The Spotted Pig was swine from the day it opened in the winter of 2004.

Never mind its ridiculously inflated, pre-scandal reputation (chef April Bloomfield’s astronomically, interplanetarily great hamburger!). The West Village gastropub, which shuttered last week, was where many of New York’s most obnoxious restaurant trends began — or, at least, were refined to wallet-draining, ear-splitting perfection. The food was as wobbly as patrons became after knocking down drinks at the bar during 90-minute waits for a table.

I admit to tapping inside help to get tables when friends insisted on going. Every time, I approached the Pig with trepidation. Its pubby confines were cozy-looking but uncomfortable. Besides coddled VIPs, the clientele in recent years was so bridge-and-tunnel that a friend called it “the best rest stop off the New Jersey Turnpike.”

I remember food that varied from sublime to terrible, but mostly in-between. Bloomfield’s burgers and ricotta gnudi were great if you caught them on a good night. But dolphin-size sardines at lunch were oily and smelly enough to end my lifelong affection for the creatures.

Yet, some voices in the culinary-promotional complex sound nostalgic for the joint’s supposed joys. What a bundle of fun it all was before investor Mario Batali allegedly groped an unconscious woman in the “rape room” or owner Ken Friedman stuck his tongue into the mouth of a waitress whom he lured into his car!

The internet is awash with meditations on the Pig’s “complicated legacy,” as an Eater.com headline puts it. That story’s writer, who once worked at the pub, eulogizes it as one of the “essential restaurants.” The New York Times writes of its glory days: “Waits stretched hours for the chance to eat Ms. Bloomfield’s famous burger with Roquefort cheese and shoestring fries . . . and to spot celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow and Jay-Z as they were whisked upstairs to a private room.”

Well, let’s cut through the “complications.”

You’re familiar with the hours-long waits at Blue Ribbon Sushi, Via Carota and St. Anselm? Thank the Pig for perfecting the screw-you, no-reservations system. When underground tacos-and-tequila haunt La Esquina opened in August 2005 with a no-reservations policy and a speakeasy-like “forbidden” vibe, you can bet the owners took heart from the crowds queuing up for abuse at the Spotted Pig.

Making ordinary customers drink, and drink, while they waited was key to feeding the piggy bank. Friedman even told Food & Wine in February 2014, “As every restaurateur knows, you make much more money selling a drink than you do selling a plate of food” — and the Pig made sure to sell lots of them. No booze, no buzz, right?

How about ear-shattering noise levels, even at once-hushed Japanese kaiseki counters? The Pig taught owners to make restaurants as raucous as possible. Tablecloths did little to baffle the din of 100-plus eaters vying to be heard over the racket at the bar.

Do you gag over celebrity chefs’ obnoxious omnipresence everywhere but in their kitchens? Bloomfield’s personal appearances commanded $20,000 to $30,000 a pop, according to a speakers’ bureau listing that’s still online. She also ran the Breslin and the John Dory. She and Friedman would have been spread even more thin had a deal not collapsed to open a restaurant at the top of 70 Pine St. downtown.

And the adulation! The Pig garnered a Michelin star every year it was open until 2016. But even Bloomfield’s and Friedman’s erstwhile pal Batali knew the twinkler was a joke. Michelin was “blowing it,” he told the Times in 2005. Bloomfield was also chosen by the James Beard Foundation as the “best chef in New York City” in 2014. Yup — her “British-Italian” gastropub dishes such as pork rillette and chicken liver toast beat anything Éric Ripert, Thomas Keller or Jean-Georges Vongerichten could do.

After years of dumbing down the city’s standard of civilized dining for the sake of boldface sightings, the Spotted Pig became the Jeffrey Epstein townhouse of restaurants before it gave up the ghost last week. It’s just as well that the rest of us forget it, too.