipster number two Bastianich also revealed that he would be opening a restaurant in Istanbul. Random.
·Word on the Street... EATALY IS COMING TO LA! [~ELA~]
·Mario Batali and 'MasterChef' Judge Scouting L.A. Outpost of Eataly [THR]

[Photo: Eataly NYC]