Michael White grew up in Beloit, Wisconsin, aimed at banking, until a football injury ended the plan and sent him to culinary school in 1989. By 1991 he was at Spiaggia in Chicago under Paul Bartolotta. In 1993 he went to Italy intending to stay six months. He trained at San Domenico in Imola under Valentino Marcattilii and met his wife, Giovanna, there. "Six months turned into 11 months, and then, seven years later, I came back to America, in 1999." Asked if he had expected to stay that long: "No, not at all."
He opened Marea in New York in 2009, straight into the financial crisis; it earned two Michelin stars. In 2021 he left the Altamarea Group and founded BBianco - Paranza in the Bahamas, MIKA in Miami, Santi in New York, and, on May 7, 2026, Lions Den, an Italian restaurant on the ground floor of The Stoneleigh, 2927 Maple Avenue, Dallas, opening the day the hotel reopened after its restoration.
The Stoneleigh has stood on Maple since 1923. The Lions Den was its bar decades ago - the dark room A.C. Greene made famous in D Magazine in November 1977 as "Heartbreak Hotel," little red lights twinkling near the ceiling, the hotel then housing men newly separated from their marriages. "The Stoneleigh's always been a place where you are protected," the manager told him.
The room today is small and intimate, and reservations book up. Kimber Westphall Clonts, writing in Hotels Above Par, wore a sequin caftan, took the 8 p.m. seating, and said "the tagliatelle was hands down one of the best I've ever had." She advises coming hungry. Book ahead. Dress up. Take the eight o'clock.