Unusual Suspect

Top-quality ingredients play a major role in this kind of transformation. Consider the Tasmanian salmon, a deep-ocean fish raised on an organic diet, so lush and flavorful it's been likened to Kobe beef. Attentively grilled to an almost-evaporative medium rare, settled on a crisp-edged raft of coconut-basmati rice, and tweaked with a subtly sweet-tart salad of sliced cucumber, it's the best salmon dish in town.

Homemade desserts exhibit the same care and creativity, especially our current fave: an airy goat-cheese cheesecake, lightened with egg whites and crème fraîche, and piqued with vanilla and fresh lavender. Finished with crushed pistachio dust and settled on a lavender-infused sugar cookie, it's pure and sweet as a baby's kiss.

In light of all this culinary legerdemain, it clearly won't do to begin with cloying, artificially flavored cocktails. So Schimoler and his crew make everything — mixers, infusions, and the like — in the kitchen and from scratch. The results are intense but clean-tasting 'tinis like the Bloody Crop ($10), a tongue-tingling pour of pepper-infused vodka, cilantro, sea salt, and tomato juice; or the Caprese ($10), a bracing combo of tomato-infused vodka, basil, and balsamic, with an aroma so massive, you'll think you've stepped into a garden.

Should all this intensely crafted lunch-and-dinner goodness somehow not be enough, Crop also features a late-night menu Thursday through Sunday, a prix fixe family-style dinner on Sunday, and "Browns' Brunch," from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on home-game Sundays.

And of course there's the band, which tunes up every Thursday around 10:30 p.m. Featuring Don DiCarlo on guitar and lead vocals, Jason Burns on bass, Crop chef Chris Antes on guitar, and Schimoler on drums (as well as other local restaurant staffers, who sometimes drop by for a song or two), the group tackles everything from Hendrix and the Rolling Stones to the Grateful Dead and CCR.

It's damn tasty stuff — and still not as fine, or as fun, as the food.