Loss in mystique is gain in focus

"I often wonder about how I'm going to have to pay in the future," he says, "for all this octopus I've sold."

It is an unlikely scenario for conservative Philadelphia: Former rock guitarist for '70s groups like the Broad Street Dirt Band and the Burning Dogs turns tiny neighborhood restaurant into a local phenomenon; menu includes basic Greek seafood specialties, including boatloads of grilled octopus.

The 35-seat corner nook at Third and Catharine Streets in Queen Village is so small, it didn't seem plausible even to Chimes and his wife, Sheila, when they began looking for their own restaurant. But a decade later, the octopus hath spoken. Blushing pink and touched by char, splashed with just the right amount of olive oil and herbs, those pale meaty tubes of chewy goodness became a star. I liken it to chicken salad with Mediterranean character.

Chimes' crack crew of efficient Hmong chefs, from the hills of Laos, regularly churns 175 customers through "Old Original" Dmitri's on a weekend night. And evidently it isn't fast enough. I once waited nearly two hours for a shot at one of the exquisitely plain grilled whole pompanos, participating in a Philadelphia dining ritual ? the Dmitri's wait ? that has gathered a mystique almost impossible to sustain. The pompano was good, but it wasn't that good.

"For a while there it was almost ridiculous," Chimes says. "It made me a bit uncomfortable ? too much stress for this little place."

The recent decision to clone the mother-raft, converting his other waning projects at Stix and Pamplona to the original stripped-down Dmitri model, must have annoyed the Queen Village faithful. All those years spent refining The Wait and now everyone can get a table!

Nothing deflates a mystique more than accessibility, and the duplication is fraught with danger for the sainted Dmitri's name. I had a plate of flabby, low-octane octopus at the former-Pamplona Dmitri's at 12th and Locust Streets. And while the kitchen fared better at the Dmitri's formerly known as Stix, where original Dmitri's chef Chong "Hua" Xiong cheerfully navigates its scorching open kitchen, it also had a handful of sub-par offerings: lamb grilled to slivers of leather; overcooked tuna medallions that, even properly cooked, are no substitute for a deftly cooked tuna steak; errant walnut shells in the baklava.

On the other hand, this may have been a blessing in disguise. Stripped of some of its aura, this new Dmitri's on Fitler Square can avoid some of the downsides of impossible scenedom and still prove itself to be a very good affordable neighborhood seafood restaurant, which is what the concept was intended to be all along.

Part of the Dmitri's appeal is the clarity of its menu ? Greek seafood done as simply and as affordably as possible, splashed with garlicky oil and lemon, and rarely more than $18 a plate. The overly eclectic Stix never had that kind of focus, so the return to basics here is an improvement.

My whole grilled pompano looked as if it had barely been touched by the chef. The snub-nosed fish sat on the plate in its silver-skinned birthday suit with only a couple of grill marks to tell me otherwise. Inside was pure moist fish, so naturally flavored its luxurious white flesh gushed the mild juice of freshness. Grilled scallops on a skewer were seared brown with the heat of flame but still tender and ivory inside, the perfect contrast to bundles of garlicky escarole that come with every dish.

The narrow room looks out through light-edged windows onto quaint Fitler Square and, with its clay-pot-colored walls scrawled with Greek motifs, has a comfortable coziness the other Dmitris don't have. The room still gets as loud as Stix did, and sometimes the overly casual service still leaves a lot to be desired. Our waitress left our wine bottle with a thunk on the table as she moseyed on by to destinations uncharted and rarely disclosed. So much for sniffing the cork; she didn't even bother to pour us a glass.

Oh, well, I was so pleased with this cute little list of international wines around $30 that I was just thankful they were drinkable, not the usual overpriced commercial rotgut. It seemed the perfect selection for a casual neighborhood place where the food also eschews pretension.

A bowl of simple vegetarian lentil soup was hearty and satisfying. Triangles of feta-tangy spinach pie wrapped in the layers of a crisp phyllo sandwich were an addictive delight (as opposed to the soggy reheated version I had at the former Pamplona location).

Dmitri's $12 platter of Mediterranean nibbles is one of the best excuses I know to work my way through a plateful of grill-charred pita bread wedges ? a musky puree of chickpea hummus; the smoke-tinged fruity mush of eggplant baba ghannouj; the walnut snap and raw garlic burn of bread-thickened skordalia dip; refreshing cucumber and yogurt tzatziki; the salty orange cream of pureed carp roe tarama salada; the sweet crimson chunks of roasted beets.

Comfort food desserts like creme caramel, cinnamon-dusted rice pudding, and a firm wedge of orange almond cake made up for the baklava. It was bad enough to sandwich the baklava's honey-nut filling between two thick clumps of wet phyllo dough instead of taking the time to make finer multiple layers. But the unpleasant discovery of errant walnut shells inside revealed a rare case in which the kitchen's penchant for simplicity led to laziness.

The menu's most complicated creation, in fact, turns out to be a salad, a montage of creamy avocado, toasty slivered almonds, spritzy citrus wedges, and refreshing romaine lettuce that is an amazing combination if you can manage to get every element on the same fork.

Dmitri's undeniable forte, though, is straightforward seafood preparations. A broiled fillet of dewy fresh tilapia was so pristine in its wine and lemon glaze, a speckling of black pepper gave it interesting flavor twists. Greaseless tubes of fried calamari were fresh and nicely tender, sparked higher by a squeeze of lemon. A broiled oyster special needed little more than a splash of olive oil, dill and garlic to assure it would be devoured.

The assertive taste of nicely fried large smelts was for fish fanatics only ? I liked them even though I mistakenly ate their crunchy spines like overgrown french fries. Chimes recommends filleting them with your teeth. The usually pungent flavor of dark-fleshed bluefish was pleasantly softened by its Greek-style sauce, a cloak of tomatoes, sweet peppers and onions that tamed it lovingly in the baking.

The true test, of course, would be the octopus. I liked it enough. But for purposes of authentification, I'd also brought along my very own Queen Village snob, who complained that the octopus "didn't have enough parsley." Perhaps this is the payback of trading on mystique. If the octopus doesn't get Dmitri first, his zealous customers will.

Craig LaBan's e-mail address is claban@phillynews.com.