Blue Pear Bistro

Any food complaints are small compared with the service issues Blue Pear faces. Set into a former general store (circa 1754) that Barnes spent $1.4 million to renovate, the bistro was always meant to be a more casual destination with a neighborhood feel. But its young staff has none of the polish of the Dilworthtown's veterans next door. Advice on the small wine-by-the-glass list was spotty ("I'm not very good at that," our first waitress said, blushing.) Plates occasionally were dropped awkwardly before the wrong diner and left to teeter atop errant silverware.

Of course, once you start eating a dish like the seared Tasmanian trout with silky pureed parsnips and buttery baby carrots, or a special red snapper with lentils in chorizo broth, the Blue Pear's sweet but naive service can easily be forgiven.

What remains difficult to fathom is how such a creative kitchen can skid to a mediocre finish of dull desserts like cheesecake, poached fruit and a brownie. Come to think of it, dessert was never the Dilworthtown's best course, either.

But in a story about savory comebacks, and the promise of young ambitions made good, I can't help but pull for the sweetest ending.