Furthermore, she is a working chef; I've been to Zinc about a dozen times, for both lunch and dinner (business and pleasure), and she has always been in the (open) kitchen.

Zinc is the kind of restaurant I love to hate: though it's in downtown New Haven, right across from the Green, it could be anywhere. The room is pseudo-trendy, long and narrow, with hard and dark surfaces; it can be pretty noisy. There are no tablecloths and the vertically-bound menus are cumbersome.

There is a bizarre, ugly, amoeba-like kinetic light projection along part of one of the long walls, and because the other walls are mirrored, it's hard to miss. The food appears to be all over the place: gravlax with tamari and mirin, Saigon beef, smoked trout with beets, tiptoe-rubbed lamb. At first glance, it could be a ''greatest hits'' menu dreamed up in a corporate headquarters.

Little of this appeals to a restaurant reviewer who is prejudiced toward well-grounded restaurants with a sense of place and a consistent identity. Which makes it all the more surprising how much I like Zinc, and how I eagerly brought my friends and family here to sample dishes I came to love. The service is attentive and gracious, not condescending -- as the place's look would imply -- and the sense of identity is strong and chef-driven, as it is in some of the world's best restaurants (and as it is not almost anywhere else in the state). It's just not easily pinpointed.

Ms. Appel has a tendency to combine flavors from different parts of the world, a risky technique broadly known as fusion. If she were not skilled at this, Zinc would be a flop, because it's the rare dish that is straightforward and authentic.

The Saigon beef is grilled and wrapped in lettuce leaves and served with a garlicky dipping sauce. This is pretty close to how it's done in Saigon, but looking at the menu I didn't see another dish -- nor do I recall one -- that had a geographical home. But smoked duck ''nachos'' on wonton skins with spicy aioli and lime crema make a sensational starter. The gravlax with tamari is delicious. Jalape–o shrimp with smoked beans is right on the money (the smoked beans are killer). Grilled chicken breast with black rice, sautéed vegetables and a perfect lemon-pepper dipping sauce is terrific.

The complex salads, most of which have some cheese in them, are well-conceived and nicely balanced. The huge cobb salad with shrimp, served at lunch for $9, is, dollar-for-dollar, the best lunch I know. Speaking of cheese, there is a good selection here, and much of it is local, as are many of the other ingredients, including some of the meat.

The cheese plate is tempting, but some of the other desserts nearly steal the show; they are contemporary and successfully amusing. German's chocolate cakes, small brownie-like disks with a thick coconut icing, are served with irresistible malted-milk-ball ice cream. There is a plate of what amounts to s'mores, a huge marshmallow over a pile of chocolate, with dark chocolate ice cream. (This is too sweet for me, but one of my guests devoured it.)

Banana spring roll comes with dulce de leche ice cream (all of the ice creams are creamy and intensely flavored), and an overkill ''salsa'' based on dates. The loser in the bunch is coconut rice pudding, which is underflavored.

Although they are few, there are dishes that do not work. I'm tempted to say that these are all the ones that have an Italian component, because that is nearly the case. Open-faced ravioli with mesquite-smoked tomatoes, mushrooms, greens and goat cheese is, not to put too fine a point on it, a mess, from the perspectives of both presentation and flavor.

Linguine with smoked salmon and ginger cream is better, but it's still not as appealing as, say, linguine carbonara (not on the menu), a dish that incorporates the smokiness Ms. Appel so clearly favors, but in a more straightforward way.

No matter; she is playing, experimenting and getting better at judging what works and what does not. Ninety percent of the menu is successful and a solid third -- a very high percentage, in my experience -- would thrill just about anyone. I say keep it up.

If there were a category between ''very good'' and ''excellent,'' that's where Zinc would fit. But it has definitely improved since being graded ''very good'' in these pages four years ago. I'm erring on the gracious side because Zinc takes chances and often succeeds. Furthermore, it's reasonably priced, with most of the entrees in the low $20s (and some in the high teens), enabling a party of four to eat for about $200, excluding wine. These days, for this quality of food and service, that's a bargain.

Published: 06 - 29 - 2003 , Late Edition - Final , Section 14CN , Column 1 , Page 11

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I push the big metal Z that opens the glass door and survey the lean, clean, geometric scene. Decor is stripped to essentials: black chairs and tables set with white china, silverware and glass lined up with military precision and a communal table, a shaft of burnished zinc atop four tapered supports, a futuristic Stonehenge, positioned in front of the restaurant's symbolic hearth, a sleek open kitchen. The tack of ornamentation and absence of color strike the senses like a gong. Define it? Describe it?

Even as I wrestle with the problem, my friend Myra voices it. "What on earth would you call this decor?"

I have no idea, but there's alot of energy here. A lot of confidence and competence. And it's not flapping around in the breeze. It's focused like a laser beam on Dining Out in the Year 2000.

The menu assumes a certain audience sophistication. but it is blessedly free of obfuscation-to-impress. For example, "lime-chile-coconut broth" probably has an Oriental name, but describing it in English inspires our friend Stewart to order the sea scallops because he loves lime, chile and coconut.

The listing "Grilled Portobello mushroom / 8-year balsamic vinegar, basil-infused olive oil / frisee" tells the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, and demonstrates how fabulous a combination of just four ingredients can be when each ingredient is superb. Slender slices of lightly grilled portobello are propped around a mound of prickly, bitter-green frisee and drizzled with herbed oil and the best balsamic vinegar I've tasted in years.

Appetizers are called small plates, entrees are called main plates, and unless you're a repeat customer, nothing you order is likely to look or taste familiar. Adventurous ordering is virtually obligatory here. It's also lavishly rewarded.

A case in point is the soup of the day, duck soup with hoisin sauce, described by the waitress as "spicy and sweet." David declines it, afraid it will be too spicy and too sweet, but intrepid Stewart says he's never met a soup he didn't like. This soup is a triumph of subtle complexity, an intensely flavorful reduction, crystal-clear, bejeweled with crunchy Asian vegetables and cubes of creamy tofu. A small plate of "pork & napa cabbage wontons" seduces with tenderness and a slither of citrus dipping sauce to keep things lively. Only the pan-seared salmon-lobster cake raises a question. Isn't it a waste of good lobster when the taste of salmon is so overpowering? Maybe so, but we eat every bite and scrape the plate clean of red-pepper sauce.

Main plates are brilliantly original compositions, each one different. The aforementioned sea scallops are paired with bok choy and snow peas on the same plate, with sauce enough for all. Grilled duck breast, moist and rare, comes with plum sauce, herbed spaghetti squash and white-yam mash, a refreshing interplay of color, texture and taste. Aromatic petals of coriander and maple-cured pork loin are astonishingly delicate and delectable, fanning out around 10 varieties of sauteed greens and a dollop of sweet potato-chipotle gratin. Only the "green peppercorn New York strip with star anise-hoisin sauce" disappoints. Besides being a version of a currently popular new-old cliche, the steak is too thin and too well-done (it was ordered medium-rare), and the star-anise sauce is too unassertive to make itself known. But the buttermilk-fried onions piled high on top are so tasty and light we rationalize eating them all quickly lest they blow away.

And the best is yet to come. The dessert list dazzles. One bite and we learn that a Zinc dessert is to mud pie as a diamond is to glass. We swoon over sweet rice coconut pudding under burnt-sugar topping, melt with desire for a parfait of coffee ice cream, caramelized spiced bananas and bitter chocolate sauce. Triangles of spicy gingerbread with a compote of jewel-bright winter fruit beguiles us as well, and apple pie, looking nothing like its country-fair self, is a richand rare creation of brown-sugary apples, ice cream and cider "jus" with the jaunty addition of a crispy, cheese-flavored, see-through-lace cookie for crunch. Willpower crumbles in the face of these devastatingly delicious desserts. Luckily, they come in small portions. Less is more when it's marvelous.

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While the menu has only eight entrees, it still manages to girdle the globe. You can choose between roasted rabbit paired with garlic gnocchi stained rosy red by a Cabernet Sauvignon, or a grilled pork chop in a charred poblano, pepper and posole sauce, or pan-seared sea scallops floating in a lime, chile and coconut broth with bok choy and snow peas.

I know that Ken Ayvazian, Zinc's pastry chef, is one smart baker, but Zinc gives him a platform to really show his genius. I can't recall the last time a dessert list has so captured my imagination.

From start to finish, from Ayvazian's sesame seed-crusted rolls served with Appel's sweet-sour eggplant and tamarind dip, to the crunch of a gingersnap "Z" garnishing the coffee-banana parfait, the dishes at Zinc all testify to the creative building of flavors, textures, shapes and colors.

Among the starters, this philosophy is best exemplified by the tuna. Sushi-grade pieces of fish seared white on the outside but ruddy and raw on the inside rest in a pool of sauce where the horseradish-like fire of Japanese wasabi is made gentle by coconut milk. Cellophane noodles fried until puffed and crunchy garnish the plate along with petals of pickled ginger.

Marinated artichoke hearts arrive with long, carefully trimmed stems still attached. Garlicky green olives, strips of preserved lemon and a tangy red onion coulis sparked with fine vinegar are appropriate companions for this dish. Broad slices of portobello mushrooms are grilled then propped up on a bed of frisee with a light dressing of balsamic vinegar and basil-infused olive oil. Wontons filled with pork and napa cabbage look like delicate pot stickers. TheyÍre served with a citrus dipping sauce whose sour orange flavor is so good Zinc should pour it in a martini glass with some vodka and ice.

Mesclun greens are so ubiquitous these days that old-fashioned chunks of iceberg lettuce are actually considered a refreshing change of pace. Zinc's mesclun mix, though, reminds you of why this salad became so popular in the first place. Impeccably fresh greens are garnished with caramelized onions, pine nuts and shavings of a dry Jack cheese in a white balsamic vinaigrette.

Zinc's entrees are as adventurous as the appetizers, thanks to the adroit use of flavorings and high-quality ingredients.

The kitchen reaches its zenith with a charred Vietnamese-style black pepper chicken. This sweetly crisped bird boasts a delectable succulence and an old-fashioned texture that makes ordinary chicken pale in comparison. A tangy lemon-pepper sauce served alongside is a nice touch. The chicken is accented with a mound of black Thai rice that manages to be creamy and crunchy at the same time.

Jumbo sea scallops arrive perfectly seared and awash in a broth alive with chili, lime and coconut flavors. The taste is extraordinary. The soft yielding scallops contrast with the crispy pea pods and bok choy "Lacquered" salmon is a gleaming piece of fish balanced atop a mound of dark red Himalayan rice vividly accented by peas, cubed carrots and oyster mushrooms.

The roasted rabbit comes as plush, hand-shredded strips amid pillowy gnocchi, fennel confit; Kalamata olives, onions and a sage brown butter. It's a lovely dish. What I keep coming back to again and again, however, are the tiny pear tomatoes sprinkled throughout. These tomatoes are cooked but retain the firm, unblemished skin, of the raw product. A shiver runs down my, spine as I bite down and the tomatoes burst with a hot, flavorful pop.

A thick pork chop - its natural sweetness offset by a delicious smoky flavor - arrives from the grill. Firm coins of wild boar sausage, a special, features orzo, mustard greens, roasted tomatoes and broad, brown heirloom lima beans. Again, there's a subtle undertone of aged vinegar.

Amid all this creativity, it's nice to find something so totally, utterly homey as the grilled lamb served with a ragout of tiny 'lentils, morels, baby leeks and roasted tomatoes. Rich, creamy mashed potatoes sparked by just a hint of basil cinch the dish.

When it comes to dessert, our server recommends the warm orange turnover with hazelnut cream and an intense chocolate sherbet as the perfect match for a glass of 1997 Domaine de Coyeux Muscat dessert wine. She knows whereof she speaks, for the buttery richness of the pastry marries wonderfully with the sweet creaminess of the wine.

Ayvazian's wit is particularly sharp in his presentation of the German chocolate cakes. The two cakes, both about the size of large cookies, have a moist, plush texture offset by a coconut and pecan, icing. A ribbon of chocolate soars and dips through the air above the plate, which is ringed by scoops of ice cream studded with miniature malted milk balls.

The coffee-banana parfait has an intense coffee flavor, with caramelized spiced bananas and a bitter chocolate sauce adding extra oomph. Ayvazian's version of beignets, the New Orleans deep-fried pastry, and fried golden puffs stuffed with a blend of black and red raspberry preserves. Consider it a high-class jelly doughnut.

These beignets hint at what makes Zinc so successful. Appel, Fivekiller and Ayvazian produce good-looking food that manages to be both trendy and comfortable. The intelligent service and sophisticated decor are pluses Connecticut diners will surely savor with delight.

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