Flautas: roasted vegetables, poblano, corn, black beans, tomatillo cumin sauce. Crab & Roasted Corn Crab Cakes: with fire-roasted pepper salsa.

(photo: Rose Mattrey)

The restaurant’s tagline is “Sun-inspired cocktails and cuisine,” so I really wasn’t quite sure what I should expect when I got here. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that it is simply a nice place that serves nice food well presented; the general idea is that the food will be vaguely South American, but if they have a good idea for something Caribbean, they’ll make that, too. Mostly, it seems, the theme is that one should not be such a slave to one’s theme that you neglect to serve good food. Which, I might mention, is something some restaurants seem to forget.

So the theme is largely expressed in the music (Latin “gypsy jazz,” live on Fridays) and the decor, which is a beautiful blend of Mexican tinwork, clever folk art and attractive colors. There’s a wonderful, laid-back atmosphere, a tag-team of three personable bartenders, who each have their own following of regulars, and excellent food. You can come during lunch for inexpensive burritos and tacos and enchiladas, if you want, but the emphasis isn’t on authentic, down-home Hispanic cuisine. The emphasis is on mild, mellow, harmonious flavors, on beautiful presentations of carefully prepared foods and, not least, on truly exquisite, elaborate cocktails.

Let me talk about the cocktails for a little while. There are regulars who make a night of coming here just for the drinks, and order tapas to share all night—just round after round of food and drinks. It’s less expensive than it sounds and would be a wonderful way, in good company, to while away the night. The drinks. Oh, the drinks. They have a decent wine list of South American vintages, but their cocktails are exceptional. My companion immediately ordered a Pisco sour ($6.50), which is a particularly excellent and hard-to-find little cocktail based on Pisco, which is Peruvian brandy. It’s strong but sweet, after the fashion of a sidecar or an old-fashioned. I went for a similarly seldom-available classic, the caipirinha ($7.50), which is a Brazilian drink featuring cachaca, Brazilian rum. They offer it with various flavorings, but I found the classic version just as I remembered it—strong, tangy-sweet and a bit limey.

For a followup, later, I had the frutas de chocolate ($7). The waitress approved of this choice, saying she came in on her days off just for them, and that they tasted like chocolate-dipped strawberries. I was slightly skeptical, but to my amazement, this was precisely the case—you wouldn’t think a drink could capture all the nuances of fresh fruit and melted chocolate, but it did. I could’ve had three, but one must be moderate, particularly if one is attempting to save room for dessert. Which I’ll get to later.

The food makes gestures towards being South American, but in execution the flavors remind one of French cooking—understated but rich, best appreciated as a combination, adding up within the dish to be a harmonious whole. The Calamar Santa Cruz ($9 for a “small” order), a tapas dish we ordered as an appetizer, was a good example: battered and fried little calamari bits mounded on a plate interspersed with bits of peppers, thin slices of hard cheese and tiny sliced rings of green olive, with a cold, spicy dipping sauce. The calamari bits on their own were delicious, like something you’d find at an Italian restaurant; when combined on the fork with the peppers and olives, and dipped carefully into the sauce, they were something entirely different, better, spicy and salty and crispy all together. Likewise the other appetizer-tapas dish we got, the night’s special ceviche ($12), was best appreciated carefully, with a little of each ingredient on the fork. Pomegranate-splashed pieces of lobster as large as halved strawberries were combined with small pieces of pineapple and guava with chopped fennel mixed in, and served cold. It was delicate, juicy and sweet.

We did not order the guacamole ($12), as my guest dislikes avocados and so could not have done it justice. Fortunately, the two women at the table beside ours conveniently did, and so we were treated to the show as their special Guacamole Guy came out with his cart and put on a humorous little show as he sliced up the avocadoes and combined the ingredients in the bowl, mashing them up and presenting the guacamole and tortillas to the diners with great flair. The women dug in with appreciative noises and, I noted, devoured every morsel in the bowl before their next round of tapas arrived.

Our entrees, while less showmanly, were similarly received. My guest ordered the Chicken Buenos Aires ($23). It was breaded chicken breast on a bed of a strange crunchy pasta, bathed in a rich, creamy sauce smokily flavored with truffles. Meanwhile, I got one of that night’s specials, the filet mignon ($26): Done to perfection, it parted easily under my knife and melted on my tongue. The potatoes it perched upon were no afterthought: They were garlic- and gorgonzola-mashed, and studded with tangy slices of artichoke heart. The port syrup drizzled across the filet had a strong, sweet flavor that did not contrast, but blended perfectly with the artichokes and the cheese and garlic.

I mentioned dessert. Did I mention that Solé has its own pastry chef? Not yet, but I will now: The chef’s a genius. The churros, crispy-fried, were soft inside, with an apple filling, and almond-praline ice cream and a sweet creamy chipotle sauce with just a hint of heat to dip them in. My guest had the flan. He’s never been a fan of flan; the texture’s just all wrong for him. But here they serve it atop a thin wafer of shortbread. This is genius. Pecan shortbread, no less. Flan’s delicate, almost-smoky flavor and creamy-slick texture is better appreciated with a hint of sweet crunch like this.

All in all Solé was not as I’d expected; it was better.