Restaurant review, The Trilby: The Cooper Square Hotel Tries It One More Time With the Food.

Only a few years back, hotel dining rooms were strictly for tourists and banquets—places where you wouldn't want to eat unless forced to. But gradually, restaurateurs realized these spaces were undervalued: They came at least partly subsidized by the hotel itself and, in the case of the city's glitzy new hostelries, furnished with a captive, upscale clientele. Suddenly, celebrity chefs were enthusiastically signing on to write menus and supervise dining rooms. While generally successful, the idea could sometimes backfire. Such was the case with the Cooper Square Hotel, a modernistic 21-story structure that teeters like a pile of dirty dishes on the eastern edge of the square. It first recruited Los Angeles chef Govind Armstrong. Spouting locavoric jargon, while obsessing over exotic international salts and squirting mayo on nearly everything, he created a menu at Table 8 that virtually no one liked. Next up to bat was local fave Scott Conant. While his signature Italian creations formed the core of Faustina's bill of fare, he also distracted us with a sushi bar; charcuteries and cheeses; and separate bar, late-night, lunch, and breakfast menus.

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