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.