Park Avenue Summer

As of three days ago, the venerable Park Avenue Cafe is now Park Avenue (Insert Season Here), a restaurant which will change its name, decor and menu every season. My companion and I, who dined there last night with another couple, were tickled at the concept ("Will they have to call the phone company every three months to change their name?" I wondered), but the imaginative, pleasingly plated cuisine sold us on the idea.

Upon our arrival, three hostesses in pale sundresses invited us to look at the "ice bar": bottles of vodka with a choose-your-own selection of flavorings like ginger-sugarcane and spearmint. Then we sat down in white faux-snakeskin chairs; it was obvious from the decor that the owners aimed to bring Downtown chic to the staid Upper East Side. (Unfortunately, this ambience included the loud dance music that one finds at many hotspots! This was our only gripe.)

We toasted the new restaurant with glasses of light, sweet Conundrum and got to work on the refreshing amuse bouche: cubes of bright red watermelon (is there anything more summery?) topped with spicy yogurt and basil sprigs. This first taste heralded the beginning of an evening of intriguing sweet-savory combinations.

The specials all featured corn: Kumamoto oysters with corn milk, grits, even corn panna cotta. (Note: for the chic, figure-conscious diner, there were salad options in all courses: appetizers, mains, even desserts. I am not especially chic or figure-conscious, of course, and my menu choices reflected accordingly.)

My appetizer was an interesting take on gazpacho: tangy tomato gelatin was the base for small heaps of peekytoe crab on velvety green dollops of avocado. The other apps were equally refreshing and colorful: red-and-green gingered beet and cucumber salad; yellow and green beans accented with fresh mint and chopped nuts; and paper-thin slices of fluke sashimi dotted with crimson plum paste.

Our appetites whetted, we then proceeded to the mains and sides. Crispy hand-cut French fries, served in a little wooden box with tabasco mayo, the most extraordinary buttered baby carrots and marshmallows (!) and a dish of creamy corn grits and niblets accompanied our entrees: truffled John Dory with a breadcrumb-crusted egg which had somehow maintained its runny yolk; three roulades of rosy, bottom-seared sashimi-grade yellowfin tuna with purple radish sprouts and aioli; a layered salad of lobster and avocado; and two perfectly grilled chunks of filet mignon in "steak sauce butter" with a side salad of arugula, raspberries and shards of Parmesan.

We were excited to see that pastry chef Richard Leach had crafted a sophisticated new dessert menu. I chose the summer raspberries with goat cheese mousse. This was a tall sculpture of round cookies alternating between ripe red berries, sorbet and mousse enveloped in thin sweet wafers. The mousse was reminiscent of a light cheesecake. My companion devoured the sauteed blueberries with lemon semolina cake and lemongrass panna cotta, and our companions ate up every last spoonful of their chocolate-tea and basil gelato! Highly recommended.

Park Avenue Summer: East 63rd St. and Park Ave.,(212) 644-1900.