Pastai

A Southern Italian pasta bar on Ninth Avenue in West Chelsea, where the pasta is made by hand every day in an open kitchen. The room runs late on weekends, the wine list leans toward Sicily, and the specials sheet changes often, built around what turns up at the farmers' market.

Start with three antipasti — fried artichokes with mustard aioli, ricotta bruschetta with crushed pistachios and spicy honey, potato croquettes — then go to the pastas: bucatini con le sarde with fennel, raisins and pine nuts, paccheri alla Genovese with an eight-hour onion and flank-steak ragù, or the lemony tagliatelle with lobster. Finish with the sfinci, warm ricotta doughnuts filled with orange-vanilla cream. Gluten-free pasta is cooked separately on request.