Macondo is the village setting of Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude and other " magical realist " novels. Owner-chef Paul Sussman borrowed the name for his new restaurant dedicated to Latin American food. Although Sussman’s menu begins with remembrance of his mother’s Chilean and Argentine dishes, it wanders all over Latin America for inspiration. Most dishes are not traditional, but rather chefly spins on tropical ingredients. The restaurant recalls Márquez’s books in the way it mixes and matches cultures and regions, although it does so without the fictional village’s strong and specific sense of place. Sussman’s menu has some brilliant dishes, but lacks the context of a strictly Argentine menu, say, or even a strictly South American or Caribbean menu. And, on a recent visit, the mostly Cuban background music — with several cuts from Cesaria Evora of Africa’s Cape Verde — did not include a single tune from South America, skipping the Argentine tango, the vast musical treasure of Brazil, Andean flute music, and the unique salsa of Colombia. Maybe those CDs come on later.

Food starts with crusty whole-wheat bread and butter. For appetizer surprises, start with the bocadillos ($7.50), a mixed antipasto that changes nightly. On our night, it was spears of jicama dusted with red pepper, a wonderful quinoa tabouleh, and a pair of littleneck clams dressed with cream and capers. " Shrimp, shrimp, cha-cha-cha " ($9.50) is three grilled shrimp (marinated in garlic and hot pepper, but not too spicy) sitting atop guacamole with tiny rock shrimp mixed in, served over a crispy corn cake. Avocado-caesar salad ($6) puts just a slight spin on our expectations.

Traditional South American appetizers are not entirely up to purist standards. Chilean beef empanada with ají ($5) comes closest, with nice crumbly pastry, an excellent hot sauce, and a somewhat bland filling. This can happen when you’re trying to cut the fat from Latin cooking. Spicy ceviche of rock shrimp ($8.50) is always fat-free, but it’s never been so prettily served as in Macondo’s giant martini glass. The mix of vegetables, such as slices of corn on the cob and purple potatoes, is typically Peruvian, but the tiny Maine shrimp came to our table somewhat hardened. Timing the lime-pepper marinade so the seafood doesn’t get " too cooked " is the art of ceviche. Ajiaco ($5) is a typical Colombian soup. In Márquez’s Macondo, it would be thick with three kinds of potatoes and cream, and flavored with a local green called " guascas. " (White asparagus is the New York substitute.) Here, it’s a thin-broth soup with discrete pieces of chicken, avocado, and potato.

Main dishes also require some selection. Pollo tituleño ($16) is described as " very Southern fried chicken. " It certainly comes to the table as wonderful pieces of pan-fried chicken, but my guess is that in the Deep South, they don’t serve it with black-bean tacos or salad with pea tendrils or spicy pickled onions. Here magical realism pays off. Crispy braised pork ($16) is likewise successful and eclectic. The pork is nicely overcooked, then crisped, and laid over a fried corn cake with black beans, greens, and mashed squash. Grilled skirt steak ($18) is a traditional Argentine platter, with a green-onion chimichurri sauce and French-fried-potato strings ($4 as a side order). The only false note was the " mushroom ceviche " — over-marinated mushrooms that melted unpleasantly in the mouth.

Conch al pil-pil ($16) is several pounded (but still very chewy) scallops of conch, fried like the chicken and topped with chili rings and garlic. This platter is saved by very good rice and black beans, plus a salad of watercress and jicama chips. Locro ($13), like the ajiaco, is a clear-broth vegetable stew, where the Andean original would be rich and creamy. Vegetarians will enjoy the bowl, however, as the individual beans, sweet potatoes, kernels of corn, and so on are all nicely done, and topped with quinoa, the unusual mountain grain of the Andes.

Macondo has a separate tapas-like bar menu, and the bar appears quite pleasant. We sampled a mojito ($6) that would do any Cuban bartender proud, a nice, minty, dry drink. This bar also produced what my daughter expertly pronounced the best Shirley Temple in Boston. My guess is that a little vanilla pulled together the usual ginger ale and grenadine. There is a nice list of Central and South American beers, but the Chilean wines are inexpensive and taste that way. The 2001 Casona sauvignon blanc ($5 glass/$16 bottle) is at least clean and dry, but won’t knock the Sancerre off your shelf. The 1999 Santa Carolina merlot ($6.50/$24) is ripe, soft, and good with food, but one-dimensional. The 2000 Dallas Conte chardonnay ($6.50/$24) resembles a California chenin blanc, with a pineapple-like aroma and a bitter finish. French-press coffee and decaf ($3.50/$8) are excellent and cheap at the price. Sussman is not ashamed to name his suppliers, and he picks them well: Peet’s and Toscanini’s are hard to beat.

Desserts are the course made for magic realism, and Macondo’s desserts shine, especially rice pudding ($6) with a distinctive orange-passion-fruit sauce, and bananas roasted with coconut ice cream ($6). Orange-star-anise flan ($6) is a very neat idea. The anise flavor is in every bite of custard, while the orange goes into the sauce, the garnish of candied peel, and the underlying cookie. Toscanini’s mocha ice cream in a praline tuile ($6) sounds like a gilded lily, but the gilding of caramel and chocolate sauces actually improves the ice cream. Chocolate tres-leches cake ($6) is the only " maybe " on the list, since it doesn’t have enough chocolate power for the coffee. Tres-leches cake is usually painfully rich and sweet, to match up with the coffee. But by cutting some of the cream and sugar, Macondo ends up with a pleasant but not memorable piece of cake on excellent vanilla pastry cream, topped with a nice chocolate-almond cookie.

The space, formerly occupied by the original Elephant Walk and Rauxa, is beneath ground level. Macondo manages to get some of the bleached-stucco feel of Latin American cities out of a white-painted-brick and terrazzo grotto in Somerville, and maybe that is magic enough. The restaurant is also an art gallery for magical and/or tropical art. Service is knowledgeable and enthusiastic, and the food certainly rises above the current bistro clichés. To turn a Somerville grotto into an Andean mansion, now there’s magical realism.

Robert Nadeau can be reached at RobtNadeau@aol.com