It requires a certain courage to take over the soaring Park Avenue South space that belonged to Patria. That esteemed restaurant had a pivotal role in New York’s nuevo Latino trend, as an incubator and then a bastion of the vigorous hybrid. Barbounia, a new Greek restaurant from the owners of the Sushi Sambas, boldly has stepped in to fill Patria’s space, if not its shoes. If Barbounia aspired to Patria’s influential status, as a breeding ground for some sort of neo-Hellenic cooking, nobody would be more excited than I, but it seems to be on a different track entirely. This is not a visionary restaurant.

It is, however, a well-bankrolled one. The space has been refashioned in an airy mode, with white sheets billowing from the ceiling and a feathery chandelier front and center. Legions of waitstaff swarm around like Achaean armies. How many Barbounians does it take to refill a water glass? Three: one to notice its urgent emptiness, one to do the pouring, and one to stand guard.

A last-minute change of chef gave the kitchen’s reins to Matthew Cressotto, whose take on Greek cooking here is often just a few ingredients away from Mediterranean generic. Assisted by an open-flame oven and grill, he cooks a menagerie of meats and fish in simple preparations with arguably Greek accents. The restaurant’s namesake, an appetizer-size fish ($12), known as red mullet in English or triglie in Italian, he fries crisp and whole, a pretty orange swimmer with a salty red wine reduction. Grilled kebabs of ground lamb ($13), served with an herby, minted tahini sauce, have nice spice but an odd texture: the finely minced meat is left rare and falls apart in the mouth with zero resistance.

In fact, it’s possible to pick a quibble of one sort or another with just about everything on the menu. The restaurant’s version of moussaka ($13), usually a rich treat, tastes unexpectedly vegetarian and low-fat. Where one expects strata of bechamel and lamb, there are only dryish chunks of mushroom and eggplant. To foul up roasted cheese would take a rare genius, and indeed the house saganaki ($13) is delicious, bubbly brown on top and gloriously gooey within. But somebody didn’t think that plain old melted kasseri cheese, drizzled with lemon and maybe ouzo, was ready for Park Avenue South showtime, so here it gets an incongruous cheese-plate treatment. The piping-hot little casserole of scrumptious ooze comes with a posh and useless entourage of cherry-walnut bread, truffled fig marmalade, sliced apples, a bunch of grapes, and even an unwieldy wedge of pomegranate. The list of starters is fleshed out with a selection of cured meats ($22 for three) and cheeses ($19 for three).

In steakhouse style, Barbounia offers several main courses “from the grill.” These dishes – whole branzino ($31) or dourade ($29), rib eye ($32), and lamb chops ($31) – are served ungarnished and unaccompanied. If they seem naked, diners can choose from a handful of sides (all $6) of which roasted sunchokes are perhaps the best. The fish is packed with herbs, lemon, and garlic, and in theory this is what a Greek restaurant does very well, but the dourade I sampled was unimpressive. Neither this nor a later snapper was fresh enough to be enjoyed purely on its own merits, and light grilling with too much raw garlic added nothing worthwhile to its flavor.

That red snapper ($25) was among the smattering of composed main courses: a crisp-skinned filet on a bed of succulent lentils flavored with olives. If the fish were a little better, and deboned a little better, this would be a winner in the main-course stakes. Its competition isn’t strong: a Greek-style sofrito ($24) slips up by using veal instead of lamb. The too-delicate, too soft meat pales in flavor next to its own crisp breading and herbed sauce, and rich polenta thickened with mascarpone adds to the dish’s cloying baggage.

On my first visit, desserts, all $9, included “Turkish delight,” which I ordered in a heartbeat. The dish has since been renamed “Turkish coffee custard,” a more accurate description possibly inspired by my cry of anguish that the combination plate, of bland custard, honeyed apricots, and a little dry cake, did not include any actual Turkish delight. A yogurt panna cotta dribbled with trendy elderflower syrup is much better, but sticking with a postprandial beverage is a fine choice, too. The categories alone are innumerable: ouzo, arak, raki, pastis, sambuca, apostagma, Gioiello honey liquor, aged aquavit, calvados, Greek and other brandies, even slivovitz.

Wine is well-curated, too: 150 bottles with an average price around $100, and 25 glasses. Many are Greek, including a fine collection of xinomavro and agiorgitiko varietals: Nemea’s affordable Agros agiorgitiko ($9/$35) has delicious rustic spice. The list provides informative groupings, of, for example, bottles from the island of Santorini.

Barbounia offers a slick experience with a veneer of Greekness, but ultimately its focus is not on dining, which is a pity.

Barbounia, 250 Park Avenue South at 20th Street, 212-995-0242.