Clunking home over the 59th Street Bridge on a startlingly clear night. The towers of the city wear marcasite jewels. The air is crisp, fresh, September, the real springtime of Manhattan, creative buds about to burst. Amateurs and neophytes and battered veterans of feeding are already pitching their newest dreams. Before we brave the new, sifting the treasures from the fifteen-minute wonders, it feels cozy to revisit old favorites.

        Anne Rosenzweig is tiny. She looks about twelve years old skipping through the room in her chef’s whites. I imagine Arcadia must seem vast to her, a football field, roomy as Carnegie Hall. I’m tall and voluptuous. It makes me feel claustrophobic. So I seek a protected corner or request a table in the bar. It’s fun here again because Rosenzweig is back at the range after a tour in the kitchen of ’21 Club. And the food is better than ever.

       There are fresh posies tucked into crystal on each table, and the cramped dining room glows with its charming wraparound mural of the countryside as the seasons change. It is a light kinder to landscape than to cheekbones. Thank Heaven for Retin-A. Happily, the staff has a seasoned grace. And though Rosenzweig has preserved (wisely) signature favorites – her lush mayonnaise-swathed lobster club sandwich, plump cornmeal cakes with crème fraîche and caviar, the irresistible chocolate bread pudding, the chimney-smoked lobster – she keeps a direct line to the market. In spring, there will always be rhubarb and later, fava beans and sugar snap peas, the lushest of ripe peaches, tiny, tangy yellow tomatoes, and prepubescent red romaine for the Arcadian Caesar salad with its sublime croutons, warm and buttery.

        The kitchen welcomes you to the $55 prix fixe dinner with a gift – caviar on a drift of crème fraîche on a homemade potato chip. The menu is very brief and yet it’s difficult to choose. So much is tempting. “Of course you may have the soft-shell crab entrée to start,” the obliging waitress agrees. The crab is almost too crisp, the nutty crackle slightly obscuring its subtle flavor, yet it sits on a pile of summer beans, plump from the garden, in an herbed olive oil.

        There is almost always a pasta special – tonight, roasted peppers, fava beans, and cured duck sausage in a garlicky olive oil with fresh herbs on fusilli. At lunch, tortiglioni with fresh peas, tomatoes, and asparagus in saffron butter. Though I do not like the wild-mushroom sausage with bacon and veal (it seems bland and sandy), my three guests definitely disagree. And the toasted barley that comes with it is wonderful.

        Indeed, Rosenzweig does amazing alchemy with the humblest grains and hothouse vegetables. Her tender, moist fillets of rabbit ride a luscious wild-rice pancake with leeks, favas, and rhubarb. The cracklingly crisp roast chicken stuffed with shiitake and apples comes with potato-zucchini pancakes. Grilled rack of lamb may lack oomph, but the saffron couscous and ratatouille is a marvel. And savory crusted red snapper nestles on a superb “pasta risotto” of grilled summer vegetables and bitsy orecchiette.

        Roasted figs and croquettes of potato and hazelnut accompany grilled duck. And the earthiness of black-and-white-bean chili contrasts with the richness of seared tuna. “Rare,” we said, and rare it is, actually cool. The smoked lobster with tarragon butter could be larger (given its $7 surcharge), but it could not be more tender. Veal is remarkably moist and delicious in what seems an unlikely dress – brandy and thyme vinaigrette on sweet potatoes and asparagus.

        Don’t let misguided prudence inspire you to neglect dessert: iced espresso mousse with chocolate truffles; macadamia-nut tart; splendid coconut custard with toasted coconut shortbread; the seasonal shortcakes – berry or peach with ruffles of whipped cream. And then cookies too. The wine list is sophisticated and eclectic with few opportunities for penny-pinching, but lunch is à la carte, less crowded – and the sun shines in – at possibly half the tariff. It’s the perfect time to discover that sensuous lobster sandwich – the club you want to belong to.

        21 East 62nd Street.

         Park Bistro is France without a passport, an innocent France of decades past. The bartender in straw boater and beer belly with his singsong “Bonsoir” sets a saucer of garlicky herbed olives in front of you. “The secret is two weeks’ marinating,” he confides. The small, dark room is plain, do-it-yourself-on-a-shoestring. Just a few Parisian street signs, some lace edging here and there, old movie posters. The one dapper note is checkerboard tile of the glassed-in kitchen with its portrait of the Great God Bocuse smiling in Benediction. Patron Max Bernard is in his shirt-sleeves, puffing a cigarette.

         The ingredients are classic, too – Provencal olives and cod, noodles and potato, duck and rabbit, thyme and tarragon, parsley and intense, fruity olive oil. But the magic that emerges from chef-owner Jean-Michel Diot’s sanctum has a smart contemporary snap, a finesse and heady flavoring that force us to forgive the chaos, crowding, and hustle in this cramped little bistro. With entrées $17.50 to $23.50 (and slightly less at lunch), these are not quite the gentle downscaled eats the budget craves, but most everything is so good that the place is usually jumping. And the service tends to be swift and professional, though sometimes distracted.

         It’s always a struggle to choose among longtime Park Bistro favorites – luscious pétatou of goat cheese layered with herb-flecked potato, the brandade de morue (more potatoes, with cod and the citric tang of ripe tomato), and Diot’s special poached foie gras with duck confit tucked into a potato terrine. There is always a conflict, the craze to try something new: One night, it was bits of young rabbit in herb-perfumed jelly, a triumph. Or gazpacho with floats of lobster, disappointingly sweet. Leaves of eggplant “cannelloni” wrapping sardines strike me as odd.

         But skate layered with fresh-snipped herbs and the big white beans the French call cocos, the braised lamb shank with dried fruit and a hint of mint, and a fragrant, homey fricassee of chicken with noodles are luscious. Lobster fricassee on a gratin of pumpkin with basil is a bizarre combination, but the scallops scattered over herb-green potato puree with favas and bits of tomato one day at lunch are perfection. Rare sliced duck breast is served with crushed olives and a gratin of turnips with prunes.

         Desserts used to be humble here. Now they are spiffy, displayed on a tray brought to the table, rushed over the from the Park Avenue Gourmandises around the corner on 29th Street, a joint venture of the Bistro’s three owners, with Vincent Marichular, onetime pâtissier at Adrienne, and Raju Mirchandani, who left the Westbury to supervise the shop and the catering service out of Park Avenue Townhouse. It’s an ambitious scheme – bakery in the cellar, takeout shop and café at street level, party room and roof garden above.

         The Gourmandises opens at eight to serve breakfast: low fat muffins, as well as croissants and pain au chocolat. At lunch we scout the counter, select a sampling, and grumble at the lackadaisical service. I ask for water and the waitress points to a refrigerator of soft drinks, juice, and mineral water. “New York water, please,” I say. She brings it reluctantly, lukewarm. “We have no ice,” she says.

         “Of course we do,” snaps an owner who has recognized me. He shakes his head. Boring lemon chicken ($2.20 the thigh); small tomato-and-eggplant-pastry pizzette ($4.75); mashed cod in a soggy baked potato; heavenly prune mousse stuffed into a prune; the rich, dark chocolate, gold-leafed confection known as opera; and miniature tarts. I’m sure you could have a good prosciutto sandwich and sweet for under $10, but I’m not sure it’s worth more than a two- or three-block detour. But with this quintet of ambitious veterans and the gifted Jean-Michel spicing the stew, hopes ride high.   

        414 Park Avenue South between 28th and 29th Street