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The Life of Reilly Irish Pub and Restaurant (2031 E. Fairmount Ave,. [410] 327-6425) takes over the East Baltimore spot where several iterations of Simon's came and went, the first of them a notable breeding ground for a stable of talented chefs around town, and the most recent a lively Creole/Cajun spot that opened with great promise but perished in a miasma of indifference.

So, now, what else, an Irish Pub, but the brogue-free version, with admirable restraint demonstrated with claddaghs and lace, and a menu with a few other things on its mind besides Guinness stew and fish and chips. Set on a lonesome and lopsided block, the restaurant retains the allure of a hidden hideaway, a place you have to know about to get to, and, inside, the front--the still smokeless bar--and back dining rooms feel well-tended and spruced-up.

There are two dining rooms upstairs, one of them a punitive precinct for smokers but the other a simple and swell little glassed-in cube, holding a half-dozen tables, which has the inspiriting vibes of a summer porch. A commendably on-her-game waitress asks diners if the music is too loud and whether the windows should be opened or remain closed. Earlier the bartender showed similar consideration, asking folks at the bar whether he might put the O's game on the TV. The dishwasher/fry cook popped in to make sure patrons knew where the bathroom was.

Heroes all of them, as is Reilly's kitchen, which performs ably with the restaurant's clammy pub-grub menu (chicken tenders, crab dip, chicken Chesapeake) to which it's been assigned even while lavishing considerable attention and flair on the restaurant's daily specials. A hamburger plate here was presented as proudly as a steak special, and the fish and chips betrayed the same careful attention to timing and detail as a salmon entrée.

A three-cheese sampler ($13.99), of Dubliner, Cahill's porter, and Cashel blue, provides a good alternative to menu's otherwise underthought appetizer listings. The cheeses were sliced and crumbled into workable units, arranged handsomely on the plate with grapes and strawberries and crackers. These are universally satisfying cheeses, and they complement each other well.

A special appetizer of mushroom crostini ($7.99) only half-works. It's left for diners to spoon onto what are really just toasted baguette slices the red wine and garlic-dressed sauté of wild mushrooms and blue cheese, a unique example here of the kitchen having squandered an opportunity to send out a fully engaged plate.

Few entrées in recent months have arrived with the fanfare of that salmon special ($16.99). Topping a generously portioned and very well-cooked fillet were layered nests of freshly flash-fried phyllo dough and fennel, bone white and sea green, a vigorous flourish that helped to smooth over any shortcomings of the real action below. The crispy-skinned and flaky fillet and the off-sweet whole-grain mustard sauce that coated it fought it out to the finish, and on another night the sauce would have won, but a diner's heart had already been won over. Fingerling potatoes, cooked tender, and a scattering of meltingly soft and sweet shallots helped sell the dish, too.

A mushroom- and Gorgonzola-encrusted rack of lamb special ($19.99) tasted better than it looked. The lamb's rosy meat came through the savory applications, but the chops had a bulbous, indecisive look, as though the encrusting had prevented them from getting the beautiful brown finish that announces a piece of good lamb. Chevre was pasted throughout accompanying potatoes, and slender spears of asparagus were roasted a vivid green.

A New York strip special ($17.99) gave further evidence that Reilly's stocks quality meat and knows how to treat it. Well-marbled steak was tender throughout, the steak was dressed up in a red wine and mushroom sauce, one that some diners would have thought too salty, but not the person who happily devoured it.

The fish and chips ($13.99) here are superior, flaky white cod fillets coated just thinly enough in a minutely seasoned beer batter to hold their shape without overwhelming the sweet fish inside. This one was actually about the cod. A black and blue burger ($8.99) was, simply by the meat having been seasoned and the bun toasted, several notches above the examples that are flung out of kitchens elsewhere. A restaurant will always earn repeat customers when it treats its clientele with kindness and shows, minute by minute, signs that it cares. Life of Reilly does a fair deal of that. Slainte.

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