Despite the tight economy and the war on terrorism, so many new restaurants have opened recently that this column is just catching up with last fall’s hot restaurant, Metro. To be fair, Metro opened five months late, after building up anticipation by hiring Amanda Lydon, the chef from the South End’s Truc. (Lydon has just announced her plans to leave Metro, however.) Much of that time must have gone into remaking the mod space of the former Cottonwood Café into an imitation of an old-fashioned French brasserie. As French restaurants go, a brasserie ( " brewery " ) is larger and more casual than a bistro. Since the leading French beers come from Alsace-Lorraine, quasi-German food as well as beer would be featured. This combination was an immediate hit in Porter Square, and only when some of the opening buzz dissipated could I get a quick reservation in July.

Certainly Metro looks like a real brasserie, and it smells rather better. Some of the food is up to bistro level, and the desserts are so fancy as to be almost mismatched. The only (and minor) problems we encountered were with managing the large room: uneven dishes, a service lapse before dessert, and loudness. A Cambridge/Paris brasserie is even louder than a loud New York bar.

Food starts simply and authentically with a basket of white bread and butter. The most impressive appetizer is the escargots ($8.95). Rather than setting up the snails just so in snail shells with special spoons, Metro restores the dish to its peasant origins by putting the garlicky snails among garlicky white beans with a garnish of minced scallions. Not only is this heartier than the traditional restaurant presentation, it also goes better with beer or wine.

Boudin ($6.95) is a dish of sausage, potatoes, and wilted cress and frisée. Pure brasserie, even if the sausage is more or less bratwurst (in the best possible way, of course), and the potatoes were underdone our night. A goat-cheese salad ($6.95) rises above the clichés with a baked crottin (literally, " sheep shit, " but actually a typical small, round goat cheese of the Loire valley) to make it lighter, and a very good selection of greens. Salade verte ($5.95) is mostly romaine, with very good grape tomatoes (which have disappeared from other restaurants) and a little too much pepper. Our only weak appetizer was foie gras ($13.95), which was a fine slab but underdone, in a wishy-washy cherry sauce.

The steak frites ($17.95) are a classic brasserie entrée, with enough seasoned, fried shoestring potatoes to fill two or three French truck drivers. The steak is a thick cut of sirloin, rather fancier but not so tasty as the skirt and hanger steaks of French or Bostonian bistros. Bouillabaisse ($21.95) is one of several dishes where the menu aims higher than the concept. It’s a very Provençal-style dish, with saffron and anise liqueur in the broth and powerfully garlicky aïoli spread on toasts. The fillings are above average, too: very fresh shrimp, stone-crab claws, scallops, carrots, and a rich white fish I initially took for salmon.

The bright-orange salmon niçoise ($18.95), cut into neat squares and served with narrow French green beans and oven-roasted potatoes, is quite a good job with a familiar platter, but it is trumped by a special on brandade de morue ($15.95). Brandade is somewhere between a pâté and an emulsion, involving olive oil whipped into a paste of salt cod and potatoes. Metro is careful with the codfish, and keeps a good balance with the oil and black pepper as well. So we have a plate of mildly fish-flavored whipped potatoes to spread on toasts, more like an excellent space-age food than a dip. Braised rabbit ($23.95) is a very tasty stew, with plenty of reduction sauce, on a bed of the tiny French du Puy lentils that keep their shape so nicely when cooked.

Metro has a very promising, mostly French wine list, and some excellent beers on tap. The restaurant seems to make a point of serving Cambridge tap water lukewarm, although this may be more about mimicking the French attitude toward drinking water than about trying to sell bottled water or wine.

Desserts are very fine, rather expensive, and somewhat out of scale with the rest of the menu. They would be very odd in a brasserie in France, but we American yuppies want it all — hearty food and delicate desserts together. Typical is the chocolate napoleon ($7.95), a Tinker-Toy-like creation of chocolate phyllo leaves held together with dabs of chocolate mousse. With a spicy cardamom ice cream and a chocolate-covered cherry on the side, it’s as delicious as it is precious. Apricot custard ($7.75) is presented in the shells of three fresh apricots, and it is a delicate custard, just touched up with orange-flavored liqueur. Metro also aces sorbets ($6.95) with a subtle coconut (not an easy sorbet), a distinctive lychee, and a good strawberry. These are lightly coated with a green-pineapple sauce and a red-raspberry sauce.

Crème brûlée ($6.95) is a down-the-middle version, no weird fruit flavors, with both a madeleine and a biscotto on the side. Blueberry tart ($8.25), which has to be ordered with dinner, wasn’t worth the extra effort because the blueberries weren’t tasty enough. But by the time you read this, the berries will be in high season, and the puff pastry won’t be wasted.

The look of the place is part of the fun, with dish towels for napkins, signs and posters in French, a mosaic floor, fake Erté statues, and (this is really rather brilliant) artificially distressed mirrors with some of the silvering rubbed off. A young member of our party went off to the bathroom and said, when he returned, that the bathroom was just for " homies. " Hommes. Not bad, kid. The one problem with the room is that it is really darn loud. Service our weeknight was pretty good, but there was a notable lag between main dishes and dessert. The owners have also done a large brew pub (Commonwealth Fish & Beer) and a large bar-with-good-food (Vox Populi), but seem to be reaching for all that with a Cambridge tone, too. They seem to be succeeding, as tout le Cambridge crowded the place all winter and spring; only with the summer pause could an anonymous critic sneak in.

Robert Nadeau can be reached at RobtNadeau@aol.com