Restaurants: Saffron's second life

Everything a diner needs to know about Saffron Restaurant & Lounge can be summed up in a single dish. OK, three. They're all tagines, and among them these slow-cooked stews constitute a hefty percentage of my favorite meals of the year.

Part of the fun of ordering a tagine is its built-in flash of dinner theater. "Get ready for your facial," said our server, as he lifted the pot's cone-shaped cover, releasing a salutory cloud of intensely fragrant steam.

But their main allure is sheer, unadulterated deliciousness. One features fork-tender lamb shanks, the meat's heaviness leavened by harissa and preserved lemon, its garlicky broth brimming with spinach, caraway and toothy chickpeas. Another puts duck in the spotlight, nudged with garlic, ginger and olives for six hours until the meat falls off the bone, with hints of saffron and sweet raisins. A third is an ever-changing play on seafood; I'm still sighing at the thought of salmon, cool and plush in the center, braised in a shellfish-tomato broth dotted with entrancing chermoula accents and tender mussels.

Tagines are just one key element in chef Sameh Wadi's savvy remake of his five-year-old Warehouse District restaurant. At this reboot, all traces of formality are gone, replaced by an emphasis on meant-to-be-shared plates sold at mostly affordable prices. Oh, and fun. Tons of it.

After keeping the kitchen's focus on the Middle East and North Africa, Wadi is now plucking ideas from around the Mediterranean. Starting in Greece, where unassuming tavernas became the source for an audaciously satisfying, whole-roasted branzino (aka European sea bass). Wadi removes most of the bones of this beautiful silvery creature and stuffs the cavity with a compound butter of black olives and lemon zest. He finishes it with fruity olive oil, sea salt and a shower of crispy fried grape leaves. The firm white flesh has a gentle flavor, and the whole shebang is a signature dish waiting to happen.

This more casual cooking style suits Wadi's considerable skills, and his menu covers plenty of bases but never strays far from its roots. There's the requisite talker in the form of pillowy, gently fried lamb brains. He's included an affectionate nod to his grandmother, a plate of green beans slow-cooked in tomatoes. Sous vide cooking makes charred octopus feel almost like tuna, and vacuum compression converts watery cucumber into a solid foundation for a stunner of a crab salad. It's easy to rattle off small-plate dazzlers -- fabulous fried cauliflower and its earthy turmeric bite, nutty farro prepared like risotto, superb hummus, grilled lamb-beef meatballs, edamame-esque fresh chickpeas -- before encountering a merely decent option. If there's a weakness, it's the desserts.

The warehouse loft decor has been pleasantly buffed and shined. Now, Saffron has the kind of environment where Tuesday night drop-ins or Target Field ticketholders can feel comfortable while taking a crack at Wadi's extraordinary riff on the BLT, embellished with a house-cured lamb belly and thick swipes of a saffron-scented tomato jam. Order it with a side of the divine potato chips.

I almost forgot: Do not miss the sweet corn soup. Starting with a silky puréed corn stock, Wadi adds chile-poached figs and CornNuts (yes, the pre-packaged junk food) for compare-and-contrast texture, and smoked paprika oil and garlic-laced house-made yogurt for a similarly clever play on flavors.

The results are astonishingly good, and, like that branzino, it's a showman's dish, which explains why the 27-year-old chef was tapped to compete last year on the Food Network's "Iron Chef America." He lost to perennial favorite Masaharu Morimoto, and he was robbed.