For almost 100 years, Greek-Americans have run every kind of restaurant except for Greek restaurants. Those overtly Greek restaurants that have appeared have been generally modest, offering only a smattering of inexpensive dishes from this ancient Mediterranean cuisine. Now, a group of Greek-American investors has gotten behind executive chef Paul Delios to launch Mezé Estiatorio, in glamorous modern rooms overlooking the Zakim Bridge. Generations of Greek-American restaurateurs must be looking on and nodding in approval, for here’s an upscale menu with not a pizza, kebab, or cheeseburger in sight. Served up instead is the modern food of Greece with some glorified peasant and fisherman specialties thrown in, and a wine list featuring Greek wines made with California technology for commanding French prices.

Everything works (except occasionally the service). The breadbasket offers a crusty peasant loaf with garlic-white-bean spread, the very fruity Greek virgin olive oil, and some home-cured olives. Appetizers are particularly strong, and even the most familiar rise to a whole new level. We tried the pikilia ($16), a sampler plate of spreads, to get at seven of the cold appetizers. With buttery grilled pitas, we were perhaps most impressed by the taramosalata ($7), which elsewhere is generally a very salty blend of fish roe. At Mezé it’s a subtle but addictive spread with a hint of caviar flavor in a base made with some shallots and thickener, like a great potato salad. Skordalia ($7), which actually is garlic-potato sauce, had just the after-bite of garlic. The tzatziki ($7) is cucumbers and mint in yogurt, all the flavors evident. And the melitzanosalata ($7), a fresh eggplant salad, hinted at the grill. Even the stuffed grape leaves ($7) are softer and grainier than most.

Among hot appetizers, our bellwether is grilled octopus ($12), here four tentacles kept not too chewy yet full of flavor, served on a wilted salad. "Gigantes" ($6) is a bland casserole of butter beans in tomato. These need a little more texture and zest to be more than a side dish.

Our only familiar main dish, pastitsio ($16), showed the effect of a trained chef on peasant food. The layered casserole is served as a perfect round cake with a browned top, with two layers of hollow macaroni, one of ground lamb, one of béchamel, and two tomato sauces (the rose-colored one probably has some cream in it). Grilled salmon ($24) is simple enough, but made more complicated served over a tourlou — baked vegetables in tomato sauce — that includes broccoli rabe, green beans, potatoes, onions, and cherry tomatoes.

A half chicken ($22) seemed both grilled and stewed to a fine flavor with a rich gravy that includes oven-roasted potatoes, artichokes, peppers, and portobello mushrooms. And a piece of halibut ($27) was pure cheffery, fabulous light fish on a large pedestal of mashed potatoes enriched with feta and a kind of loose chowder of mussels in the shell, sweet corn, and marjoram.

The wine list at Mezé has plenty of Californian and Italian wines, but it would be foolish to pass up the selection of modern-Greek bottles, with choices like seven brands of red agiorgitiko. Our 1999 Nico Lazaridi Merlot ($48) was well-structured and just coming into a complex bottle aroma, on top of the fruit and spice one expects from this grape. Coffee ($6) is excellent, and tea ($3) is served properly, already brewing in a china pot.

Desserts are somewhat middling, obviously better designed than what small Greek cafés can muster, but not fully cheffed-out as yet. Our favorite was yiaourti me meli ($8), a simple-looking bowl of homemade yogurt with imported honey, selected berries, and a few nuts. A plate of seasonal fruits ($8) had all the berries of late June, plus some good melon slices. Rice pudding ($8) is served in a crisp cookie shell with candied fruits, but the pudding itself was somewhat sour, perhaps due to the yogurt involved. Dionysia ($8) is a wonderful name for a chocolate dessert, but chocolate sauce rolled in phyllo dough is not exactly a Dionysian celebration of the Aztec flavor.

Service was a bit sporadic at our dinner, which began early and empty, and ended with a gratifyingly full house on a weeknight. There was a pause after appetizers. Our waiter misheard an order for pastitsio as one for salmon, then came up with a pretty quick pastitsio but forgot to change the bill. There was another long pause after entrées, and another waiting for the check after dessert. At home at about 3 a.m., I began to suspect our server had not heard my order for decaf correctly. I was still thinking about this at 5 a.m. It was very good decaf, and I had a lot of it.

The space is brand-new, drop-dead gorgeous, and appropriate. Limestone tile on the walls and blond wood on the floors (echoed in the chairs) make for a light, airy feeling. Lots of windows look out at the bridge broadside, as if the restaurant designers positioned the bridge for maximum effect. All this makes it loud, but a background tape with a lot of bouzouki makes the loudness seem appropriate.

The management team here warmed up with the more general Mediterranean menu of Paolo’s Trattoria, also in Charlestown. Now that they’ve broken through with an upscale Greek concept, they’d better move quickly, because I predict that more new restaurants will try this appealing format.

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