Santina

On paper, this one sounds out there, even for Major Food Group, the team formerly known as the Torrisi Boys. Just imagine the elevator pitch: A restaurant named after one of the partners’ Sicilian grandmother, featuring “coastal Italian” food and tiki drinks served by staffers dressed like well-tailored Miami Dolphins assistant coaches, in a setting evoking the Italian Riviera circa 1963, housed in a Renzo Piano–designed glass box beneath the High Line. There’s a lot going on, to put it mildly. But somehow it works. Despite the odds, it’s fun and playful, bright and cheery — like Carbone on spring break. The food’s good, too, especially the Ligurian-chickpea pancake called a cecina, a lunchtime fish sandwich, the guanciale e pepe rice, and fried-to-order cannoli-with-pizzelle shells made from Thomas Keller’s Cup4Cup waffle batter.