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A former associate of Mario Batali has come forward to accuse the disgraced celebrity chef of raping her in the VIP room of his Spotted Pig restaurant while she was drugged and unconscious.
Eva DeVirglis says Batali left her with bruised ribs and scrapes after the 2005 incident at the Manhattan restaurant.
DeVirgilis, now 43, was a reservations manager at Babbo, Batali’s flagship Greenwich Village, when the celebrity chef invited her to a late night gathering at the Spotted Pig — another NYC hot spot where Batali was an investor.
She says she was afraid of gaining weight and being alone with Batali, who was carrying a bottle of prosecco.
That night, DeVirgilis was attacked while unconscious and woke up the next morning still in the restaurant, she says. She went to the hospital and a rape investigation was done.
But DeVirgilis refused to allow the kit to be turned over to the police, fearing it would ruin her burgeoning career if she came up against a powerful figure in the industry. However, a nurse told her that it looked like someone had pricked her legs.
New York state laws give rape prosecutors the right to decide whether or not to report hospital sexual assault investigation results to the police.
This isn’t the first time DeVirgilis has discussed her meeting with Batali.
She initially shared some of her story with 60 Minutes in 2018, though her face was obscured and her identity remained anonymous.
Now, however, she is ready to come forward publicly. And audiences will see much more of DeVirgilis and hear her story in the upcoming Batali: The Fall of a Superstar Chef, a documentary premiering this Thursday on Discovery+.
Eva DeVirgilis quit the restaurant industry after being allegedly attacked by celebrity chef Mario Batali in 2005
Batali pleaded not guilty in 2019 to a charge of violently kissing and groping a woman at a Boston restaurant
Disgraced celebrity chef Mario Batali tastes coffee at Eataly in 2010
The Spotted Pig in New York City’s West Village closed in 2020 after a rocky couple of years battling allegations of staff being serially sexually harassed
“The irony is that even though I’ve been doing this job for ten years, it’s taken me so long to tell my story,” DeVirgilis told the New York Times. “It’s that hard.”
According to the Times, a hospital report from the day after DeVirgilis’ assault, more than a decade and a half ago, shows she suffered multiple abrasions and bruised ribs and told doctors she believed she had been sexually assaulted and possibly drugged the night before.
On the night of the attack, DeVirgilis said she was invited along with the rest of Babbo’s staff for a nightcap at the Spotted Pig, but was eventually taken to a private room with Batali where she was treated with alcohol.
‘He was married. He was my boss. It wasn’t at all what I thought it would be,” she said.
DeVirgilis, 43, now works as an activist and speaker on empowerment. She initially became a makeup artist when she quit Babbo
Chef Mario Batali to be charged with indecent assault and assault in Boston Municipal Court in 2019 in connection with a 2017 incident at a Boston restaurant
Finally she told Batali that she had to go home.
She says the next thing she remembers waking up alone on the wooden floor of the restaurant with scratches down her side and legs and a substance that appeared to be sperm on her skirt.
DeVirgilis says she had no idea where she was and was dismayed to find that Batali had left her alone in his restaurant overnight, not concerned for her safety.
She says she remembers Batali kissing her aggressively and throwing up in a toilet when he stood behind her.
In 2021, Batali and his former business partner Joe Bastianich agreed to a $600,000 settlement awarded to more than 20 employees who were sexually harassed in their restaurants.
In August, Batali settled two lawsuits brought by women in Boston who said he had groped them in public in 2017.
Batali, who also founded the popular Eataly food markets, has now had his career and reputation torn apart by the scandals.