One can’t help but compare the new restaurant Petite Edith with the nearly four-year-old Obélix. A few blocks from each other, both occupy ground floors of apartment buildings on the sleepy west end of the Near North Side. Both are sophomore projects from seasoned local restaurateurs. Both are French. Or maybe French-ish, because both take that cuisine’s techniques, ingredients, and classic preparations and remix their beats for the house party that is today’s Chicago. At freewheeling Obélix, that means a whole lotta luxe, with foie gras showing up in tuna crispy rice, tacos, and corn dogs. At Petite Edith, the menu calls out French gourmandise but then takes the flow in its own direction — less melting pot, more reimagined American-Continental.

Husband-and-wife owners Jenner Tomaska and Katrina Bravo, the team behind the Lincoln Park tasting menu restaurant Esmé, have thought through every detail here with extreme precision and intentionality. (Tomaska, the chef in this partnership, also oversees the menu at the Alston.) Soft tones, ethereal art, and potted plants render the dining room easy on the eyes. The cutlery and glassware are a pleasure to hold, and the cocktails from beverage director Stevan Miller arrive like little gifts, with sidecars of garnish. All of this is super fun: It’s nice to feel fancy.

Tomaska, a Grant Achatz protégé who ran the kitchen at Next, is a master of technique. He can pull off the kinds of complex preparations that few others attempt, and he lavishes his food with so many sauces and garnishes that any presentation could demand the spotlight. I am in awe of his talent, though I don’t always share his love of showmanship. And his palate leans sweeter than mine. I mentally edit some dishes, revel in others, and can never wait to explore more.

But let’s get back to fancy. Imagine sitting at the marble-topped horseshoe bar for a cocktail and a snack. How about caviar everything? Edith, the house Vesper, combines gin, mezcal, and dry vermouths into something that makes brilliant sense. Half of it comes in a sidecar with two caviar-stuffed olives that will scatter their briny load when you add them to the drink. The golden confit potato fritters topped with more of that fine baerii roe make for a happy pairing.

There are so many delightful bites to snack on that you may never want to continue on to a full dinner. Cold peeled shrimp with burnt lemon Dijonnaise made me rethink my allegiance to cocktail sauce. Wonderful conserved mussels with olives and merguez on a brochette arrive with a scattering with crispy chickpeas. A leek tart turns out to be a gorgeous, flaky puff pastry propped against a frisée salad. I’d kill to have this for lunch.

Every dish is lovely to look at, though many are quite busy. Is it excess or bravura? That’s your call. I know diners go nuts for the pain au fromage, a kind of three-cheese goopfest baked into a split baguette and topped with pomegranate arils, herbs, and slashes of pomegranate molasses. But it gives me Ladies’ Home Journal vibes. The Edith salad with bitter greens, apples, and green beans is cold, bracing, and feathery-crisp but is marred by too many candied spiced walnuts. There were at least three dozen, enough to fuel a bridge party of Southern ladies through two rounds of cocktails before luncheon. The surf clams casino looks smashing — a six-inch shell glazed with golden breadcrumbs — but is extremely redolent of the promised peach and saffron.

Petite Edith goes big on seafood, and Tomaska sources and cooks fish as well as anyone in town. He also loves to pair it with fruit, which sometimes hits my tongue like a tiny deal-breaker. So I love seeing seared skate wing — burnished on the surface, as flaky as crabmeat inside — and the fondant potatoes alongside, but the banana beurre blanc it’s sauced with ain’t kidding. Likewise, an utterly fresh turbot fillet that sports an airy, crisp brioche crust swims in a mussel butter thickened and sweetened with pear. These dishes remind me of those cocktail bars where I’ve appreciated the mixologist’s daring and craft but leave just wanting a classic Manhattan.

The meat dishes work better for me. If the stuffed pig trotter is still on the menu when you visit, get over any foot aversion and order it. Invented by chef Pierre Koffmann of La Tante Claire in London, this classic recipe unites silken foie-gras-enhanced mousse and demi-glace with the tender skin of Porky’s cloven hoof. And the blanquette de veau here isn’t the traditional white veal stew but rather a plate of melting braised cheeks over fregola and softly cooked carrots, leeks, and morel mushrooms. The two wines by the glass our server proposed to pair with it (a Corsican blend of native varieties from Domaine Vico and a Grenache-heavy wine from Domaine Benjamin Taillandier) were both bangers from a mostly French list replete with finds.

That last dish could qualify as French bistro fare, and whenever Tomaska has talked about Petite Edith, he has invoked that descriptor. If you squint, you might see the bistro of it all in the bentwood chairs, the bar’s tile lining, the gentle clamor spilling from one room to the next, and the dishes like steak au poivre and seared foie gras that traffic in high-end comfort. But he isn’t really a bistro chef at heart. He cooks for destination diners, people who dress to impress and expect the same from their meals. In that way, he succeeds most handily.