Bresca

"I don't know why she doesn't have a man friend. She's a very attractive woman."

Overhearing conversations at Bresca, 111 Middle Street, is inevitable.

"I don't know why she doesn't have a mammogram. She's a very attractive woman."

Overhearing them accurately may be another matter altogether. The point: It's a small and intimate space - a neighborhood restaurant across Franklin Art from the more neighborly side of Middle Street. It has dim lights, candles, birch logs, smooth jazz and smooth masculine wood tables. Ascot-wearing symphonygoers sit back-to-back with a drone checking the location of Catalonia on his glowing Blackberry. So, go on the business account. Go for the expensive European food (not that you couldn't find that at Fore Street, Cinque Terra, Cafe Uffa! or [fill in the blank]).

But with a slawlike brussel sprout salad with pecorino and walnut, Bresca may have some firsts. Delicate house-made chestnut and pumpkin agnolotti with chicken liver sauce. A beet salad with fried ricotta, hazelnut, and small diced cubes of beet, arranged perfectly. Only they don't brandish the intense balance of flavors that Rob Evans, her closest neighbor, has crafted at Hugo's. Other pasta course "firsts" - strozzapreti and kerchiefs - were fresh and filling ($8 to $18, sized from app to entree to family).

The $18+ seconds, ranging from pork chop and steak to whole fish, pale in comparison. Not to mention desserts, like dry, cakey deconstructed tiramisu, which try a too hard to be at once edgy and authentic.

Krista Kern, an intense ponytailed woman, who occasionally appears behind a row of wine bottles - bottles that hang over your dinner when seated, er smushed, at the "bar" - seems to run this place solo. Her waitstaff tripped. Over chairs, over questions and over the use of a cheese grater.

While the place may bumble at times, Kern manages to fill the 20-seat restaurant - even on winter weekdays - with consistently-cooked, well-executed meals. If only the intimate conversations in this petite place revolved solely around her vision, which is at once personal and precise.

Also, Bresca now serves lunch.