PASTA PERVNADO: Mario Batali is stepping away from his eatery empire, as well as ABC’s “The Chew,” following several allegations of sexual misconduct:

Four women have accused Batali, 57, of sexual harassment and assault spanning nearly 20 years, Eater reported Monday.

A female chef alleged that an intoxicated Batali offered her a job, then groped her breasts. Two of Batali’s female former employees accused him of grabbing and groping them, with one accusing the celebrated chef of ordering her to straddle him. A third former employee claimed that Batali groped her breasts at a party, though she noted the incident allegedly occurred when she was no longer working for him.

To the left of the New York Post’s story today is this related headline from late October, a few weeks in which the first Weinstein stories dropped, which now looks very different in light of today’s news: “Mario Batali’s ‘fanciest’ restaurant has an all-female kitchen:”

“I think back in the stone ages — say the beginning or the middle of the 20th century — it was perceived as physically difficult for a woman to do the job and that was back when cooking was still iron and fire and Cro-Magnon man, and it has changed a lot since the ’60s and ’70s,” the chef, 57, said at the Fast Company Innovation Festival this week.

In fact, Batali’s “fanciest restaurant,” Del Posto, has an “all-women” kitchen, including the executive chef, pastry chef, service director and sommelier. “It’s not because they have a vagina,” he said. “It’s because they’re the smartest people for the job.”

Batali said he hates it when a member of the media wants to to run a story on one of his employees as a “great woman chef.”

“Why don’t you f–king do a piece about her being a great chef and we’ll talk about her sexuality later?” he suggested.

The Weinstein-esque faux-macho F-bomb is a nice touch.