Midtown has its pre-pandemic swagger back — and People’s Exhibit No. 1 is Santi (11 E. 53d St.), the buzzing new modern-Italian restaurant from celebrated chef Michael White.
Its nexus of corporate power, great pasta and fun people-watching make it the area’s hottest scene since White’s Marea opened in prehistoric 2009.
After splitting with Marea and its owner Altamarea group in 2021 due to disagreements over the company’s direction, White has spent most of his time launching new venues in Florida. (A consulting gig at the Lambs Club on West 44th Street lasted only a few months in 2022.)
Santi, launched by his BBianco Hospitality Group with business partner Bruce Bronster, marks his triumphant, full-scale Big Apple return.
Marea’s still going strong and Midtown has other established, excellent Italian restaurants such as Il Gattopardo, Cellini and Fresco by Scotto. But others faded and the scene needed new blood.
Santi delivers it for everyone — from shoppers and museum-goers to a Who’s Who of Midtown glitterati. Once home to White’s aughts-era hit Alto, the venue has overnight became a haunt where the city’s prime movers wheel-and-deal over homemade gnocchi and tagliatelle, and cocktails such as the Fifty-Fifty, which features Taggiasca gin, made with prized Ligurian olives.
Santi’s pleasures unspool through several main areas designed by Michaelis Boyd, gorgeously lit by L’Observatoire International and festooned with luminous portraits from Bronster’s private collection.
Each section draws a different crowd. The front dining room, a few steps down from a horseshoe-shaped bar for the after-work, sip-and-flirt set, draws movers and shakers to its semicircular booths and banquettes.
It’s become a canteen for bankers at market-moving investment firm Jefferies Group and its CEO Rich Handler, who work upstairs. On any given afternoon or evening, you might spot Henry Kravis, Barry Diller or real estate mogul Bill Rudin, who’s planning a new skyscraper a few blocks away.
Boldfaces such as Eva Longoria and Queen Rania of Jordan have popped in, too. Pop star Beck ordered a comfort dish from heaven — hand-folded tortellini ($36) filled with prosciutto, mortadella, pork and Parmigiano Reggiano, finished in a creamy sea of cheese and butter.
A circular staircase leads to the slightly more intimate mezzanine, after passing a huge,1800s mirror that Bronster found buried under a Southampton barn. The upstairs area has attracted art and fashion luminaries such as designers Diane von Furstenberg and Michael Kors and painter Kehinde Wiley.
The restaurant’s noisiest section is the ground-floor atrium, where light globes suspended from the double-height ceiling suggest a galaxy in formation. On my visits, it drew canoodling couples in the corners and noisy groups of guys at middle tables. Fortunately, new wall fabrics and sound bafflers have begun to soften the din.
The menu, executed by the kitchen team of Jason Lin and Sol Han, is worthy of the five Michelin stars White earned at his other places. It boasts splendid seafood, both raw and cooked, like tasty, toothsome amberjack crudo ($32) and pleasingly moist halibut ($55) pan-seared on one side and then poached in extra-virgin olive oil.
But the pastas — all original, none replicating White’s previous plates — are the crowning glory.
“We’ve been deliberate about not copying expected dishes because that’s not fun or challenging, and our guests deserve more than a rehash of old ideas,” White told me. The sautéed Italian breadcrumbs known as mollica, a White hallmark in the past, are mostly absent, letting the pasta and sauces speak for themselves.
Tagliatelle Ragu ($36), which Wiley has ordered more than once,gets my vote. The coarse-ground beef and pork are gently broken down to a velvety texture by a judicious infusion of milk.
My favorite, though, was ricotta gnocchi ($28), lighter than the potato-filled variety and bathed in San Marzano tomato-and-basil sauce — a brave statement when too many chefs shy away from red sauce lest their dishes be mocked as Italian-American dinosaurs.
But I miss White’s legendary fusilli with braised octopus and bone marrow, his heart-stopping, red-sauce masterpiece at Marea. Per Se’s Thomas Keller once called his favorite dish in New York.
Is there any chance we’ll see it again at Santi?
When asked, White smiled and said coyly, “I’m talking to my chefs about it.”
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