For the better part of a decade, Scott Conant has consistently earned acclaim as one of the city's best Italian chefs, from L’Impero and Alto uptown, to his superlative Scarpetta on West 14th Street (in the space formerly occupied by the Village Idiot). Having solidified Scarpetta as one of the most popular restaurants in town over the course of the past couple years, Conant has now taken on a new challenge at the Cooper Square Hotel, where he'll attempt to reverse the critical hammering inflicted on what was formerly (briefly) Table 8. The revamped ground-floor restaurant and lounge is now called Faustina (after an ancient Roman empress), and is serving what's being described as a casual-yet-elegant "Italian inspired" shared plates menu. more ›

Click on the images for more details on truffle specials at Bottega Del Vino, Sapori D'Ischia in Queens, Marea, Gilt, Scarpetta, David Burke Townhouse, and Craft. more ›

Click on the images for details on Scarpetta's new five course tasting menu, The JakeWalk's new fall food and cocktail menu, and Dokebi's Korean tacos and weekend brunch. more ›

This week the Times’s Frank Bruni opines on Scarpetta (pictured), the new Meatpacking District Italian restaurant from Scott Conant (L’Impero, Alto) that the Village Voice loved and the Sun disdained. Bruni bestows a big three stars, raving about the unassuming dish of spaghetti, tomato and basil: “However Mr. Conant is choosing and cooking the Roma tomatoes with which he sauces his house-made spaghetti, he’s getting a roundness of flavor and nuance of sweetness that amount to pure Mediterranean bliss.” Also in the Times, Julia Moskin surveys Chinese food in Flushing, where “the dumplings are juicier, the noodles springier, the butter cookies flavored with a bit of salty green seaweed.” more ›

This week the Times’s Frank Bruni reminds everyone about Oceana (pictured), that fancy three star “seafood restaurant in Midtown that looks like an ocean liner.” After more than fifteen years in business, he says it’s still “very much worth boarding.” And save room for dessert, which is “splendid.” The frozen banana mousse, “presented with both sticky rice and puffed, caramelized rice, [is] the transmogrification of a bowl of Rice Krispies with bananas into dessert, and it’s killer.” more ›

Julia Moskin has replaced Peter Meehan on the Times’s $25-and-under beat and starts with a baptism by fire at Greenwich Village Thai restaurant Rhong-Tiam. Or is “rhong-tiam” just Thai for sadomasochism? Moskin says their "Pork on Fire" is “not so much a dish as a session: an hour spent suspended exquisitely between pleasure and pain, craving and fear.” more ›

Hundred Acres: Marc Meyer and Vicki Freeman were fed up with the way their Macdougal Street restaurant Provence had become just “a special-occasion restaurant.” According to Eater they “want a place that people would be happy coming to all the time” – not a bad goal for a restaurateur. So they gutted the space and have reopened as Hundred Acres, a more casual iteration of the stuffier predecessor. Two back rooms filled with wooden tables and herb planters are meant to evoke a contemporary farmhouse; up front the classic white subway tiles by the bar suggest an old-timey butcher shop. Currently open for dinner only, the rustic American menu features modestly-priced entrees (the most expensive is $22, most cost much less) like walnut pesto pasta or the corned beef tongue with multigrain bread, mache and ramp relish. 38 Macdougal Street, (212) 475-7500. more ›