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You gotta give it to Scarpetta's Scott Conant: The acclaimed chef and sometime host of "24 Hour Restaurant Battle"—a show about chef wannabes who create a restaurant in a day—knows a thing or two about creating a restaurant really, really fast. Less than a month after Govind Armstrong's critically pummeled Table 8 shuttered at the Cooper Square Hotel, Conant has now taken over the space and turned it into Faustina, which opens on Friday. The concept: an Italian-based menu of homey grub with decidedly non-Italian touches—think mojito geleé, tomato chutney and spaetzle. Plus…fried chicken! We called Conant on the eve of the Faustina's debut for a quick chat.
That was a super-fast turnaround. Do you have little food elves working for you that we don't know of?
If you saw my payroll you would probably think there was! [laughs] Really fast turnaround really requires a lot of manpower. Fortunately, it works!
I hear that you ended up using a lot of the original Table 8 staff.
We wanted to give everyone the opportunity to grow and expand with us. We went through an intensive five days of training with the staff members, and some of them cut it and some of them didn't. I would say we kept about 75 percent of the people that were here.
Did you always plan to open a second restaurant—and so quickly?
I never say no to anything. I loved the idea of opening up a second restaurant. I love the idea of opening up a third brand [eventually]. Two weeks from now, someone might say, "Scott, what about this place?" Or maybe it will be two years from now. If it feels right, I'll make a move on it.
The restaurant is named after a Roman empress. How'd you come up with the concept?
I've had the idea for this restaurant for a very long time. If you came to my house for dinner, I would cook food like this—this very familiar but new approach, in my style. It's not necessarily Italian in a traditional sense, but certainly rooted in the style of that. I wanted [Faustina] to have some feminine touches…to have a feminine appeal. I wanted it to have inherent warmth, and maybe even more elegance in certain aspects than what Scarpetta is.
Biggest change you made to the space?
One of the biggest issues with the restaurant prior to us coming in was the sound issues. [Ed's note: Bruni agreed.] So, we wanted to take these sound boards and really absorb that ping-pong sound element within the room. We decided to make them a design point and cover them in suede and put them up in different parts of the room.
I'm looking at this menu and a lot of non-so-Italian things are jumping out at me: fried chicken, chutney. Even spaetzle.
In the beginning of [last] summer, I was doing a late-night menu at Scarpetta, and it was really to expand my own food process. I think all too often I've gotten a little bit stuck in this groove of doing one type of food. So there's a little bit more range on [Faustina's] menu, from the raw fish to the fried chicken to the braised short ribs. [Our] egg custard is inspired by the traditional Japanese egg custard, but I use some dashi in it, lobster broth, shrimp, preserved truffles. Then we top it with a salad of king crab and then shaved black truffles. People are like, "Scott I can't believe you have an Italian restaurant and you use dashi!" But I think it's not about Japanese and it's not about Italian. It's a New York restaurant. The food is from an Italian chef, but it's just good. And I'd rather have good food all the time, than try to pigeonhole myself all too often.
You've also got a couple of off-menu items from the Scarpetta menu. [Ed's note: Scarpetta just won our reader's pick for Best Italian Restaurant]
All too often, people are gonna say, "How come you don't have a spaghetti on the menu?" So I wanna make that available for them. "How come we don't have the polenta with fricassee of truffled mushrooms?" It's there. It's fine. I don't want to stand on ceremony, stand on principle—there's no reason for it. The intention is always to make the customer happy..
Do you personally know Govind Armstrong?
I do know Govind. He's a great guy. I came here four or five times when it was Table 8, and I had pretty good experiences.
Have you had the chance to chat with him since the switchover?
I haven't personally spoken to him. I'm sure Govind knows that this is not personal. That restaurant was closing; they [Cooper Square Hotel] needed a new operator, and they asked me. And I just happened to do it. I go to Govind's restaurant 8 oz. in Miami every time I'm down there. I really have a lot of respect for Govind, I love what he does. And hopefully this restaurant is a success, and I can really kind of thank him for the opportunity.
Faustina (Cooper Square Hotel, 25 Cooper Square between Fifth and Sixth Sts., 212-475-3400)
Photo by Gabi Porter
