Bob Kinkead was my favorite of all the chefs who ran the Harvest; he was the least pretentious, with the best food. He went to Washington, DC, to open Kinkead’s and hasn’t looked back. His brother David, formerly the chef at Brasserie Jo and then KingFish Hall, wanted his own place, so he grabbed this location in the new Atelier 505 building. He had his more-famous brother contribute half the menu creations. That’s the sibling part.

The rivalry part is that they’ve set up the menu in a kind of "Iron Chef" format in which they duel with a common ingredient. Appetizers are in red type, entrées in black. Since the ingredient is often just a garnish, the duels don’t really duel all that much, probably not enough to be worth the confusion. It might be better to arrange all David’s appetizers versus all of Bob’s. In my two visits, it ran about five-to-three in favor of Bob, with one tie on cuisine and David taking the desserts. Most of the food is wonderful in that way both brothers have of emphasizing primary ingredients and not overcomplicating the treatments. Where there is a flaw, it’s oversalting, and since David is the one in the kitchen, he probably directs all the seasoning.

Ignore the shtick, and you simply have a very fine restaurant convenient to the newest Huntington Theatre Company space, not far from the old Theater District, and well worth an evening of its own. For quicker, pre-theater bistro meals, the outer rooms are busy and loud with an open kitchen and a red-rust-burgundy color scheme. They’re busy in the way that important restaurants in Washington, like Kinkead’s, are busy at lunch. For quieter evenings, there’s a back room in lime-green over gray-green with blond wood. It’s actually rather quiet by Boston dining standards, though it does conform by way of darkness.

Food began with an amuse-bouche, a complimentary demitasse of carrot-ginger soup, creamy and gingery. The bread basket offers crusty white and wheat breads, served with butter.

Among the appetizers, David starts off solidly with a nicely dressed endive salad ($10), garnished with a few sautéed pea tendrils and a grilled pear to die for. He’s also got garbure ($8), a perfect cold-day soup that features potatoes among many vegetables, plus a few bread dumplings. He falters a bit with sweetbreads ($14), which are nicely sautéed with a little crust, but mounted on wildly oversalted beans and pearl onions. Beans were the category, and David expended French flageolets (a shell bean that keeps a subtle bit of its fresh taste even when dried) on the oversalted and mustardy sauce.

Bob’s appetizers are wilder, but more outstanding. His Yucatecan tuna soup ($10) is a splendid purée of poblano peppers and tomatillos with plenty of lime, in which nice chunks of tuna lurk happily, the whole topped with crunchy sticks of fried tortilla. His fried squid ($11), while in the ginger column, is outstanding for both its crispness and another chili effect — super-powered slices of green chili in a sweet, Thai-style dipping sauce. The squid is in a tall cone, perhaps the most vertical calamari since Peter Lorre went into the Disney tank for 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Underneath is a fine Thai-style shredded salad.

David comes back strong with roast halibut ($25), a brilliant piece of light fish with a few pumpkin gnocchi that qualify it for the pumpkin category. The strong garnish is actually fresh porcini mushrooms with a butter sauce. His port-lacquered duck ($26) is also terrific eating, although not exactly lacquered. It’s a duck breast cut in half, served blood-rare for maximum beefiness, in a port sauce. Again, he makes a good case with a group of seasonal vegetables: a torpedo of carrot, a couple of baby turnips, strips of parsnip, sautéed kale, those tiny onions, and unobtrusive chunks of chestnut (the category).

Bob again goes for the fences with Nantucket bay scallops ($28), superb local seafood in season, in a pastry shell with a seafood-butter sauce, a phyllo-wrapped finger of potatoes, and another phyllo-wrapped finger of braised endive (the category). This isn’t the best endive dish I’ve ever had, but it’s amazing seafood. He also scores with swordfish ($25), another superb piece of fluffy, flavorful seafood, garnished with artichoke hearts, oversalted lima beans, a cruet of pesto, and an oversalted puttanesca sauce rich with olives and capers. Assuming they let up on the salt, this could be a signature platter. If they don’t, just order the puttanesca on the side and ignore the limas. Finally, in the potato category, Bob outdid David’s garbure with spit-roasted chicken ($22) — just the bistro-classic treatment of the breast, some thin green beans, and a sort of potatoes au gratin that made the plate.

Sibling Rivalry offers side dishes of vegetables like a steak house, although all our platters had sufficient veggies. We did find an order of celeriac purée ($5) useful for some of the better sauces, such as the port sauce from the duck.

The wine list has no rival columns. It’s lengthy and fun but expensive; for example, merlots run from $36 to $90. We had a bottle of 2001 Château Pipeau, a grand cru Saint-Émilion ($45). Like most Bordeaux, Château Pipeau is a blend, and one can smell the tenths of cabernet sauvignon and cabernet franc on the nose, while the flavor is all soft and merlot-like — rather a good wine with food, if showing a little alcohol in the aftertaste. A glass of Gascon malbec 2003 ($8/glass; $32/bottle) had the usual structure and flavor of this Argentine red, but it did remind me why we used to order bottles of wine in restaurants — so they would be opened freshly for us.

On desserts I’d give the edge back to David, if only for his flourless chocolate cake ($9), which is actually a trio of a typical cupcake of flourless chocolate intensity, a superb pot de crème of chocolate pudding, and a truly amazing scoop of pistachio ice cream. This trumped Bob’s chocolate dacquoise ($10) in one of the few true head-to-head contests of the menu. The dacquoise is a breast-shaped cone of chocolate mousse covered in chocolate candy, with a bit of gold leaf on top, and a wisp of espresso crème anglaise underneath. A close call, and it’s worth ordering both a dozen more times to make sure.

David’s pumpkin crème brûlée ($8) was not creamy enough, more like pumpkin pie minus crust and plus burnt-sugar topping. Bob’s apple tarte Tatin ($10) was just apples on excellent pastry, with a lot of yummy caramel sauce.

Service was superb, both when we were rushing to theater next door, and when we came in early on a slower weeknight for serious feasting. I prefer the quiet room, and its decorations of poinsettias and Granny Smith apples reminded me of the Harvest in the Bob Kinkead days. Although both brothers probably devote most of their taste to food, someone made a splendid decision for truly elegant Sambonet flatware.

Robert Nadeau can be reached at RobtNadeau@aol.com.