The restaurant industry is tough, but if you're lucky you make it to the top and get to cash in with all sorts of corporate promotions, like the one rolling into town this week for All-Clad, the bonded cookware manufacturer. Chef Scott Conant, the talented man behind the upscale Italian restaurant Scarpetta, is joining a roster of other chefs for a month-long "All-Clad Chefs Tour," which of course features the federally-mandated food truck. On Friday Conant will be dishing out his famous—and Jay-Z and Beyonce-approved—Ricotta and Spinach Gnudi, for free, in honor of the company's 40th birthday. more ›

Earlier in the month lawyers for the SoHo and TriBeCa Grand Hotels told us they were "very close" to a deal to buy the troubled Cooper Square Hotel. Last week the hotel shut down its Scott Conant restaurant, Faustina, presumably to make the upcoming sale smoother. We guess they weren't close enough. This morning we received an e-mail from the hotel's reps telling us that in fact it will "not be sold to an outside party." Further, they'll announce plans for a new restaurant in early 2011. We were really hoping they were going to rename it the Cooper Grand. Oh, well. more ›

While acknowledging that Scott Conant (Scarpetta) is a "phenomenally talented chef," Times critic Sam Sifton is frustrated by Faustina, Conant's new venture in the Cooper Square Hotel. It's not the food—which is "excellent"—it's the space, which formerly housed the defunct Table 8. Faustina "offers what may be the city’s best pork chop, a shoebox-size Berkshire behemoth currently recommended for two or more diners; it might serve four, and happily," says Sifton. "You can find a wealth of interesting raw-bar small bites and bread-dippers, delicate salads and ridiculously hearty, delicious pastas... But no matter the meal, you will eat it uncomfortably, in a tough concrete dining room that juts off a large bar crowded with tall tables, in what is unmistakably an institutional setting, down to the space on the check where you can sign the bill to your room." more ›

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 ›