Inside the building is a slightly edgy décor. There are bare red-brick walls, fantastic local art photography, delightfully set tables for two or more and in the center of the room a large bar. It's the bar that sets the mood, as it changes color gently during the course of your meal. Well the bar doesn't actually change color, but the lighting does.

The Restaurant Review has long had a soft spot for Anthony Dawodu, the executive chef at 33. Anthony produces some amazing dishes and is always one of the first people we seek out at Spinazzola and similar events. We decided to try 33 this month to coincide with some new menu items from Anthony as he updates his spring menu with an eye for the summer.

There are actually several dining areas at the 33, but we chose to be seated in the main level dining room toward the back of the restaurant. After doing a lot of reviews recently, I have begun to get a sense of how the evening is going to go based on the first few words that we exchange with our waiter or waitress. In this case, I developed the warm and fuzzies as our waiter Jeff introduced himself to us and gently negotiated our dining expectations, before he launched into his patter about the menu and wines. Really good waiters are more like psychologists than you'd think. They seek to establish what you want, what they can deliver and whether or not it's going to work for you, all as part of those few innocent questions at the beginning of your meal.

We declined one of 33's well-known cocktails in favor of two samples of the house wine by-the-glass. Trimbach, Pinot Blanc 2002 and Pouilly Fume, Les Legeres 2004 were brilliant choices for our chosen appetizers. As you can see from the pictures, the crab salad and goat cheese tarts were delightfully presented and tasted splendid. Jacob Knight the Sommelier and Wine Director took us through their wine list. Its heavily Euro and New World biased, something that normally leaves me searching for a suitable bottle to drink. However, Jacob has put together a very distinctive wine list with some superb choices that really demonstrate how good “the rest of the world” wines can be. He's more than happy to be your guide as you choose the wine and we were delighted with his helpful advice. He told us that “33 has a Eurocentric view of the wine world” and in the best sense he was absolutely right.

The rest of the meal was as standout as the appetizers. Anthony has an uncanny knack for blending disparate flavors into a cohesive whole. You can trust his judgment when it comes to flavors that normally would not appear together on the same menu item.

The restaurant was gradually filling up as we left at the end of our early dinner. The new diners were mainly business types and couples who settled in for some of Antony's fine cooking. As I mentioned earlier, towards the latter part of the evening the clientèle subtly changes to those who like to eat late, drink late and perhaps party a bit in the downstairs lounge areas.

33 still defies classification even after our fine meal there. The cooking is exquisite, the service out standing and the wine list excellent. As with many really good restaurants, somehow the sum of the parts is a lot greater than the whole. There is something cosmopolitan and edgy about the restaurant perhaps, because of its late-night crowd and the promise of things to come. What it is though, is a great place, for a great meal. Chef Anthony Dawodu and Owner Greg Den Herder can be proud of both the restaurant and the food they serve. I just wish I was young enough to want to stay up late enough to enjoy the late-night bit, too.

The wine list is a modest seven pages long, but has over 15 wines by the glass. Prices are reasonable and there is a wide choice of both variety and country of origin, with the previously mentioned bias towards Europe.

The top bottle on the list was the outrageously good 1994 Rothchild, a snip at $350!