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"Alan Richman drops in on Faustina, chef Scott Conant's new Italian restaurant in N.Y.C.'s Cooper Square Hotel.\n\nFacebookPinterest\n\nScott Conant, master of neo-Italian-American food, is on the premises. He is dressed entirely in black, the neo-Italian-ninja look.\n\nI love Conant. Who doesn&amp;amp;#x2019;t? Nevertheless, after two meals at his brand new Faustina, named for a Roman empress, I&amp;amp;#x2019;ve decided I love him much better in chef&amp;amp;#x2019;s whites, dressing and thinking classically.\n\nFaustina, in the Cooper Square Hotel, is stark and sleek, all metal and glass, apparently what modern American diners cherish these days. The look comes with a bonus for the hotel, because if a chef should fail, which is what happened here with Table 8 not so long ago, another one with an entirely different cuisine can slip right in.\n\nFirst we had unisex bathrooms. Now we have uniculinary venues.\n\nService at Faustina is pleasant, and there&amp;amp;#x2019;s plenty of it. The wine list, overpriced, does the job. (Try the Colle dei Bardellini, the bargain of the list at $38 and made from the underappreciated pigato grape.)\n\nYou would think, with Conant in the kitchen, not much could go wrong. A lot does.\n\nThe food, never less than riotously flavorful, has two defining characteristics. First, it is incredibly rich and/or strangely complex. This, of course, is not what Italian food tends to be in Italy, but somehow it is almost always what Italian food ends up being in America.\n\nSecond, to add to the non-Italian nature, the food is served in the large-plate, small-plate, whatever-plate format, which makes no sense. Never has. The Faustina menu offers nine different categories. I assure you that however you order, all manner of disparate items will somehow end up on your table, as though you and your friends went through a buffet line and brought back everything you could haul.\n\nAt one point, during my second meal here, two friends and I were simultaneously eating dinner rolls; stromboli (a kind of spiral Italian turnover filled with meat and cheese); grilled, oiled ciabatta with a fonduta-and-egg dip; beet salad with tallegio cheese; and seared scallops over seafood-laced farro with sunchoke puree. You can blame me for this outrageous m\u00E9lange if you want but not my friends\u2014they were a couple of skinny women trying to dine sensibly. And don&amp;amp;#x2019;t blame any of us for all that food coming at one time. We asked for a bunch of dishes. The waiters brought them in the order they thought best.\n\nI tried to keep score, not easy under such an onslaught. I&amp;amp;#x2019;d rate the stromboli as irresistible, as did the friend who came to dinner from Hoboken, the meat-bread capital of America. She said it was as good as anything in Jersey, high praise from her. I wished those wonderfully fresh scallops had been served with the artichoke puree and nothing else. I wished the ciabatta had come with just the soft egg yolk for dipping and nothing else. I wished a lot of Faustina dishes had come with lots less. I know\u2014sentiments like that make me sound like an old-world crackpot.\n\nWe could easily have left, stuffed, after that opening onslaught of appetizers, having spent a mere $36. I don&amp;amp;#x2019;t believe anybody will depart Faustina complaining about the cost of food. The only overpriced item on the menu is a raw bar dish of medium-fatty toro, costing $23. It consists of a few bites of fancy fish obliterated by a seafood-enhanced vinaigrette.\n\nOn to the main courses at that same meal: extra-crispy, somewhat underseasoned fried chicken over a potato-porcini stew; very cheesy and creamy risotto topped with a mini-portion of microplaned black truffle; slices of slightly dry, boneless short ribs over spaetzle; braised oxtail over odd semolina dumplings that had the texture of Chinese turnip cakes; and a side dish of wonderfully simple, one-dimensional mushrooms. Dessert followed. I can recommend the light (pear semifreddo) and the medium (apple strudel) but not the clunky (ricotta tart).\n\nFinally, several miscellaneous alerts.\n\nNo. 1: While I found almost all the dishes nicely prepared, I didn&amp;amp;#x2019;t admire the pastas, and that&amp;amp;#x2019;s where Conant has dazzled in the past. The tajarin are overly soft fresh noodles smothered in a gooey sea urchin/tomato concoction. The cannelloni was basically a mass of cheesiness with cooked cherry tomatoes on top, a throwback to Italian-American comfort food. Octopus rag&amp;amp;#xF9; with spaghetti lay lifeless on the plate.\n\nNo. 2: Should you happen to order olives, they come hot. One of my friends said, &amp;amp;#x201C;Has your mouth ever been burned by olives before?&amp;amp;#x201D;\n\nNo. 3: You do not want to visit the restroom. A kindly staff member led me on a trek that included eight turns and a set of stairs. I ended up in a spooky mini-room barely illuminated by a 52-watt Sylvania SuperSaver bulb and a votive candle. (You might want to take the lit candle with you upon departing, because this way the rescue party will have a better chance of finding you.) One friend who ate here when it was Table 8 says a restroom attendant used to offer a glass of prosecco to all who found their way to the bathrooms, but that perk is gone.\n\nLet that be my final fair warning to all who come this way.\n\nThe Cooper Square Hotel, 25 Cooper Square, New York, NY; 212-475-3400; faustinanyc.com"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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