By Paul Reidinger

ALTHOUGH SOME HANDSOME restaurant spaces have been suitorless for protracted periods in these worst of times (Gordon's House of Fine Eats springs to mind, as does the beautiful old brick building that housed Eichelberger's, then Moxie, and now darkness), others seem to find new occupants before the door has quite closed behind the dearly departed. Location is doubtless a factor in brisk renewal; Gordon's and Moxie were both in the northeast Mission, which lately bears a certain resemblance to East Berlin in the 1950s. The Cajun-place/vegetarian-place/burrito-place/pizza-place merry-go-round spot on 24th Street in Noe Valley, on the other hand, sits amid a commercial strip that must bear one of the highest levels of pedestrian traffic in town. (Automotive too.) Recently the site became the home of Mexico City, a restaurant whose charms are so evident that it's something of a wonder there aren't more restaurants like it.

The charms are substantially those of Maya, the high-end Mexican temple downtown, but neatly trimmed to neighborhood dimensions. It is true that you are brought, taquería-style, a basket of chips and a bowl of salsa after you've been seated at Mexico City, but there the resemblance to burrito joints ends, at least until the bill arrives. The long interval separating chips and bill consists of a series of dishes at once earthy and urbane, Maya-ish though without as many overtly French influences and with roots in Mexico's many and varied regions.

Let us first note that the space, long occupied by one or another fast food-slinging outfit, has been heavily reworked. The dining room is both narrow and shallow – a disadvantage for a sit-down restaurant – but is made to seem bigger than it is by an elevated platform, a kind of mini-mezzanine, for some of the tables. Bright blue taverna chairs, reminiscent of the sort you might find in the Greek islands, sound a note of cheer and (surprisingly, since blue connotes chill) warmth. Wall paintings commemorate Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. In this intimate, almost familial, setting, the service staff is bustlingly busy, whether serving chips, refilling water glasses, or bringing dessert.

But I am jumping ahead. Dessert, after all, loses much of its impact if not preceded by a succession of fine savory dishes, and at Mexico City these are plentiful. The sope, in particular – a tortilla with its edges curled up, tart style, ready to accept a variety of fillings – looms large on the menu. Sopes dominate a plate of antojitos mexicanos ($8.95) in mushroom and green chile-cream guises (the latter being something like a leek preparation); along with a pair of tomato-tortilla quesadillas, sealed like wontons, and a set of miniature tostadas of shredded pork and cabbage, they fill out a sizable platter.

And if not sopes, then sopas – or soups, which are just the thing on damp, chilly winter nights and are among the most distinctive offerings on Mexico City's menu. The sopa tortilla ($4.25) – a coarse and pleasantly sour puree of tomatillos, green chiles, and cilantro – laps gently against a central lean-to of half-crisp tortilla chips that looks like something a family of busy beavers might have built across a forest stream. And the sopa tarasca ($4.25) combines beans and tomatoes into a velvety liquid the color of rust; the flavor, deep and benign, hints at mole, though without any edge of bitterness.

Some of the dishes are quite familiar – a chile relleno ($7.25), for instance, mild and creamy, with a nicely brittle bronze shell on the pepper. The chile relleno is to Mexican restaurants what Caesar salad is to California-cuisine restaurants: a staple and a standby, but prepared a little differently by each of the many places that serve it. Grilled or sautéed prawns are only marginally less ubiquitous; Mexico City's version, camarones tequila ($11.50), arranges the (peeled) shellfish around a mound of rice and gives them a sweet-sour mango sauce.

Then there are the dishes one has never seen before. In this group we find the discada chihuahuense ($7.25), a large tortilla deep-fried to blisteringness and topped with a fajita-like medley of cubed beef and chunks of green bell pepper and onion. An upmarket tostada might look something like this. To help mitigate the richness of the deep-fried disk is a side bowl of long-simmered Indian farmers beans; they lurk in a mild chili broth warm enough to start melting the cubes of queso blanco that float around like little icebergs.

Even more unfamiliar were the crepas cuitlacoche ($7.50) – mushroom-stuffed crepes with a green chili sauce and probably the most Maya-like dish of the many we sampled. The crepes as plated (nestled side to side, like fish in a tin) bore a resemblance to enchiladas, but crepes are thinner and more tender than tortillas and so provide a certain aura of delicacy one does not always associate with Mexican cooking.

At last we are ready for dessert, and the choices are very nearly exceptional. My companion didn't care for the ate con queso ($5), squares of gelled apple compote smeared with goat cheese and stacked into little sandwiches, but I found the combination both unusual and alluring – a lovely restatement of a classic theme. The other side of the table was happier with the pastel con tres leches ($5), a slice of pound cake sufficiently suffused with almond milk to resemble a piece of marzipan cheesecake, if there can be such a thing. We didn't go nuts over it, but almost.