Mario Batali’s Otto Briefly Shuttered by Health Department for Mice Infestation

The Department of Health temporarily closed popular Greenwich Village pizza and pasta restaurant Otto Enoteca e Pizzeria on Monday for sanitary violations that included mice and roach infestations.

The sprawling restaurant — owned by Mario Batali, who’s stepped away from day-to-day operations since accusations of sexual misconduct — also had fruit flies, food out of temperature, and contaminated food, which led to a closure that lasted through Tuesday afternoon. The restaurant has since been approved to reopen for dinner tonight, an Otto spokesperson says.

It’s been a rough month for the Batali and Bastianich Hospitality Group restaurant, which earlier in July announced that its credit card systems had undergone a security breach. Customers who paid by credit card at the restaurant between March 1, 2017 and March 18, 2018, as well as on March 29, 2018 were potentially exposed to malware that sniped information such as the card number, expiration date, internal verification code, and sometimes the cardholder name.

Near the New York University campus, Otto is one of the more casual restaurants in disgraced chef Mario Batali’s empire and has been open since 2003. Batali was accused by many women of sexual misconduct and has since stepped away from operations of all restaurants. He remains an owner but is divesting from the company following the allegations, a process that is expected to finalize this year.

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