The food at Santi features Chef Michael White’s sumptuous crude.
EVAN SUNG
The east side of Midtown Manhattan has become a nexus of fine dining Italian restaurants, with Fasano and Il Monello on 49th Street, Il Tinello East on 46thStreet and Lever House on 53rd, now joined by Santi, a splendid ten-month old venture by Chef Michael White and partner Bruce Bonstar of the BBianco Hospitality Group. Well above the trattoria level of home-style cooking and barebones décor, these restaurants are in line with the best-known in Italy, like Enoteca Pinchiorri in Florence, Dal Pescatore in and Canneto sull’Oglio and San Domenico in Imola.
The name Santi (“saints”) pays tribute to White’s mentor, Gianluigi Morini, and Chef Valentino Marcatillii of San Domenico, where he once trained, who used to say, “ “Le mani degli chef sono come le mani dei santi”––“The hands of chefs are like the hands of saints.”
Owners Michael White and Bruce Bonstar of BBianoc Hospitality.
Evan Sung
Wisconsin-born White also draws on his extensive experience in Emilia-Romagna, the Amalfi coast and the South of France, which he demonstrated as chef at Fiamma Osteria in the West Village to great acclaim and afterwards at the ground-breaking Italian seafood ristorante Marea at Columbus Circle. After leaving that enterprise he opened Morini on the upper east side and took a swerve into French cuisine at Vaucluse (both now closed). Santi is, therefore, his return to the high-end league of cucina italiana, and designer Michaelis Boyd has served him well with the daunting task of decorating five interconnected dining areas, including a horseshoe bar with yellow onyx backsplash, an intimate “den” and atrium with cloudy hand-painted walls, a spiral staircase, roomy banquettes, sheer curtains, handblown glass, wall portraits and an overall posh provided by superb lighting. Though Santi’s tables lack linens, the surface is finely grained and quite beautiful, reflecting the light. The sound level is as civilized as its patrons.
Santi has five dining areas and outdoor tables as well in a garden.
Seth Caplan
In contrast to the pretentions of the defunct Del Posto, Santi is devoted to true comfort and attentive hospitality, although, as seems the rule these days, the staff disappears from the floor at nine o’clock. God forbid someone needs the Heimlich Maneuver at 9:05.
Plump tortellini at Santi
John Mariani
You first receive two excellent breads along with butter and fine olive oil. The menu has breadth and depth but is not so large as to daunt guests who have difficulty deciding on a meal. Given White’s reputation for crudi, there is a section full of novel ideas like marinated sardines with ricotta salata, orange, pistachio and gremolata; amberjack dressed in Ligurian olivada, finger lime and crispy basil; and Long Island fluke in acqua pazza with peaches, pickled Fresno chilies and ricotta salata.
Every chef in New York serves grilled octopus, but White buoys its essential brininess with a sunchoke romesco, salsa verde and hazelnuts for crunch. Serving a seafood salad warm is always a capital idea, here with calamari, scungilli, Ligurian olives
tomato conserva and shavings of mild bottarga. White’s command of French technique shows in his terrine of pork, foie gras and rabbit with a fig mostarda, accompanied by sourdough.
Rarely seen on menus, Santi’s monkfish shows how good this meaty species can be.
Evan Sung
There are nine housemade pastas––and except for tender ricotta gnocchi with a simple salsa pomodoro and basil, and garganelli in a perfect ragù bolognese, none will you find elsewhere in New York. Busiate are twisted strands of pasta served with autumn’s trumpet mushrooms, leeks and black truffles, while fiocchetti pouches are wonderfully rich and satisfying , stuffed with robiola cheese, honeynut squash and crushed amaretti cookies. Tagliatelle is tangled with blue crab, bomba calabrese condiment of sweet and hot peppers and bottarga.
Like every Italian chefs in New York, White knows that many, if not most, diners do not order a main course––hence the prices of the antipasti and pastas––so there are only seven to choose from, but all are clearly his special renderings, like the lobster with asparagus, chanterelles and lobster coral crocchettes. Grilled black bass is treated to sweet heirloom tomatoes, pickled mussels in a saffron broth, while pan roasted monkfish––a species all too rare on menus––comes with Manila clams (Mediterranean vongole veraci would have been better), turnip and a smoked ham broth.
Rabbit is served in a rollatine and sliced.
John Mariani
For meats there is an impeccably cooked and juicy roasted guinea hen with Nardello peppers, summer beans and stonefruit mostarda, and for something simple but delicious, a pan-roasted veal chop with Treviso radicchio and a lushpancetta cream. I most heartily recommend the roasted rabbit saddle and confit legs (for two people) that looks like a baked cannoli but is a hefty rollatine of succulent rabbit meat with cappellacci of rabbit.
A delicate tarteletta by pastry chef Francis Joven.
Evan Sung
Apparently Santi’s guests do love dessert and there are many to choose from, via pâtissier Francis Joven, including a delizia al limone with citrus sponge, limoncello and scent of basil; a baked meringue with black Mission figs, Port and pine nuts; a delightful dark chocolate soufflé buzzed with Armagnac; and very fine gelato and sorbetto. There is also a selection of Italian cheeses.
The wine list, developed by Hak Soo Kim and Beverage Director Andreina Mayobre, is as impressive (and expensive) as all else about Santi, with more than twenty labels available by the glass, though few are under $20. The inclusion of many small producers’ wines is more than welcome, like a surprisingly good white wine from Umbria named Rigogoli that was recommended.
As of seven o’clock Santi is pretty packed on a weeknight, but come after 8:30 and you should have no problem getting a table.
So Santi adds to the midtown collection of grand Italian restaurants of elegance and gentility, and, while expensive, one could order an antipasto, then a sumptuous pasta with a glass of excellent wine and not break $80, before tip, which is about what you’d pay downtown at cramped, noisy trattorias like Rezdôra, I Sodi and Carbone––none of which have the beauty and style of Santi. Nor do they have Michael White who is cooking better than ever, if not like a saint, perhaps like an angel.
SANTI
3 East 53rd Street
917-410-6449
Open for lunch Mon.-Fri; for dinner Mon.-Sat.
Dining and Cooking