Our Patron Saint of Primi

At Santi, Michael White proves once more that he is among the city's most talented creators of la cucina Italiana.

- BY MATTHEW SCHNEIER

BLESSED ARE THE pasta-makers. That is the message of Santi, chef Michael White's return to the city's semolina trenches. The name comes from an old saw of his former mentor, Gianluigi Morini: “Le mani degli chef sono come le mani dei santi” (The hands of the chef are like the hands of the saints). That's what we call setting the bar high. But White, the founding chef of Marea and Ai Fiori, among others, delivers. In a ritzy alcove off 53rd Street nearby MoMA but nearer by the investment banks (Jefferies is just upstairs), he is back, turning out some seriously excellent pasta.

White is one of the city's pasta eminences, a man who has put his thumbprint on our collective orecchiette. After leaving Marea and Ai Fiori's Altamarea Group, which he co-founded in 2009, he might have settled into a comfortable consulting life. But like another of his fellow mid-career masters, Andrew Carmellini at Café Carmellini, he has decided he isn't done with the kitchen yet.