Oleana is Ms. Sortun’s first venture under her own proprietorship, but the opening menu doesn’t betray the mortgage nerves that have turned some chef/owners conservative in the kitchen. Sortun has revved up her old style with appetizers (tapas, mezze, kemya, and now “prêt à manger”), struck a good balance among the entrées, and mastered a truly stunning flight of desserts. The only muted element is the new rooms — a complete rehab of what was Daddy-O’s — with some table crowding that brings to mind both Cambridge rents and the souk. A wood stove with visible fire provides a symbolic hearth for winter; by summer the back-yard tables will have the foodies in fistfights.

Our meal began, like millions of meals, with bread, and Sortun’s was lovely — soft inside, crusty outside. It was also the foil of her best appetizers, which were tastes and spreads. The rich Armenian bean-and-walnut pâté ($4) had a lively hint of pomegranate syrup. It was set off by a little nest of homemade string cheese decorated with black sesame seeds that look like the kalonji seeds used in Armenian string cheese, but lack the oniony bite. So we had Armenian flavors, but unusually put together, and decorated like something from Japan. Spicy carrot purée ($3) was highly flavored with Egyptian-style thyme and cumin. A special “mezze” plate ($7) had three more flavors, each arranged vertically: an innovative parsnip choumous on a disk of cooked parsnip, with little fried parsnip chips on top; a vegetable kibbeh of marinated cracked wheat wrapped with basturma (Turkish dried beef — think celery-flavored jerky, sliced like prosciutto); and a pasta salad (rice-shaped orzo) with sweet and hot spices and a feta-cheese flavor, laid out on a sliced cucumber salad.

Warm beet-and-lentil salad with fried goat cheese ($7) also turned into something to spread on bread. The chunks of red and striped beet could be wrapped in bits of bread, but the spicy lentil purée and melting disks of cheese seemed made to spread. A lesser kitchen would serve these appetizers on various toasts, and charge more.

Many of the newer restaurants bet all on appetizers and desserts, and ease up on entrée flavors. Oleana’s entrées are not so spicy, but present rich, complex flavors without letdown. I was most impressed by one of two vegetarian items (on a menu with four seafood and five meat entrées): ricotta-and-bread dumplings with cèpes and braised chicories ($7 for a half-order, or $14 for a whole one). The dumplings were fluffier than any gnocchi, and fully satisfying served in the rich, brown ragout of wild mushrooms and sour greens. This was a vegetable stew without the sense that something was missing. Grilled lamb steak with Turkish spices and fava-bean moussaka ($19) was a real duet. The lamb was more like slices of rare roast than steak, with the spices crusted on the outside edges. The moussaka was layered with eggplant and puréed beans sweeter than new peas, with a whiff of allspice to keep it moussaka.

Spicy tuna marmitako ($21) reached beyond the Mediterranean for inspiration. This was originally a Basque fisherman’s stew, which Sortun has subtly Mexicanized with chipotle chilies (or some other source of hot, smoky flavor) and winter squash cut to look like slices of tamales. Monkfish stuffed with artichokes and lemon ($21) was layered almost like moussaka. The stuffing was a purée tasting more like parsnips than artichokes, yet it was sweet, rich, and complementary to a mild fish in a medieval (or perhaps merely Sicilian) brown sauce that was a little sweet and a little sour.

The wine list at Oleana has been carefully selected to go with this food. It is a little on the expensive side — glasses from $6 to $8, half-bottles from $26 to $36, and bottles from $27 to $90 — but our 1994 Berbera “Matilde” from Diloud ($30) rather justified it. Characteristic Berbera is as rare as classic zinfandel or new restaurants that don’t let up with the entrée course. This one had enough age — another rarity on today’s wine lists — to develop the full and typical nose of dusty cherry and plum aromas. Oleana also makes superb coffee and decaf, served to any number from a fresh French press pot ($5), and a fully bitter decaf cappuccino ($4).

With this coffee came desserts that just wouldn’t quit. In some ways the pear-raisin tarte Tatin ($7) — spiced fruit in superbly buttery pastry — was the perfection of Sortun’s Mediterranean roots and Parisian training. But there was much to contemplate with the panforte that accompanied a dish of spiced coffee gelato ($6). The intense Italian fruitcake was here done with pepper and ginger, like a Moroccan sweet. A dense chocolate marquise ($7) contrasted with homemade chocolate sorbet. There was also a special dessert ($8), which continued the chocolate theme with a pseudo-bonbon of wiggly cream on a chocolate cup, and a tart-like chocolate cup of walnut compote topped with a poached pear. If you remember peach à la Ritz, and can imagine it transported to some imaginary caliph’s palace by French dessert chefs ... well, that’s what it was.

The atmosphere on an early weeknight was distinctly Cambridge, a tweedy crowd more given to sweaters and jeans than actual tweed. The decoration is warmly muted in earth tones, with walls of cork and bare brick, pine tables, filigree lamps, and rock art invoking ancient times. The only discordant element was a soundtrack of alternative rock and contemporary pop — perhaps right for the in-crowd at the Casablanca, but discordant for the older fans who actually followed Sortun to these quieter streets east of Inman Square. Our server was a model of knowledge and enthusiasm about the food. But of course, with food this consistently good, I’d twist arms to get anyone’s table.

Robert Nadeau can be reached at robtnadeau@aol.com.