I hate to leave a restaurant with more questions than when I went in, but that's exactly what happened at Escape, the new restaurant where Ajvö and Gulu Gulu used to be. The menu lists a Czech wine by the micro-carafe that's more expensive than its Italian equivalent: veltlínské zelené at 89 Kč ($3.60) for a quarter-liter, versus 56 Kč for the same amount of lambrusco bianco.

Noticing the discrepancy, I asked if the veltlín was something special, maybe a late harvest from a renowned producer like Glos or Kovács. Instead of an answer, maybe an "I'll find out for you," the server stonewalled. It's Moravian wine, she said. End of story.

Now I'm wondering not so much who might have made the wine, nor why it was more expensive than decent Italian tipple, but also how hard it must be to find good help nowadays, and how much of a drag it is to pay 500 Kč — $20 — for two courses and not be able to order a second glass of wine because your server was chatting up the barman.

There are other puzzlements at Escape, and not all of them stem from the service. The menu swerves like a drunken driver between the twinned lanes of classic and would-be inventive, with goulash taking a turn behind the wheel right after grilled yellowfin. Tuna shows up in one of the soi-disant newfangled appetizers, the sashimi "nouveau." My French must be rustier than I thought, because the only nouveau aspects of the yellowfin I could see were the ice crystals: Not even thawed, it was cut frozen and spread carpaccio-style across half a plate, then dusted with dried parsley (Dried!). On the other end of the plate were similar slices of dried-basil-topped salmon. There was also a bullet-size ball of wasabi that the overly disappointed would start to pray was actually a real slug, and that some kind of Glock, blunderbuss or flintlock might lie within reach.

Things get better, fortunately, by degrees. The first step toward right-thinking is the baked lemongrass-marinated salmon, which is clearly baked salmon, but without any discernible lemongrass. The mashed potatoes (actually the more-fun Czech version: rough-mashed "poked" potatoes) were fine, though with the sweetish flavor that seemed to come from long-held spuds. The accompanying tomato concasse was the most minimal interpretation: a chopped, underripe, November tomato. Boring.

Much better — though parting slightly from orthodoxy — is the saltimbocca: a thicker cut than elsewhere, layered with thin-sliced zucchini and basil leaves as well as sage, served with al-dente basil fettuccini and a coarse, garlicky tomato sauce. I would order this one again.

Czech versions get even closer to the truth, at least to judge by a dish from a later visit: baked venison loin, called a "saddle" on the menu, though it doesn't include the backbone. Served with a sticky plum sauce, the plate is decorated with what seems like dust from gingerbread cookies, surrounding a pile of more "poked" potatoes upon which the loin is seated. This time the mash didn't have the sweet taste of long storage time, and the loin was perfectly cooked: a crispy and caramelized exterior, moist and tender inside, with plenty of spice notes that would pair well with a big, tannic red.

Desserts are brought tableside on a platter, making it a lot harder to say no — and a lot harder for the staff to tell you what you're about to order. Again. Asked what kind of chocolate cake he was pimping, the waiter on a later visit answered "just chocolate cake." (Notice a theme here?) It would be nice to know what it was exactly, though I did note a hard chocolate frosting that had done too much fridge time atop two layers of chocolate cake surrounding a thick, cheesy filling. It's very good, really, though it would be better without the extended tour of duty in the icebox.

Escape is better in décor and atmosphere than both Ajvö and Gulu Gulu, though that doesn't really make up for the willfully untrained service. Some of the dishes coming out of the kitchen are very good, even excellent in the case of the venison, though they don't meet the competition: Le Patio has better food, better wine, better service and better prices, and don't even get me started about Aromi. Meaning that Escape is hard to define.