Rathbun’s ***

112 Krog St., in the Stove Works Dinner Mon-Thu 5:30-10:30;

Fri & Sat 5:30-11:30

Reservations accepted (404-524-8280) Credit cards: AE, V, MC, DC $$ to $$$

Five months ago, when we provided you with a detailed first impression of Chef Kevin Rathbun’s then brand-new restaurant, we could already tell. Were it not for our self-imposed rules, we would have coughed up a richly deserved three-star rating for a full-term baby with the personality of a grown-up.

The location is, of course, spectacular. Even by industrial conversion standards, this former potbellied stove factory in Inman Park scores big on the scale of cool. The design, by the Johnson Studio, is more solid than fancy, with painted bricks echoing their naked counter­parts and drama limited to the concentric sheet-metal chandeliers and their red glow. The indoor patio, defined by canvas walls and, somewhat laughably, punctuated by large umbrellas, could use better lighting, but it is a calmer zone than the super-noisy dining room.

The kitchen is close to minuscule consid­ering the scope of the menu and the intensity of the output. Rathbun loves to cook. Away from the corporate monster, he can finally indulge his desire to work with local produce, make his own mozzarella, offer a selection of raw food (from hamachi crudo to zucchini carpaccio with lemon verbena), serve a small sampler of soups in demitasse cups, ask his pastry chef to make mini desserts, and add a full page of daily specials with hand-drawn sketches to his already immense menu.

The eggplant fries dusted with confec­tioner’s sugar, the okra with shrimp and spiced tomatoes, the sambal-tossed calamari with pea shoots, and the amazing out-of-the-shell mussels with golden chives on sour-dough toast drenched with sweet butter (our favorite by far among the small plates) can be shared tapas-style for an affordable meal. Steaks, braised brisket in smoked tomato with poblano quesadillas, Maine lobster and roasted green chile soft tacos with cascabel cream, wolfish with chunks of bacon, and more are primary examples of power-cooking in the American style.

At the end of a meal with Chef Rathbun, scaled-down desserts such as a chocolate cube with Mexican chocolate mousse, a miniature banana peanut butter cream pie, and an adorable lilliputian sundae put his long-time pastry chef, Kirk Parks, in a favorable light.

The restaurant is extremely convenient from downtown, the valets drive the cars right onto a protected loading dock, and with a new private room under construction, congestion should lessen for a place where epic culinary skills and common sense inter­sect in a spirit of modernity