The offal that has critics talking is a pasta dish served with black truffles, coxcombs and duck testicles, priced at $30. "They're delicious, they don't taste like anything you've had before. They're whole and they're white," Batali said.

Known to fans of his television cooking shows as "Super Mario," Batali has opened a string of Italian eateries in Manhattan to critical acclaim. But his latest venture, Del Posto, has attracted as much attention for the price of valet parking, $29, as for the quality of the food.

A feud with the landlord over the lease has also kept the food gossips chattering, and the fact that Batali spent $12 million on the cavernous marble and mahogany space has left some wondering if things are getting out of hand.

"The extreme pomp of the place -- the footstools for ladies' purses, the high-tea piano music, the miles of marble, the fleets of flatware -- can feel like a put on," The New Yorker magazine said in a review of Del Posto, which opened in January.

The restaurant has a staff of 150 and feeds around 320 diners a night. The wine list has 1,700 wines -- all Italian except for the Champagnes -- and Batali's chefs make everything from bread to salamis on site.

He defends the price of a seafood risotto at $60, noting that critics generally fail to mention it is to be shared by two people. "It's a little bit more than a Happy Meal, and it took 150 people to get it to you," he said.

Mike Salmon, host of a food talk show on Air America radio, said the attention to detail at Del Posto was beyond reproach -- from the exquisite olives in the martinis to fancy metal stirrers in the Diet Coke -- but despite excellent food, it didn't quite live up to his expectations.

"While everything was very good, it didn't wow me at all," Salmon said. "It was lacking a certain personality."

He recalled that as he was eating, he heard a woman at the bar screeching loudly and when he asked what happened, the waiter quipped: "I don't know, maybe she just saw the check."