Mario Batali Forsakes His Beloved Crocs for Yeezys

Mario Batali is officially taking a break from Crocs, the plastic shoes that were his calling card for over a decade. Although the chef appeared on television wearing his bright orange kicks earlier this summer, Batali now tells GQ: “I’m away from Crocs now. I’m onto the Yeezys, just this week. And I will wear them everywhere. One pair of shoes is what I travel with.” There’s a chance that this is just a temporary, travel-imposed break from the plastic orange shoes, but Mario also says that he’s “ended the Crocs relationship” and is “moving on.” No word yet on what he plans to do with the 200 pairs of Crocs he ordered when the brand announced that it was discontinuing the orange variety a few years ago.

In other Batali news, the chef divulged some new details at the Code Conference about the mysterious TV show he was shooting in Michigan over the summer. Molto Mario told Kara Swisher:

I just finished shooting the pilot with a company called [Zero Point Zero] for Netflix, we’re shooting a show called In the Pinks With Mario Batali. I sit on a pink Adirondack chair and someone sits right next to me and we look out. We shot the pilot with Maria Bello this summer, in which case we were looking out over Lake Michigan, but they could be in Piazza Navona, they could be in the Andes.

Batali also remarked:

[T]he idea would be that we’re talking about where we are and we’re also interviewing someone who may or may not have that much to do with where we are. And then 40 percent of it is animated. So maybe when I talk about the 673 shipwrecks in Lake Michigan, we actually dive into the water, animated as characters, and go find out the how, the where, and the why these ships were wrecked in the first place.

Stay tuned for more details on this unusual new Batali project they become available.

• Why Mario Batali Never Checks His Luggage [GQ]
• Mario Batali loves fighting on Twitter and showing you happiness on Instagram. He doesn’t get Snapchat. [Recode]
• Mario Batali Films a Mystery TV Show With Zero Point Zero in Michigan [E]