Le Comptoir du Vin is owned by chef Will Mester and his partner, Rosemary Liss, whose travels to small wine bars abroad begat ideas for a place of their own. A stop in Lyon at a rustic-yet-classic bistro inspired the couple to borrow its name for their debut business in Station North, a short Lyft ride from downtown Baltimore’s Penn Station and something of a homecoming: Le Comptoir du Vin is the successor to Bottega, where Mester and Liss met.

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Nothing about the plain facade of the Baltimore roost, next to a tattoo parlor, hints at the delights within: flickering candles, music you want to return to at home, menus handwritten on chalkboards, and a mirror that gives the illusion of a larger interior. The space is personal and quirky, with a marlin mounted on the wall, a stuffed pheasant and a half-curtain separating dining room from visible kitchen.

As much as the season, the menu is influenced by the chef’s petite workspace. Mester, whose career includes time at the beloved Woodberry Kitchen, says he’s driven by a question: “What can I cook really well?” The answers leaving the kitchen encompass warm, lightly charred sourdough bread and “butter from Normandy,” a server says. In a little nod to his half-Japanese mother, Mester tucks grated radish alongside the butter. A bite of noble bread erases any trouble you may have had getting to this point. “I’m done,” says a friend who drove from Northern Virginia to break bread with me. His smile serves as translation: Le Comptoir du Vin beguiles diners from the start.

Oh, your cocktail may take its time getting to you, and your companion’s may trail behind. The service suggests a dinner party where the host is greeting people at the door and also trying to pass hors d’oeuvres. But the drinks are made so well, it doesn’t matter. (I’ve made a habit of the uplifting Paloma.) And if chicken liver pâté is among the night’s starters, take the opportunity to enjoy a standard-bearer, whipped up from chicken livers, butter, madeira and a touch of maple syrup. The last ingredient explains the fine, sweet edge of the pâté, soft enough to qualify as a mousse.

Rather than make the usual cameo, celery gets top billing in a salad of diced vegetable, pistachios and dates. A toss in lemon juice, olive oil and colatura — an Italian fish sauce — gives the first course gloss and mysterious depth. Sweet persimmon slices show up with a cloud of mascarpone and crackling Middle Eastern spices and ground nuts. Seasonal fruit, cheese and dukkah is the sort of sublime combination you expect to see in Southern California but are delighted to find closer to home on a cold and rainy night.

The menu changes frequently, but whatever you find is best in class, such as silken Saint-Marcellin cheese from France. Made with cow’s milk and virtually rindless, it smells of damp autumn leaves and tastes subtly of mushrooms. Add a raft of toasted bread and a glass of nicely acidic Gambellara from northeastern Italy, and swoon away. Big, sweet scallops are topped with tender little snails from Peconic Escargot in Long Island, where they’re raised in a greenhouse and fed wild greens and bright herbs. (PSA: Once you’ve had fresh snails, you can never go back to canned or frozen.) Underneath are satiny whipped potatoes that taste as much of butter as vegetable.

Chicken gets a bad rap for being a safe (read: bland) choice in restaurants, but Mester shops carefully and knows not to fuss much with prime purchases. D’Artagnan supplies him with free-range, hormone-free Green Circle chickens from Pennsylvania whose diet includes vegetable scraps from farmers markets and commercial kitchens. The attention to detail pays off. The roast chicken bursts with the kind of old-fashioned flavor you think has all but disappeared, like restroom attendants and Dean and DeLuca. As I ate the chicken, my mind wandered back to Minnesota and my late grandmother’s cooking, and the only reason I remembered it’s 2020 was the rest on my plate: Cora Sietsema knew not of chickpeas and cavolo nero (Tuscan kale), gathered beneath the chicken in a shallow broth.

This is the kind of restaurant where companions eagerly pass dishes back and forth. Food this soulful deserves an audience of more than one. My only caution is that you’ll probably get a plate returned from across the table with little evidence of, say, pappardelle with braised duck and olives.

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Some dishes are merely very good. Swordfish is simply warmed on the grill and served on blood orange and other sliced citrus, with feathery fennel fronds. What all the dishes have in common is purity and restraint — traits of a chef armed with uncommon confidence.

The owners make it easy to enjoy natural wine, but “if we like how the wine tastes and we support their farming and fermentation practices, then we will serve it,” says Liss, whose pairings run to “lighter and brighter” bottles that go with the food. There are plenty of selections under $50, and the labels reflect the restaurateurs’ relationships with good importers and wines you don’t see every day, from the Canary Islands, Slovakia and elsewhere.

Do not eat so much bread and butter or be in such a rush to get home that you forgo dessert. Whatever sous-chef/baker/pastry maker Kelsey Martin puts on the menu is a call to return. Recent visits have featured a chic spin on mont blanc, flavored like a Biscoff cookie, and the same sensational flourless chocolate cake served at the esteemed River Cafe in London. A dark slice of not-too-sweet “nemesis” cake alongside a tuft of fresh whipped cream is the little black dress of desserts, dreamy in its simplicity and always in good taste.

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Let me remind you: No one should show up without a reservation, which can be made a month in advance. Le Comptoir du Vin is so small, I could hear dishes being scrubbed in back the night I sat up front near the door.

At some point during dinner, you might glance up to see a couple enter with expectant looks. “Any room tonight?” they inquire, knowing their chances of scoring a table or even a stool at the three-seat bar, sans reservation, are about as good as POTUS taking a holiday from Twitter. The staff does its best to break the news gently, but it can’t be easy to be turned away after being teased, even for a moment, by so much bliss in the room.

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