As the name suggests, the Wine Cellar is supposed to be organized around a list of about 600 wines. The menu, however, focuses on fondue. One doesn’t think of great wine with fondue, but it isn’t crazy. The classic Swiss fondue is bread dipped in hot cheese — two ancient friends of wine. The Burgundy fondue is meat cooked at the table in hot oil, which also pairs up pretty well with wine. Fiddling with fondue distracts from the wine, but it does lend itself to lingering. (It also lends itself to dating, since all the fondues are served for two.) Further offerings include a few regular appetizers and entrées, and a variety of prix fixe menus ($115 to $350 for two) with wine pairings. My vote would be to simplify the fondues by cutting all the sauces, especially those that clash with wine. This could also make the fondues cheaper (they currently range from $36 to $56 for two), which would help many diners order additional fondue or more-expensive wine.

Since you’re likely to have fondue, the breadbasket just seems like extra carbs, but it is good French bread with a pour of olive oil treated with garlic and rosemary. The treatment is nice but seems to neutralize any olive-oil flavor, and at these prices one expects exciting olive oil.

Again, anticipating fondue, one wants to start with salad, and there are several fine choices. The salad le Gascogne ($10.50) is rimmed with homemade potato chips and topped with duck-breast slices and dots of Parma ham, cubed and fried like pancetta. The Wine Cellar salad ($10.50) offers more of the same greens with added hearts of palm and pecans.

An "eggplant napoleon" ($9.50) explores the clever idea of making a caprese salad outside tomato season with grilled eggplant. It features slices of eggplant and buffalo mozzarella, stacked under the usual balsamic dressing and sprigs of fresh basil. For me, everything worked but the eggplant, which was undercooked. The soup our day ($5.95) was French onion, a decent broth with lots of onion flavor and a real baked crouton with some good cheese.

There are even appetizer fondues, but with main dishes to come and the prospect of one of the chocolate fondues for dessert, we couldn’t face eating everything with those little forks.

So, from the cheese fondues we chose Savoyard ($40), a fairly traditional blend of Emmental and Gruyère (two of the classic Swiss cheeses), with bread cubes and fried potatoes to dip. The hot chafing dish of cheese had a good lashing of pepper, perhaps a little mustard, and some wine or liqueur.

Of the oil fondues, we tried the unconventional, the "coastal fondue" ($56), which gave us split shrimp and sea-scallop slices to cook in our hot oil. The shrimp probably respond better to this treatment, although the scallops were quite tasty. The usual sauces for this are a surprisingly spicy pineapple chutney; a horseradish-tomato cocktail sauce; and a fancy butter sauce flavored with mushroom essence that was one of our favorites. We also were able to sample a creamy mustard sauce; a Gorgonzola sauce that might go well with sliced beef; a Champagne vinaigrette intended for chicken (but I think a wine killer); a jerk-hot sauce aimed at turkey but again incompatible with wine; a dilly béarnaise that wasn’t bad with the scallops; a creamy pesto that might gild the lily of some of the cheese fondues; and Chinese-restaurant sweet-and-sour sauce that evoked pupu platters. I’d say go with one of the French sauces for each of the oil-based fondues, and eliminate all the spicy, sour, or peppery ones. Or go to an international list of premium beers.

As it stands, the wine list is overwhelming, and lots of it is expensive, if a relative value. Wines are listed with ratings by Robert Parker, the Wine Spectator, Stephen Tanzer, and "WC," which is the Wine Cellar’s own rating scale. Each of these rating systems has strengths and weaknesses; my initial take was that the best values are on the good list of half-bottles ($20 to $250) and the "Wow" list, a dozen bottles at prices closer to wine-store retail ($30 to $100) than restaurant mark-up. The current five wows under $40 look quite delectable and — genuinely rare at these prices — decently aged. We had wines by the glass. The 2001 Beaulieu Vineyards "Coastal" Sauvignon Blanc ($7) reasonably earned its "WC 80" rating with a clean varietal nose, somewhat fruity, somewhat grassy. A 2000 Rex Hill pinot noir from Oregon ($14/glass; $30/half-bottle) had a full palate of earthy flavors topped with anise notes, and that’s what gets you up around 90 from the Wine Spectator. Contrary to what you’ve seen in the movies, Oregon is the place for pinot noirs in the US. The most expensive wine by the glass is Beaucastel’s 2000 Perrin Châteauneuf du Pape ($17). Beaucastel is usually one of the richest of all Châteauneufs, and this was just very, very nice. Maybe come back in a few years? Coffee and decaf (both $2.50) are good, and served with scaled milk, which is very good.

As with the entrées, there are a few stand-alone desserts, but the logic of the menu is to have one of the chocolate fondues: dark chocolate, milk chocolate, chocolate–Grand Marnier, peppermint-patty-chocolate, or chocolate nuts. We had the chocolate nuts ($8.50), and it was a good decision. This time your little fork starts with a piece of apple, pineapple, cookie, or strawberry, and goes into hot-fudge sauce good enough to eat with a spoon (which we did whenever we thought no one was looking). A "homemade crème brûlée" ($8) is simple custard with the burnt sugar cracked up for a broken-glass look, and garnished with fresh berries. Not special, but won’t disappoint the fans of the dish.

The room is below street level, and while quite spiffed up from its run as the Kebab ’n’ Curry, is not up to the prices now charged. The walls have been redone with murals of brick townhouses and parks, almost like parts of Beacon Hill, which will remind some older gourmets of the murals at the lamented Au Beauchamps. Floors and a pillar are tiled with granite. The small space can feel crowded and loud with all those little fires on the tabletops, light classical background music, and a chatty staff including the owner, Thierry Charles, who’s all over the room explaining the fondues and wines. I don’t usually like tasting wine in the midst of such distractions, but had no problem at the Wine Cellar. Still, I think it’s a little jumpy for the wine lovers, a little expensive for the daters, and the wine/fondue concept needs refinement. That said, the Wine Cellar is different from other expensive nights out, and novelty counts.

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