By Paul Reidinger

LET'S CUT STRAIGHT to the chase about Baraka: the food is sublime. If the space were a shack or a dank, candlelit cave with bats fluttering overhead, you would still emerge quite happy from a meal there, your head full of thoughts that it had been quite some time – when, exactly? – since you'd worked your way through such a succession of memorable dishes.

Luckily there are no bats, no dank walls – nothing remotely scary, in fact, other than a faint haze of apprehension left behind by a series of rapid turnovers at Baraka's Connecticut-at-18th address. In the recent past the space was occupied by the ill-fated Picadita 288, and before that for several years by North Star, a Firefly sibling (subsequently sold) that never quite found its feet – or skates – in the roller derby that brought the 1990s (and the 20th century, and the second Christian millennium) to such a sensational close. Before that it was a Greek place that served waffles – Azimokopolous, a.k.a. Waffleopolis.

The new players have a Plouf connection and a neighborhood connection: They opened Chez Papa, at the next corner, last year. And they have entrusted Baraka's kitchen to Ola Fendert, a Plouf alumnus, who also runs the show at Chez Papa. I liked Chez Papa well enough, and I liked Fendert's cooking in his brief stint at Bruno's, but I must say I was not prepared for the force and vibrancy of the food he's brought to Baraka. A glance at the menu card suggests a resemblance to Chez Nous, the French-Mediterranean small-plates place in Pacific Heights. Baraka likewise emphasizes small plates, and there are French influences – Spanish too – but what really launches the food into orbit are the Moroccan touches, the harissa aioli, the meguez sausage, the preserved lemon, among others. These grace notes fall in just the right range of exoticism; they are not so familiar that we fail to notice them, nor so strange that we can't reconcile them with more familiar ingredients and preparations.

A plate of Spanish fries ($4.50), for instance, would be just another heap of home fries – admittedly well-crisped, and an enticing bronze color – except for the pot of harissa aioli on the side. Harissa is an incendiary North African chili paste, and it brings a smoldering, smoky note – like a fire about to blaze – to the garlic mayonnaise. Mayonnaise is, in Belgium, the classic accompaniment to pommes frites, but I suspect you'd have to do quite a bit of looking before you found anything as sassy as Baraka's harissa aioli in Brussels.

A link of Moroccan merguez sausage, which resembled a cinnamon-scented hot dog, was split down the middle and given the starring role (with support from silver beets) in an ample sandwich ($8). And a nicely grill-pressed bocadillo ($8), filled with jamón serrano, Mahón cheese, and julienne green and red bell peppers, gave a distinctly Iberian spin to that old standby the croque monsieur or, as we say in freedom's land, the ham and cheese sandwich.

The baked goat cheese ($7) has become something of a cliché in these parts, but Baraka skirts the problem of obviousness by crusting the crottin with chopped pistachio nuts and saucing the plate with honey and a marmalade of caramelized onion. Fritto misto – or, in Baraka-speak, friture ($8) – also chronically lurks at the edges of overfamiliarity, but batter-fried slices of lemon and fennel root freshen Fendert's white-anchovy version.

Other magical touches: goat-milk yogurt, creamy and sour, piped atop a bowl of tomato-chickpea soup ($4). The thick tomato broth was just slightly smoky and – counterpoint again – amended by the sweet bite of some fresh mint. And a seafood tagine ($12) – tagine being the stew of the Mahgreb, the seafood here including monkfish and clams – featured a thick, coarse sauce of ground almonds and saffron whose nutty savoriness we found irresistible, and of course the sauce made a perfect mix with a bowl of couscous ($4), scented with cinnamon and punctuated with pistachios and golden raisins.

Baraka's desserts are equally stylish (all are $7). Pastry chef Darren Press (he also works at Chez Papa) makes a flawless beignet ($7), the French version of a doughnut ball. Press's are so fluffy and light you wonder if they might actually float from the plate, and their orange-blossom scent makes a beautiful match with the orange marmalade and yogurt served on the side.

Heavier sweet fiends might prefer a Moroccan apricot-pistachio torte, served in a broad, crème brûlée-style ramekin, or a mint chocolate cake, served in a crock and topped with a blob of pastel-green mint ice cream.

"It's like a brownie!" my satisfied friend pronounced. Yes indeed, though bigger and rounder than the brownies of childhood (those were invariably square), and more subtly flavored, befitting a brownie for grown-ups.