Mario Batali’s massive new Italian extravaganza is an homage to excess.

I was duly impressed by the sheer scope of what Mario Batali, Joe and Lidia Bastianich and partner Oscar Farinetti have pulled off with the opening of Eataly at 200 Fifth Avenue.   But being impressed with the scope of the project has little to do with the results, and to put it simply, Eataly was just too much for my taste.   For me, it was like an overstuffed cannoli–where the preponderance of filling overwhelms the delicate beauty of the desert.

First the highlights:  The food is beautifully curated and displayed, and the idea that you can eat a meal and then buy the ingredients is brilliant.  The panetteria, the macelleria, salumeria and fishmongers were knowledgeable friendly and very capable and the food looked beautiful.   Gaetano–one of the butchers I spoke to–studied with the famous Dario of Panzano and was exceptionally informative and fun to talk to.  The restaurants are packed and you can eat, drink and browse to your heart’s content.

At the end of the day though, I felt too bombarded to really make sense of anything.  The place is an emabarassment of riches, but left me feeling poor indeed.  The thing that keeps me going back to places like Ottmanelli’s, Faicco’s, Di Palo’s and others like them is the fact that they do one thing and do it right.  Eataly feels too unwieldy and too all-encompassing to feel special.  Perhaps as the hype and the crowds die down I will feel differently, but for now, the espresso I received was luke-warm from a barista who was sweet, but so harried I thought she might crack, and the few baked goods I tasted were fine but hardly transporting.  With everything they are trying to do, will they be able to maintain the standards they have set?

I admire the ambition of the project, I hope when the hype fades I will still be able to chat with Gaetano about his time in Panzano and browse the cheese case without being hurried along by the swarms of tourists around me.