If you're like me and your tastes run toward the clean, simple lines of modern design, you will walk into Evan's Kitchen and say, "Good grief, those chairs."

I was looking for Evan the talented chef, but I stumbled into the world of Ma and Pa Kettle.

Yes, those chairs – antique, ostentatious, high-backed and lowbrow – are more grief than good. They dominate the eye – and poke you in the eye – in this dining room tucked away amid the 57th Street Antique Mall.

It's an aesthetic disaster, but a refreshing one.

(We'll get to the part later in the story when Evan tells me he's thinking of sprucing the place up with Beatles posters, and I may weigh in on why that's not the greatest idea in the world).

Evan's Kitchen is, in fact, one of those wonderful culinary discoveries that does all the important things right. The prices aren't too high and the cooking is absolutely honest, with layerings of flavors and colors that suggest an artist, a craftsman, who really cares about what he's doing.

Evan's is a place stuck in another age, almost defiantly so, wonderfully old-school. By all appearances, it's practically a dive, but its food rises well above.

When you encounter those chairs, don't turn and run. I can assure you that Evan and his two nephews are back in the kitchen cooking some of the best meals in town.

And during the slower hours, they're dreaming up the next way they'll do the salmon or brine the pork chop or concoct something else for dessert. They don't have time to think about Eames chairs or a trendy Philippe Starck design concept.

When Evan Elsberry graduated from Jesuit High School, he found a job at the Silver Palace in Old Sacramento and learned the business through long hours and late ones, hard work and trial and error.

He moved around, moved up and paid attention every step of the way.

Now 45, Elsberry is bearded, burly and in love with the art and science of food. For kicks and to see how he stacks up, Elsberry enters the State Fair's professional chef challenge and has walked away with his share of ribbons, including the top prize in 2004 for his "wine merchant steak."

How good is the rest of the menu? During my two visits, in which I sampled four appetizers and eight entrees, that steak ($21), smothered in mushrooms with a wine and Dijon mustard sauce, wasn't even among the five best dishes at the restaurant.

Not as good as the perfectly cooked salmon with orange-tarragon sauce beurre blanc ($20). Or the excellent meatloaf with mushroom gravy ($15), a recipe Elsberry honed for 10 years, beginning in 1990 when he worked at Andiamo.

My mother gave me good reason to loathe meatloaf (she cooks as well as Elsberry decorates), but I loved this version.

Elsberry uses two-thirds fresh-ground sirloin and combines it with Italian sausage and a little bit of fennel. The finishing touch came when he figured out that just the right amount of balsamic vinegar added a balance, a sweetness, that united the flavors and distinguished this as a signature dish.

Like the rest of the country, I'm bored with boneless chicken breasts, but the burgundy chicken ($15) at Evan's Kitchen breathes new life into something potentially bland and often overpriced.

Elsberry and nephews set out to make a version of the classic French dish coq au vin, but Elsberry is more American eclectic than classic French.

He tweaked it by braising the chicken the traditional way, then adding chunks of smoked ham, then pearl onions, then mushrooms. He knew he found the right layers of flavors when he introduced a teaspoon of apricot preserves.

"I get an idea, write it down, then go into the kitchen and work it out," he told me during a chat on the phone.

That's my kind of cooking. Like writing a good story, good cooking requires revisions and multiple drafts and more than a little angst until it sings.

Sometimes the ideas are solidified in minutes. Sometimes they're honed over years. Sometimes things are so good, like the salmon mentioned above, that Elsberry's customers won't let him take it off the menu.