SICILIAN DELIGHTS Dani (333 Hudson St. at Charlton Street, 212-633-9333), the new 90-seat restaurant of former Tribeca Grill chef Don Pintabona, finally opened last week. Featuring Mediterranean food with a particular emphasis on Sicily, menu items include house-made ricotta with shaved almonds and honey, chickpea fried calamari with cracked pepper and lemon aioli, and pasta al forno with smoked mozzarella, tomato and mortadella.

CHEF SHIFT Bombay Talkie (189 Ninth Ave., between 21st and 22nd streets, 212-242-1900 ) has a new chef. Francis Gomes has been working in India, at Le Meridien in Deli and at the Oberoi Tower in Mumbai. Keep an eye out for his new late-night menu.

WESTWARD WHYM Sean Connolly and Evan Kushner, who own Eatery, are expanding their Hell’s Kitchen empire by opening a place five blocks north. Whym (889 Ninth Ave. at 58th Street, 212-315-0088 ) opens tomorrow. The 80-seat restaurant will be the culinary playground of Mario Arnero, who’s doing his own take on modern New York cuisine. That includes a double-stuffed pork chop with smoked mozzarella and shallot polenta and duck negamaki with pomegranate glaze.

The 80-seat restaurant features a large, curving, dark-colored banquette with alternating red and orange pillows, facing low-slung white chairs across tables for two. You can check it out for yourself atwhymnyc.com. The restaurant will be open right away for dinner. Lunch and brunch will follow in about a month.

NOW TAKING CALLS After a bit of delay, Sascha (55 Gansevoort St., 212-989-1920) is accepting reservations for January 21 and beyond. Chef and owner Sascha Lyon will be presenting food influenced by Central and Eastern European cuisines as well as his own heritage as a Los Angeles native with a Russian-Jewish father from Brooklyn and a mother from Louisiana. Since his business partner, Robert Romanof, is a major meat distributor, the steaks are bound to be good.

TOUCH OF TRUFFLE Ever wish you could have some black truffles shaved onto your sandwich? Well, you can at any of the four locations of Starwich (425 W. 42nd St., between Tenth and Eleventh avenues, 212-736-9170; 153 E. 53rd St. at Lexington Avenue, 212-371-7772; 1010 Sixth Ave. at 38th Street, 212-302-7775, and 63 Wall St., between Hanover and Pearl streets, 888-942-4864). Until January 30, 2 grams of the prized fungus will be shaved on your sandwich for $15.

If you happen to be longing for truffle-bedecked sandwiches on the Upper West Side, Starwich is opening its third unit there, at 86th Street and Amsterdam Avenue, probably by January 15. A location on 84th Street and Lexington Avenue is slotted to open by the end of the month – too late for truffles.

Mr. Thorn is food editor of Nation’s Restaurant News. He can be reached at bthorn@nrn.com.