Flora

Flora's occupies a terrific space, the tidy Greek Revival monument that once housed the Arlington Five Cents Savings Bank, and it's a minute's walk from the town's great cultural attraction: the Arlington Capitol theater. Inside, it has the languorous feeling, on a slow night, of a bar in an ex-colonial backwater, with fans turning slowly in the barrel arch high overhead, and a little balustraded catbird window up on the back wall. On weekends, the joint buzzes with the assurance that it's the Place to Be in Arlington (I'm not damning with faint praise here), with all the tables full, and wait-listed parties crowded loosely around the five-seat bar near the entrance.

Flora's menu isn't vegetarian, as you might expect from the name. But the dishes do have a light, fresh feel, with greens distributed throughout, some nicely done vegetable accompaniments to the meat dishes, and a menu that changes every few weeks to keep pace with the season. Sargent was the grillmaster at Olives, so there's also an emphasis on grillwork, with salmon, swordfish, and leg of lamb all coming off the coals.

There isn't really anything grilled on the appetizer side of the menu. A nice starter was the fennel and arugula with fried squid and saffron aioli ($6.25). The aioli worked more as coloring than as a meaningful component of the dish, but then fennel and arugula don't need much flavor assistance. The dish's little cephalopods came tender and lightly fried. We liked the cod cakes, too ($4.75), which were both thick and light. Cod cakes seem to be everywhere on these new-American menus, probably because a nice fresh fish cake is so Bostonian and so up-to-date.

A couple of the appetizers would have made satisfactory little meals in themselves, or even not-so-little meals. The sliced duck breast ($6.75) came with cubes of mango and an engaging sour-cherry vinaigrette. A bowl of "slow cooked" chicken thighs with green olives ($6.50) could have been a winter meal: a bit rich and warm and stew-like for mid-July. Advice: come December, mop up the sweet jus with a crusty, chewy slice from the breadbasket.

Flora has the pleasant feel of a place where the whole crew pulls together. Not only is it a real partnership of the owners -- Mary Jo runs the front of the house, while Bob heads the kitchen -- but among all staff and collaborators. One night, for instance, we watched our hostess help a busy waitress by bringing some appetizers to a table herself. And the menu even comes with a list of credits, Olives-style: Martin Berry is the name of the Tuesday barman; Neil Swanson gets credit for the sailfish over the stove hood. I almost expected to see a team doctor, or a dedication ("The furniture designer would like to thank her parents . . .").

Flora doesn't succumb to the widespread temptation to put all its energy into appetizers. Indeed, in an interview with the Phoenix not long after the restaurant opened, Bob Sargent described Flora's philosophy: "It's less thought about the integrity of the plate, and more about the integrity of the meal." Cut through the restaurantese and he's onto something: a meal at Flora starts with a modest enticement and builds to the entree.

The grilled leg of lamb ($18) is an example of the way a main course can offer substance with zing. The tender lamb comes atop a bed of escarole that hides coins of explosively flavorful (read: near-raw) garlic beneath. Swordfish skewers ($16) were evocative of backyard cookouts (rather well-heeled backyard cookouts), and together with their garlicky salad of cracked wheat and lentils, formed a model of the health-conscious summery meal. The chunks of fish were moist inside, grill-striped outside, and alternated on their skewers with eggplant, summer squash, and red bell pepper.

A seared maple-glazed chicken breast ($15) came with giant, thick sweet-potato fries and a summery slaw of red bell peppers, and carrots. Beef sirloin ($17) was a bit less artery-friendly, expertly grilled rare with crunchy haricots verts, but with a redundant tomato sauce on top.

With a menu as short as this one -- eight starters, eight entrees and a couple of specials -- you expect a high level of focus on each dish, and a misstep stands out. In this case, that was the lemon-and-spinach risotto ($14), which was not only a bit pricey for a vegetable risotto, but came plopped in a moat of bland veggie broth.

Desserts were notably harder to resist. One was a flourless chocolate number called "cloud cake" ($4.50), with a crisp, meringuey crust, a pair of strawberries, and on a plate with a Pollockian splatter of chocolate and caramel. The thing I couldn't keep my spoon out of was the raspberry-rhubarb crisp ($4) with clove ice cream. Yes, I know -- clove? But the ice cream was intriguing and quite mild, and the dueling pungencies of cloves and rhubarb went awfully well together.

One of the credits on the Flora menu is for Joe Antoun, the "winemaster," who has done a yeoman's job in selecting solid, affordable wines (the most expensive glass was $5.50). By the bottle, the Flora list is hardly immune from the usual larcenous markup, but at least diners benefit from a page full of inexpensive, satisfying wines. There are even some dessert wines, which makes it awfully tempting to linger into the beginning of the movie, and reflect on how nice it is there's now something else to do in Arlington.