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Lambros

397 Danforth Ave., Toronto. 416-461-9577. Dinner for two with wine, tax and tip, $80.

Aristedes Pasparakas has owned seven restaurants in 25 years. He has been chef and/or consulting or guest chef at five more. What would you call that? Probably it wouldn't be complimentary, except for one aspect: When a person who has demonstrated such impressive instability keeps finding backers and other people with money to throw his way, that person has a gift.

The gift of Aristedes has been to cook nouvelle Greek. He takes the standard issue of his homeland and does it better. Every time I write or say this, I bring down the considerable wrath of Greek epicures upon my head. Here goes: I have eaten my sad way up and down the Danforth. I was in Greece only once. In my three weeks there, the food I ate was as bad as the Greek food in Toronto. Most meals consisted of overcooked greasy meat and yummy dips, with Greek salad for relief. I hear tell that upscale Greek restaurants in Athens are to this dreck what Lai Wah Heen is to an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet, but I didn't have the money to find out.

Aristedes has been my only source of sophisticated Greek cuisine. In 1986, when I was kvelling over yet another Aristedes restaurant he had opened (this one on the Danforth), I quoted the maestro saying: "I got burned out, not just from food and cooking but also from bad habits. I'm not proud of it." He later cleaned up his act, but didn't get the settling-down part of the equation.

Aristedes first had Orestes in Vancouver and then three different Aristedes restos in Toronto, as well as the Temporary Calamari Joint, Ouzeri and Viva. He cooked briefly at a passel of other places including Avli on the Danny; and now he's back again (sort of) as exec chef and éminence grise at Lambros, which is next door to Avli, and under the same ownership. Aristedes has taught his clean Greek cooking to Lambros's young chef, Sebastian Balmaceda.

Lambros is a plain spare restaurant, long and narrow, with blond-wood tables and a paucity of decor. There are a few grace notes - a coloured-glass chandelier, a model galleon and a sunflower relief. But three cool tchotchkes do not ambience make and this place needs warming up.

It could also use some attention in the service department. Imagine what would happen if a restaurant put somebody in the kitchen with the culinary equivalent of the servers we met on two visits to Lambros: In response to questions about the menu, one of them makes up answers. When pressed, she then consults the menu. The other one gives the wrong answer. When I press, he says: "I work at two places so I get confused." Imagine that in the kitchen.

But Lambros will, and should, because the enfant terrible of the baklava set has not lost his touch. Everything from Lambros's kitchen is lighter and more interesting than other Greek food in Toronto. Take, for example, octopus, a great classic of Mediterranean food. The pickled octopus at Lambros is tender and piquant thanks to perfect cooking and a light vinaigrette. Grilled octopus is superbly tender atop nicely seasoned yellow split pea purée.

Kebab of pork, beef and lamb is ungreasy and splendidly garnished with feta-stuffed hot banana pepper, minted yogurt and hot chili sauce sweetened with green apple. Mussels are stuffed into mussel shells with a complex pilaf of rice seasoned with raisins, pine nuts and dill. Adding eggplant to one chili dipping sauce and sweet pepper to another is so Aristedes, two throwaway lines that take the mussels from pleasant to interesting.

With similar good effect, he taught his protégé to shave fresh artichokes into the pastichio. All Greek cooks make this classic, which is Mediterranean mac and cheese; but Aristedes does it better - creamier and lighter - than elsewhere. Same for his fasolada, another classic - huge dried beans in a rich stew of tomatoes and veg, with cute little croutons topped variously with creamed feta, anchovy purée and olives.

Shrimp and oyster mushroom saganaki unfortunately features the usual overcooked rubbery cheese, but in this case it is ameliorated with adroitly grilled oyster mushrooms and shrimps. Same problem in the asparagus dish, but al dente asparagus, watercress and honey mustard vinaigrette somewhat disguise rubbery cheese. Speaking of rubbery, the only failed entrée is the lamb. Lamb for $15 was bought too cheap to be good, and it isn't. No garnish can overcome tough and thin - not even honey-scented onions or loukoumi (Turkish delight made with grape must, Metaxa brandy and jazzed with smoked cayenne and paprika).

Aristedes cooks with two pans and a blender. Nowhere is that more fun and successful than in his striped bass (one pan) with rapini and potatoes stewed with vinegar and rosemary (the other pan).

His desserts are also creative: Three tiny crisp filo cups hold silken custard scented with rosewater. Three vanilla cupcakes are variously glazed with cardamom and coffee, masticha (aromatic tree resin from Greece) and bitter almond. This is as far from gummy baklava and heavy galactobouriko as it gets. The phoenix has risen ... again.