Sonam

Many an ambitious young chef has gotten lost in the uncharted wilderness of fusion cooking, where the path between inspiration and incoherent nonsense is perilously narrow.

One minute they're adding an Asian lacquer to their duck confit with a salsa verde flourish (a perfectly fine idea). Next thing you know, they're crumbling fried pork-skin crispies atop the chocolate gelato - an Iron Chef-like fantasy, no doubt, but one that in reality tastes as awful as it sounds.

So it's no wonder the fusion trend, after a couple of decades in fierce flower, has been evolving to a more sensible ebb. The focus has shifted to updating authentic dishes with good ingredients and contemporary techniques, rather than simply grabbing a jumble of flavors out of context and reassembling them just because you can.

It seems that Ben Byruch, though, has other ideas.

"I basically like to have no boundaries," says Byruch, 25, whose "global dim sum" small plates at Sonam on South Street would make a cartographer's head spin.

You can go from Asia to New Orleans to Africa in a few creative bites in this sleek subterranean BYOB, just a few steps down from the South Street sidewalk. And the best of his dishes speak well of Byruch's precocious talent and wit. A number of other less successful efforts, though, reveal a young cook whose technique hasn't quite caught up to the racing mind, for whom a few more boundaries might actually be beneficial.

Among the most memorable were the "hamachi nachos," tortilla chips topped with yellowtail sushi and a spicy streak of oil infused with the essence of pico de gallo. There is also a memorable savory trompe l'oeil twist on S'Mores, in which broiled goat-cheese "marshmallows" sit atop the chocolate lookalike of reduced figs and whole meal crackers for a clever campfire twist on the cheese course.

The Asian chicken sliders - three brioche-bun minis topped with a ponzu mayonnaise - are among the best poultry burgers I've ever had. Granted, that's not a high bar, but I've actually come to crave these moist and gingery little patties.

I also might have loved Byruch's take on andouille and crawfish gumbo, which came wrapped inside a spring roll with a sweet duck-sauce dip blackened by Cajun spice. But the ricey gumbo filling had the unpleasant texture of mush.