Is New York’s restaurant sector ready to tackle its sexual harassment problem?

Celebrity chef Mario Batali was acquitted on indecent assault charges but the industry is a byword for workplace harassment

The Spotted Pig, the 100-seat gastropub in New York's trendy West Village, is under renovation. It was, until the restaurant closed in 2020, the site of a notorious, third-floor space dubbed the rape room" by several employees who claimed that the private dining enclave was ground zero for sexual harassment by management.

The rape room lives on as a darkly symbolic story in the city's hospitality business. Mario Batali, the celebrity chef and investor in Spotted Pig, was a frequent visitor and also accused of criminal behavior on the third floor, including groping and kissing a woman who appeared to be unconscious in 2008.