Neither Here Nor There

It's not every restaurant that serves pitchers of Pabst alongside $400 bottles of Château Pape-Clément. Mia Dona, the latest in a series of collaborations between chef Michael Psilakis and restaurateur Donatella Arpaia, has a little identity crisis. The new restaurant is a mutation of the pair's 2006 flash in the pan, Dona, which was just half a dozen blocks away geographically, but somewhat further conceptually. Dona was hushed and white-tablecloth'd; Mia Dona is raucous and pub-like. Dona, where the average dish cost $10 more than at its spin-off, did not serve pitchers of beer.

The food seems to be having some trouble adjusting to its new assignment. It's been significantly downscaled: The menu no longer name-checks the source farms of the meats, and painstakingly fine fare such as Mr. Psilakis's remarkable raw-fish concoctions has been pushed aside to make way for heartier, more vernacular snacks. But the chef doesn't dumb down his creations. The fried appetizer of choice, for instance, is a basket of breaded rabbit pieces ($12), hot, hefty nubs of meat to be held in the fingers and gnawed off of dainty little bones. The herbal tang of the remoulade and the delicious, slightly greasy breading contribute to a satisfying, interesting dish. The waiter, clearly accustomed to more finicky folk, warned me off the innocuous, if slightly bland, sweetbreads ("only if you're brave") in a grilled appetizer ($13) that also included a sublime spicy and juicy lamb sausage, as well as fairly unthrilling skewers of quail, rolled fatty pork, and ground lamb. If the standard clientele at Mia Dona indeed gravitates toward the tamer end of the menu, that's a shame, given Mr. Psilakis's way with bolder ingredients.

His talent comes through even in the ordinary dishes: His french fries, for example, have a built-in tanginess that comes from premarinating the potatoes in vinegar before frying them; it also seems to tighten their texture. It's inventive, and it makes the side dish ($8) compulsively eatable. Unfortunately, the restaurant seems hampered by its lower budget and some lapses in execution. For every cleverness such as the pickled fries, there's a corresponding dull moment. Nothing distinguishes a big, fatty beef rib ($21) with tomato sauce from the sort of main dish that could be found at almost any Italian joint. The buttery, peppery sauce on a plate of spaghetti with clams and scallops ($17) is terrifically tasty, but at least when I tried it, a majority of the clams' shells were closed, a carelessness unbecoming this capable a kitchen.

The chef is best when he offers surprises, as in a round Florentine meat loaf ($18) with a light, herby flavor that, when sliced open, shows a beautiful, whole egg nestled inside, its hot yolk gelled. But bigoli ($16), thick rustic pasta ropes accented with crumbled pork sausage, tiny scallops, broccoli rabe, and soupy lentils, is less intriguing than it sounds, its various parts adding up to a rather unharmonious whole.

The desserts I tried were humble and excellent: a pear and cranberry tart ($7), a darkly maple-flavored panna cotta ($6), and a "Sicilian ice cream sandwich" made up of a fresh brioche-like bun stuffed with chocolate gelato ($6). Mia Dona occupies a middle ground between Anthos, the Michelin-starred flagship of the Psilakis-Arpaia empire, and Kefi, Mr. Psilakis's cheap and simple Greek bistro. But it's awkward: In trying to incorporate the best of both worlds — that is, culinary refinement alongside beer-laden informality — the restaurant achieves neither, and strands itself and its customers in that uncomfortable place. Ms. Arpaia ably fills the restaurant with her fans, but overlooks problems such as gel candles on the tables that mar the meal with their petrolatum reek. The restaurant would be excellent as either one of the places it tries to be, but not both.

Mia Dona (206 E. 58th St., between Second and Third avenues, 212-750-8170).