Like the discipline that characterizes ex-military servicemen, a certain perfectionism marks chefs whose careers start in the rigorous world of the pastry arts. Falai, a new restaurant on roaring Clinton Street, illustrates that theory tastily. Iacopo Falai, whose restaurant it is, was the lauded pastry chef at Le Cirque 2000 and at Barbaluc, where his elegantly balanced desserts included creative touches like scented foams and sweetened vegetables.

Now he oversees every aspect of Falai, with rigorous and playful attention to detail. The converted storefront retains its display windows, which now showcase wine racks on one side of the entrance and handsome, happy customers on the other. Everything from tiled floor to tin ceiling is a shade of white, with occasional details picked out in color, such as a bright vermilion wine list. Isolated chandelier crystals hang like curtains above the tiny bar, and an inviting counter of curved wood encircles the open kitchen. Black-clad servers prowl the room, unhurried but efficient and engaged; the sommelier, while passionate and effusive about his cellar, nonetheless is deft enough to double as a host and server when needed. Well tended to, the stylish, boisterous clientele spends freely on wine, filling the narrow restaurant with cheerful clamor.

The restaurant makes its own pastas and excellent breads, and the care given to these leaves the impression that Mr. Falai would produce his own wines and cheeses, too, if he could. The spring menu is short and neat, with just a handful of starters, pastas, and fish and meat main courses. Mr. Falai’s dishes consist of a few complementary flavors and textures, cleverly matched, and liberally enhanced with good olive oil. He uses bold strokes, building dishes from a few striking parts rather than piling up supplementary flavors. There are no superfluous or auxiliary ingredients in this cooking: Each flavor used contributes a distinct and essential facet to the finished dish.

Breads start the meal: wonderful hot and salty focaccia rounds or crusty rolls flavored with black cabbage. A starter of delicately firm white polenta ($7), formed into a square tile and seared, is topped with two domes of marvelously unctuous chicken-liver pate and dotted with pieces of golden chanterelle; the elegant mutual interplay of sturdy backbone (the polenta) and muscular flavors (the liver and mushrooms) is a recurring theme here. A farro salad ($8) compris es a large, cool mound of the moist grains, tossed with crisp pieces of artichoke and, almost casually, thin slices of pecorino di fossa, a salty, fermented sheep’s milk cheese that gives the dish a uniquely strong, pungent character.

Beautiful tortelli ($14) are served in a Parme san-based sauce. The tender pasta wrappers alone, in the thick, savory sauce would be meal enough, but half are filled with tart apple compote, half with biting goat cheese; the fresh fillings are highlighted by the estimable structural components. The roles are conflated in gnudi ($14), mellow, flavorful “nude” dumplings without wrappers, made of smooth ricotta and baby spinach and doused in butter. Pici ($13), hand rolled, rough-shaped noodles, intertwine in a creamy sauce based on pureed beans, with long shreds of musetto, pale, juicy pork muzzle meat.

While main courses may not quite rise to the level of the starters and pastas, they don’t fall flat either. The restaurant’s preparation of fileted branzino ($20) – a sweetish crust of olives and a side of pureed celery root – tastes pure and satisfying, if not particularly distinctive. A more powerful dish with the same simplicity is the chicken: A server unlids a white porcelain casserole to display three golden pieces of chicken ($16), cooked in the same casserole in a concentrated, herby jus, along with pearl onions and quartered potatoes.

For greater creativity, turn to tuna ($21), which the chef sears rare in a negligee of pork fat, then plates in three segments, on top of a tomato-rich risotto cake, a couple of gently stewed cherry tomatoes, and a spoonful of savory-sweet shallot marmalade. The spare arrangement of the dish accentuates these keen, firework-like bursts of flavor, to which the fish itself is secondary. An inventive dose of unsweet cacao nibs and fennel seeds brings out the terrific flavor of two little medallions of pork ($17), which are tender and moist and served with buttery whipped potatoes.

The restaurant offers a few dozen wines, mostly red and moderately priced, from all over Italy; Alberto Taddei the sommelier has plenty of advice about the less familiar corners of the list. Il Frappato ($36), from Sicily’s Valle dell’Acate, has an acidic, berryish freshness that recommends it for all roles. The spicy, tannic zest of Librandi’s Ciro Rosso Classico ($25) works best with the heartier dishes, while a glass of lively, golden vernaccia ($9 a glass) speaks to the menu’s seafood.

The dessert course makes one wonder briefly why Mr. Falai ever wanted to do more than this. His menu divides desserts into two categories, “classics” and “non-classics.” A rum baba ($8), ethereally light, buttery, and saturated with sweetened, spiced dark rum, leads the first category, amid heated competition. Passion fruit souffle ($9) soars inches above its ramekin, but the interior is near-liquid, remarkably airy and delicate, with the pure, tart flavor of the fruit vivid but not overpowering.

Non-classics include a light panna cotta ($9) coated with sweet orgeat whipped cream, studded with thin slices of dried strawberries, which look like transiently perched red butterflies, and surrounded by a pool of white cream that tastes stealthily of chocolate. Dinner’s polenta and tomatoes reappear in another non-classic ($9); the polenta is a coarse cake to which a sweet confit of green tomatoes plays the complement, along with a potently spiced brick of stiff semifreddo.

Sheer technique can sometimes efface itself, especially when it’s relegated to the showy but peripheral realm of dessert, so it’s a pleasure to see it so showcased here. Any one of the components – the artfully robust cuisine, the transcendent desserts, the notable wine list, even the house made breads – would make Falai worth a visit; in combination, they make it a great restaurant.