MarioIn case you missed it, uber-star chef Mario Batali has launched a new website.

Normally, I’d barely care and certainly wouldn’t mention it here, but this time I’m proud of the relaunch because a good friend of mine is the designer behind it.

The cool thing was that I got to see this thing from the inception–from design proposals all the way through to launch. At one point, they wanted her to visit at least one of the restaurants to get a feel for the cuisine, but as a strict vegan and busy mother of two, that hasn’t happened quite yet.