With almost every Mediterranean cuisine in fashion (and Libyan food coming around the corner), the mystery of why there aren’t more gourmet Greek restaurants in New England persists. We’ve got the Greek-Americans, they own the restaurants, we like lamb and feta — so why are there so many Greek pizzerias and so few Greek sit-down restaurants? Ithaki Mediterranean Cuisine is not part of this problem. It’s an outstanding Greek-Mediterranean restaurant that would pack them in like the sesame seeds in a good pasteli, but for the fact that it’s in Ipswich, where it has done a fine business since 1977 and even gotten some national recognition. So off we went, and it was certainly worth the trip.

The setting is pleasant but not imposing. The rooms are in a modern building rendered Greek by slapping some columns on the front, ragging yellow paint to look like stucco inside, and stenciling a few dolphins by the door. (Itháki, or Ithaca, is an Ionian island, the legendary home-sweet-home of Odysseus.) Inside there are more columns, made of molding. The space may have been Italian in the past, as a bit of a copy of the Sistine Chapel ceiling remains on the wall. The music is Greek, but very tony stuff — throbbing tenors and mezzos. Fresh flowers bloom throughout, although some of them are lilies with a strong aroma that interferes with the dining experience, unless you have happy memories of eating at wakes.

None of this matters once you start eating, because the first thing you get is excellent crusty bread with a pour of flowery extra-virgin olive oil, and a dip that tastes like solid gazpacho. Your choice of water is Souroti ($3.75), bottled in Greece, and it’s fine, too.

For real appetizers, it’s hard to pass up the bread spreads ($7 each; $9 for all). We, of course, tried all the spreads, with a heap of pita chips: a decent hummus, a carrot curry that looks like Play-Doh but has a lot of flavor, a mild taramasalata (codfish caviar), and a light but garlicky tzatziki. The carrots seem to bring out the bitter-maple flavor of fenugreek in the curry.

More elaborately, there was a special appetizer of barbouni ($11), described as red mullet, a fish I always order whether it is called rouget (in France) or salmonete (in Spain). The portion here was three fish — bass-shaped, the size of extra-large sardines, with the rich flavor of mullet brought out by an Asian-tasting salad of mizuna, cucumbers, and a sesame-seed dressing. For fun, the cheese saganaki ($10) is flamed tableside with brandy; you eat it like fondue, and happily so. This also comes with some terrific cucumber salad. The menu features "Xoriatiki True Greek Salad" ($9; $6 for a half salad), but we passed it up in favor of a salad of the day — smoked salmon and romaine ($6) with a wonderfully garlicky dressing.

Among the entrées, a special on whole lavaraki ($26) demonstrated once again how serious this kitchen is about authentic seafood dishes. This lavaraki is a sea bass, about the size of a restaurant snapper but meatier and less bony, with white flesh similar to that of our own striped bass. The flavor is lighter than that of striper, but no less fresh, although this is certainly airmail seafood. The garnish was cubes of a firm skordalia (potato-garlic sauce), green with puréed spinach. Any Boston chef would ride such an invention to national recognition.

Greek-style roast lamb ($22) was so lean that it lost its lamb flavor, resembling instead a prime rib of beef. It was served with string beans, roast potatoes, and beets. We all preferred a special braised lamb shank ($23) served on a large bowl of orzo pasta in a delicious tomato-cheese sauce. Moussaka ($19) is also special here, as it includes the potato layer traditional in most Balkan moussakas, along with the usual Greek-American layers of eggplant, lamb kima, béchamel, and tomato sauce — the whole served in an individual terra-cotta casserole dish.

The wine list shows the progress of Greek wineries and their American importers since the old days of retsina and sweet mavrodaphne. I was especially taken with the whites, such as the 2002 Lyrakis ($7/$25) from Iraklio in Crete, described by our server as "like a pinot grigio," but in fact much fuller and better balanced. Cambas Savatiano 2001 ($7/$28) — savatiano was the grape of white retsina — is drier and spicier, almost like an Alsatian pinot blanc, an excellent food wine. On the red side, the 2001 Skouras Saint George Aghiorgitiko ($7/$28) starts out rather sharp and earthy, but softens to a fruity red with some spice, a wine for tomato sauces. The Tsantali 1998 Rapsani ($9/$36) is a bigger red, but mature enough to be a soft wine like a really good merlot.

Greek coffee ($3.50) is served from the classic small pot, in your choice of "sweet, medium, or dry." Medium is sweet enough for this small, intense drink, thinner than its Turkish ancestor, and thus apt to produce less-complicated fortune-telling images when you turn the cup upside down.

Traditional desserts are best here: a baklava ($8) deconstructed into shredded dough, or traditional cookies ($7), including a classic macaroon, a powdery white kourabiede, and finikia as spicy as gingerbread. Molten chocolate cake ($9) is the now-standard pudding cake, a concession to American tastes in dessert. Crème caramel ($7) changes daily. Ours was chocolate, a clash of rich flavors that tended to cancel each other out, although bits of kiwi in the custard were an inspired innovation.

The staff at Ithaki is bright and well-informed. Our waitress knew the Greek wines well and led us through the unfamiliar menu with confidence, then brought everything as it came from the kitchen for maximum freshness. The atmosphere is frankly suburban. It’s more upscale than the restaurant in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, with better lighting, greater table space, and more comfortable chairs than it would have as a South End bistro. But the fish wouldn’t be fresher, or the cookies more soul-satisfying.

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