My spouse and I dined at Santina for brunch on a Sunday in
mid-July 2016. Santina is open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner daily. The
restaurant accepts reservations via the Open Table reservation system or by email.
(They do not accept telephone reservations.) For dinner reservations, a credit
card guarantee is required, with a day of dining cancellation fee of $30 per
person (if you must cancel, Santina donates the cancellation fee to a local
charity).
Santina is located beneath the southern Gansevoort end of
the High Line elevated walkway, adjacent to the new location of the Whitney
Museum, and near the Standard Hotel High Line in the Meatpacking District. Like
the nearby Whitney Museum, renowned architect Renzo Piano designed Santina. (He also designed the Centre
Georges Pompidou in Paris, the Morgan Library addition and the New York Times
building in NYC, the Art Institute of Chicago expansion, and the California
Academy of Sciences in San Francisco.) The Major Food Group (Mario Carbone, Rich Torrisi, and Jeff Zalaznick) operates Santina; they also own Carbone, Parm, ZZ’s Clam Bar,
Dirty French, and Sadelle’s. (They previously owned Torrisi Italian Specialties,
which closed in 2015; we dined on their amazing chef’s tasting menu in 2012.)
The Santina restaurant space features three walls of
windows, so the dining room is light, bright, and airy, the perfect conditions
for its foliage. Floral Venetian Murano glass chandeliers in various pastel
colors hang overhead, and the dishware, wall art, and
servers’ attire add additional color as well. Outdoor dining space is
available on the front sidewalk, and a dedicated sidewalk patio beneath the
High Line (so it is shaded and protected). The restaurant features a bright
orange and blue striped canopy surrounding it, as well as orange and blue
striped umbrellas at the outdoor tables – the result is pretty and reminiscent
of the Italian seaside. The restaurant is handicap-accessible. Indoor seating
is available at individual tables of varying sizes, as well as at some pale
blue upholstered booths. A small bar offers additional seating.
Santina serves rustic Italian coastal cuisine. We ordered
the truffle egg salad cecina (which is a Tuscan chickpea pancake that you can
break up/roll with the egg salad inside; other fillings for the cecina are also
available). Our second entrée was the Santina sandwich (with bread, egg, fontina
cheese, and green chili), along with a side order of sausage (two large
pieces/links) and a side of the spicy potatoes (dipped in a mix of tomato and chili and refried for extra crunch).
For dessert, we shared the amazing coco perfetto, which tasted like an Almond
Joy candy bar, with coconut mousse layered with dark chocolate ganache and
mixed with sliced almonds, then topped with slivered almonds and house-made
whipped cream.
Service was good, except for a small issue when my spouse ordered
a cup of coffee. After he stirred his coffee and removed the spoon that arrived
in the coffee cup, the spoon was coated with some sort of gross textured sludge
(probably left over from the dishwasher). We pointed it out to our server, who
took it away and brought a new cup and spoon, but he did not even comp the cup
of coffee to make up for the cleanliness of the first spoon.
We enjoyed our brunch at Santina – the food is good, and the
atmosphere makes you feel happy! Plus, we would return for the coco perfetto
dessert alone!
