Prix-Fixe Perfection

If you can remember the numbers 82 and 25, a fine meal on the Upper West Side is at your fingertips. Kitchen 82 moved in on April 1--no fooling--and has since established itself as a force to be reckoned with in the neighborhood. The math is simple: an appetizer, an entrée, and a dessert for $25. The wine recommendations--all excellent--can add an X factor into the price of dinner, but on the whole, things are simple and sweet.

A lot of restaurants on the Upper West Side have an inferiority complex. There aren't enough hot spots or cool people in the neighborhood, so the only recourse is to overcompensate with a deliberately trendy atmosphere that indulges some but deters most. Not at Kitchen 82. The scene is like the menu: simple with all kinds of hidden bonuses.

Permutations abound in this controlled experiment. Will it be meat followed by meat followed by cheesecake? Or a seafood extravaganza?

Whatever the sum of the parts, it's clear that Kitchen 82 has tapped into something marginally magical, and people are willing to accessorize a handsome bar of globe lights and tempting liquor while waiting for a table. The scene is sound, unpretentious, and aesthetically pleasing, as if the food itself wasn't enough.

Congratulations: you deserve a glass or two of wine for picking Kitchen 82. On the $25 list are bottles of both a light Australian white from 1999 and the Vallone Salice Salenino Rossa, a slightly spicy, passive Italian red. Respectively, they kick the appetizers and entrées up a substantial notch.

Of every aspect of the menu, it's what you don't order that seems to reflect best on the restaurant's poise and confidence. Shortly following its dinners, each table receives a basket of fresh bread and a thrice-divided tray. It includes roasted red pepper hummus, Hawaiian sea salts, and a country mix of olives. The plan is to dip the bread in the first two and follow it (like an enthusiastic tequila shot) with an olive or three. The salt, in particular, is a gutsy pre-meal move.

Such is the luxury of a prix-fixe powerhouse like Kitchen 82.