Lan Tran Cao’s experience as a gallery owner is reflected in the clean, inviting planes of her new restaurant. VietCafé, next door to Ms. Cao’s Gallery Viet Nam in western TriBeCa, is a long, airy space; a deep red ceiling and sparsely adorned walls give a feeling of intimacy to the room despite its size. The setting provides a clean, undistracting backdrop for the restaurant’s culinary artistry, and plates are emphatically plain and spacious, giving the food room to shine. Just a few idiosyncrasies hint at the restaurant’s Eastern provenance – imported wooden dining tables with bowed, concave tops, and a vivid, iconic “Welcome to Vietnam” poster greeting visitors at the door. A dazzlingly lit open kitchen takes up the back of the long room, with a counter where diners can watch the cooks up close; the front offers a cozy wine bar with a long view of the restaurant’s expanse. The team of largely non-Asian servers do their job with friendly skill, though it’s occasionally obvious that waiting tables is not their lifelong career dream.

The cooking plays no tricks with fusion or unnecessary upscaling of classics. These dishes are fine versions of familiar Vietnamese fare, not dissimilar in concept to what can be found a short walk away in Chinatown, but reliably above-average in quality, and with a rather more refined presentation. The lettuce for wrapping fried spring rolls ($6) is softer and fresher than elsewhere; the rolls have a light exterior that crunches open to release piping hot minced pork freshened with cilantro. The vegetarian version ($6), filled with shiitake mushrooms and firm tofu, and with a soy dipping sauce instead of the pungent fish-based one, is arguably better – lighter and more texture-rich – although both are excellent. Green papaya salad ($7) consists of firm shreds of unripe papaya tossed with too-large pieces of medium-rare grilled beef – unwieldy with chopsticks – and sharply dressed with lime juice and fish sauce. Not quite as nuanced as other versions of this dish, it satisfies a savory, tart urge nonetheless.

Noodle and rice dishes, the core of many Vietnamese menus, are relegated here to an ancillary role: the restaurant offers just a few of them, in a size that can serve as a shared appetizer or side, or a small main course. Limey marinated steak ($8) is quick-cooked, giving it a ragged, lightly charred surface, and sliced over a bowl of chewy, neutral-tasting rice noodles; chopped peanuts and basil leaves give additional flavor. Fried rice (a deal at $5) incorporates sweet chunks of aromatic Chinese sausage and golden filaments of egg: the rice is delicate in seasoning and just oily enough. The restaurant’s version of beef pho ($9) is deeply satisfying, with fragrant broth and unusually tender beef.

VietCafé particularly shines when it comes to main courses, which have all the complexity and subtlety that sometimes gets left behind in the pursuit of simple satiation. Salmon filets ($20), with a crisp and yielding surface and well-cooked flesh, are served in a ginger-laden, bittersweet caramel sauce in the bottom of a fiercely hot clay pot. If the seasoning takes a lead role, edging out the salmon’s richness, that’s a good thing: every bite the chopsticks pull from the shadowy depths of the pot is dark flavored and succulent. The grill gives large strips of St. Peter’s fish, aka. John Dory ($20), a beautifully sweet brown exterior and delicately firm, large-flaked meat. No sauce is needed, but a savory lime one comes on the side for emergencies.

Sliced roast duck ($24) has a sticky amber glaze seasoned with anisey five-spice. The rich meat inside is excellent – moist and well-flavored; a pile of peppery watercress and another of gingery sprout salad set it off with flair. A subtly fragrant splash of wine enhances thin, tender pork chops ($16) from the masterful grill.

Lunchtime, in contrast to dinner’s relaxed families and couples, draws a quick-eating, professional crowd. In addition to the dinner fare, the lunch menu features banh mi baguette sandwiches, thinly spread with a mouth-filling chicken-liver pate that enhances the sandwiches’ contents, such satisfying fillings as sweetly savory five-spice roasted pork loin ($7) or fat streaked “Vietnamese pastrami” ($7), a moist, smooth preparation of beef loin. Also offered is a juicily beefy, lemongrass-saturated hamburger ($8) topped with shredded basil and shallot, a likeable variant on the American favorite. All the sandwiches come with light, addictive, housemade shrimp chips.

As at other local Vietnamese restaurants, desserts center around simple fruit flavors, but here they are enriched and intensified to a luxurious degree. A square cut, densely creamy flan of banana ($5) tastes potently of the fruit in its subtle, less-than-overripe half-sweetness. Hot, sticky steamed date pudding ($6) has a crumbly chewy richness midway between cake and toffee; coffee-scented cream adds a degree of decadence. Even the restaurant’s traditional Vietnamese coffee ($3), strong, sweet, and thick with condensed milk, is dessert like enough for some.

The well-tuned selection of a few dozen wines runs from Glazebrook’s intensely fruity Marlborough sauvignon blanc ($9/$27) to Koowong’s deep pinot noir ($55). For much of the heavily spiced menu, though, beer is a better complement.

The restaurant succeeds not through any stunning innovation, but by the arguably harder approach of getting the basics right. VietCafé is far more affordable and comfortable than high-concept Vietnamese-inspired places like Sapa, and the handsome environment, assiduous service, and highly competent renditions of a wide variety of dishes set it apart from more casual Vietnamese destinations.

VietCafé, 345 Greenwich St., 212-431-5888.