How often do you just want to have appetizers and skip directly to dessert? For some people, especially the rather young and the rather old, that could be every time. Finale, which began with desserts alone — another dining-out concept with multigenerational appeal — has added a "prelude" menu of small plates and appetizers. With a $17.95 prix fixe combination, you can have your dream dinner for the price of the entrée you never really wanted in the first place. With a good wine list, it’s as though you’ve died and gone to Paris. Why aren’t there more restaurants like Finale? And why wasn’t the Harvard Square Finale (there is another in Park Square) fuller when we went as a three-generational family for Mother’s Day?

Maybe parking has something to do with it, since neither Finale is anywhere near a parking space. But under more accommodating circumstances, this concept could lead to more outlets than Starbucks. The only hard part would be getting the really exquisite desserts Finale offers. You think $9 is too much for dessert? Just taste one.

The preludes are deceptively simple, and most are permutations of a few high-quality ingredients. The one flaw I found was that the grilled chicken (on both the caesar salad and the white pizza) was much too salty. I cut all the crust off a piece, and it was still way too salty in the center. This is caused by too much brining. Now, I actually used to work at Cook’s Illustrated, the Vatican of brining meats before roasting or grilling to keep them juicy. So I’m all for this technique, but too much is too much. (Since this is an easy fix, I don’t think you’ll ever encounter this problem again at a Finale.) Some preludes can also be a little too precious; our Mediterranean pizza ($8.95) had a fine, crisp, thin crust and flavorful toppings of mozzarella, sun-dried red and yellow tomatoes, balsamic vinegar, and fresh basil. I thought the tomatoes, especially the yellow ones, had a concentrated sweetness that melded very nicely with the balsamic vinegar and cheese. But young Stephanie, home from college, expected her pizza to taste like pizza, with a conventional tomato sauce.

The white pizza ($9.95) was even better, leaving aside its salty chicken. These days, Grandma Nadeau specializes in white food and dark chocolate, so a pizza with sliced chicken, caramelized onions, feta cheese, and little dabs of white lemon sauce was perfect for her.

If the day is chilly, there are soups. Broccoli-cheese ($6.95) is a creamy bowl with chunks of the Democratic vegetable (garlic deters vampires; broccoli deters Bushes); both flavors are well expressed, and the soup arrives hot. Minestrone ($6.95) is a classic version — though it includes spiral pasta — but didn’t get to the table hot enough. Finale has excellent French-bread rolls, served with unsalted butter.

Normandie pâté ($9.95) was two fine triangles of fine-grained pâté, subtly toned with a little nutmeg, the classic cornichon pickles, and an innovative and excellent sesame wafer, thin and crisp as a pappadam. The plate also had a marinated salad of artichoke hearts and eggplant. The portobello salad ($8.95) was a splendid bed of arugula with a grilled mushroom stuffed with chopped mushroom and rather good grated cheese. Chicken caesar salad ($9.95) was an ordinary caesar salad served with a grilled chicken-breast "tenderloin," and another of those sesame wafers.

The wine list is not inexpensive, but the wines are very good. The glasses could be larger, but our wines showed well even in small glasses. Although only some wines are listed by the glass, you can order a glass of any of the suggested-pairing wines as well. De Loach "Russian River Valley" Chardonnay ($8.95) was crisp and dry, with a fresh green-apple nose. Hangtime Pinot Noir (9.95) was tart and lively, but had some vanilla, oaky notes in the long flavor. My favorite was the St. Francis "Old Vines" Zinfandel ($9.95), which had a spicy flavor approaching that of port. Coffee ($2.95) was above average, decaf ($2.95) was well above average.

If you’ve come this far, you might as well share the chocolate-bliss combination ($26.95), built around a square of chocolate-espresso mousse skirted with a crisscross cake so it looks like the dessert treat from another plant. This plate also gets you the signature molten chocolate cake, which is very good here because the chocolate flavor is so intense. There is also a fudgy-chocolate blob with candied orange peel and, for contrast, caramel ice cream on a coconut tuile, and coconut sorbet on a chocolate tuile. All these things are highly decorated with sails and thumbs of chocolate, candied mint leaves, cinnamon-chocolate cigars, and such. And did I mention the eight candies? Two each of chocolate on hard coconut centers, white chocolate with soft centers, dark chocolate over praline wafers, and dark chocolate with hazelnuts.

If you want a more-concentrated chocolate experience, there is always the manjari mousse ($11.95), a round confection that packs pure chocolate power despite the apricot and chocolate-cake layers, and is decorated with a skewer of red-wine-sorbet scoops between leaves of strudel pastry. There are also fruit desserts and a big sampler built around all the non-chocolate desserts, but I leave such matters to the chocolate-impaired. Our other dessert was cheesecake ($8.95), here lightened with cream (!) into something like a cheese-flavored pot de crème, and served with lots of enormous-yet-ripe berries.

The space is small but not too loud, with red carpeting, ochre walls, black tables, and red-velvet banquettes — like being inside a box of candy. The background music was cool jazz. Service was very good, with our server producing an entire glass of steamed milk on request for the coffee, and describing the offerings accurately and completely.

While the focus at Finale is still on desserts, the prelude menu makes it possible to get at them with reduced guilt and enough appetite to do them justice.

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