MOST OF THE time we vegetarians eat very low on the food chain. Not the actual food chain, where insects eat plants, spiders eat insects, birds eat spiders, mammals eat birds, and humans eat all of it – whether that's a good idea or not – but the restaurant food chain, which starts with the guy selling ice cream on the corner and escalates through the burrito place down the street, your favorite Thai restaurant, the destination restaurants downtown, and finally Masa's and the French Laundry.

That's not just because we're cheap. It's that for the most part, it's so much easier to have a satisfying vegetarian meal in a more modest setting. Asian restaurants of all stripes offer several selections of curries, stir-fries, and other vegetarian-friendly dishes (pace Korean, where even the restaurants with the word tofu in their names are heavily into meat). And what food is more perfect than a bean-and-rice burrito with fresh tomato salsa and a little rich-tasting avocado tucked in?

Start heading toward less-casual restaurants and vegetarians begin feeling like the red-headed stepchild. We've all had this experience: Hmmm, it looks like the only vegetarian item on the menu is – surprise! – a pasta. And it's $18. And I could make it better at home. And it's not vegan. Perhaps not surprisingly, the very top restaurants are much more inclusive. Both Masa's and the French Laundry, along with Fleur de Lys, offer prix-fixe vegetarian tasting menus. But who among the nonrich wants to celebrate a birthday or business deal at Pancho Villa? (OK, I do, but I suspect I'm in the minority.)

That's why restaurants like Millennium are so welcome. Millennium takes the stress of finding something to eat out of the fine dining experience. Everything on the menu is vegan – you're guaranteed a wide variety of choices, each more delicious sounding than the last. There are even some raw dishes for those still mourning the loss of Org Vegan Creme and Raw/Raw Living Foods/Organica. Although I can hear the raw foodists now: "Hey, there's only two items I can order on this menu! What a rip!"

Aside from shunning animal products, Millennium champions small farms, local ingredients, and sustainable agriculture. The kitchen uses organic ingredients whenever possible (many of the wines on offer are organic, as are several of the spirits). GMO ingredients are not used.

I visited Millennium a few times before in its Hotel Abigail digs, and I wanted to see how it fit into its new location in the Savoy Hotel. Nothing, it seems, was lost in the move – not the ambience, not the attitude, not executive chef and visionary Eric Tucker's cuisine. The new space features dark wood and black-and-white tile floors, softened with sheer fabrics hanging from the ceiling and draped around the light fixtures. Friendly, helpful service soothes nerves jangled from trying to find someplace to park in the ever crowded theater district.

Tucker takes ideas from cuisines around the world and adapts them to vegan ingredients. He pumps up the flavors by deploying familiar and unusual herbs and spices with a generous hand, and he isn't stingy with luxury ingredients like truffle oil. For example, tamales – most filled with meat or cheese and infused with lard – are usually quite unwelcome at the vegan table. Here, Tucker takes sheets of phyllo, spreads them with a lean masa harina, the rolls it around morels, smoked seitan, and deeply flavored roasted corn. Pooled underneath is a mild chocolate pecan mole and a plate-licking sauce of carrots and habaneros.

Where Millennium really triumphs, however, is in bringing good old comfort food to vegans. The medallions of seitan (wheat gluten prepared to capture the look and feel of meat, as if I had to tell you) reclining on a bed of creamy-without-cream mashed potatoes and served with the freshest seasonal vegetables has always been one of the best dishes on the Millennium menu. On this visit, just in time for the Fourth of July, we opted for the barbecued tempeh instead. Chewy and meaty and drenched in a piquant blackberry barbecue sauce, it was an all-American plate of food.

Diners who thrive on variety should make a meal from Millennium's slate of small plates, starters, and salads (in which the pristine seasonal produce really shines). Choose dishes like the modest-sounding but immensely satisfying chickpeas with sage, a stewlike mélange of chickpeas with big hunks of caramelized garlic, or the plate of crunchy sesame-crusted oyster mushrooms, or perhaps a savory pile of flavorful braised greens. Millennium's broad and deep wine list can help you get the most variety for your beverage dollar as well: it offers several wines by the half bottle, glass, and even by the taste, meaning you can sample to your heart's content without suffering a stroke when the bill comes.