Ai Fiori

Ai Fiori (“Among the Flowers”) is Michael White’s opulent, but conventional, restaurant in the monolithic Setai Fifth Avenue hotel. Like lots of hotel restaurants, this one occupies an awkward, slightly tortured space, which you get to from the lobby, up a flight of twisting marble stairs. A first salvo of carefully articulated appetizers may include old hotel standards like lobster (in a delicious velouté with truffles and chestnuts) and foie gras, along with a series of signature Michael White seafood items (fluke crudo) that taste generally excellent but look wan in the room’s flat, featureless light. If you’re searching for flashes of White’s bravura creativity, order the ricotta-stuffed tortelli, which are laid out on the plate in little candy-size packets.