Photo: ny.eater.com
Now that the buzz has subsided a little bit, it’s time to check out Faustina, the much talked about 4-week takeover of ex-restaurant Table 8 in the Cooper Square Hotel.
By coincidence (I live very close by) I was at the bar on the second floor of the hotel twice for drinks last week during the restaurant’s “friends & family” tasting/test week. The festive mood was in the air: both times a beautiful blonde with a huge scribble pad that held “the list” greeted me at the lobby, and gave ma a huge bright smile when I told her I was going upstairs and not to the restaurant. I haven’t made a reservation yet for the restaurant (I’m away in the Caribbean for a winter break), but have been informed that the wait is not terribly long, so please, I urge you to try it out! Table 8 was a huge disappointment and expectations are high for Scott Conant’s post-Scarpetta digs. The molto italiano menu looks buonissimo: lardo wrapped prawns in rosemary lentils, burrata in carozza, porcini ravioli, and torrone panna cotta… Mamma mia, I’m starving!
The hotel surely needs a jolt of cool visitors. I’m so glad. For the past year since it’s opening, it felt like such a wasted nice space. You will be, as I am, happy to hear that Conant’s people have started to organize events on the hotel’s amazing (and under-used) penthouse and will soon take over the bar menu on the second floor. Good! Because just last week the sweet bar waitress didn’t know what a Lagavulin was, and politely excused herself to ask for help with the bar tender when we asked for a glass of Cointreau. Please enter Contant’s team!
Faustina at the Cooper Square Hotel
25 Cooper Square, Bowery, at East 5th Street
212-475-3400
25 Cooper Square, Bowery, at East 5th Street
212-475-3400
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