Square 1682 combines substance and style

There are, to be sure, several more subtly flavored dishes for less adventurous diners - albeit always with a colorful culinary twist. Meat-and-potato fans will find a beautiful local strip steak with a gratin of blue potatoes. For the chicken crowd, a roasted Amish beauty comes with creamy pink alfredo nest of pasta made from lightly pickled beets. Simply seared black bass comes with crisply fried eggplant and a risotto cooked with black rice. Seared grouper, meanwhile, arrives over mashed white sweet potatoes with a truffled puree of roasted corn.

These dishes were satisfying, if not necessarily profound, but spoke to Square 1682's mission as a hotel restaurant to serve a clientele of broad tastes and needs as stylishly as possible.

There are some fantastically arty boardrooms upstairs for small private events overlooking 17th Street. The downstairs lounge, meanwhile, could become a casual destination on its own for a fun bar-menu nibble (fried maitakes; yakitori; bacon-wrapped goat cheese-stuffed dates) and a seriously stocked craft cocktail bar within view of the lobby fireplace.

The service staff, while still at times awkward and out-of-sync (delivering wines too long after food was served), also had moments of genuine charm and grace.

The dessert menu, at least, was fine enough to bring our meals nicely full-square. There was a decadently creamy ginger-chocolate tart with candied oranges, and a martini glass filled with silky panna cotta topped with brûléed blood oranges and a tart pomegranate drizzle.

My favorite, though, were the moist sugar-rolled apple fritters in cider caramel. They harked back to Tellez's brief but memorable stint (post-Striped Bass) cooking farm-market tasting meals and barbecue at Northbrook Orchards in Chester County. These rustic Pennsylvania beauties, William Penn might actually recognize.

Next Sunday, Craig LaBan reviews Zama on Rittenhouse Square. Contact him at 215-854-2682 or claban@phillynews.com.