This semi-upscale restaurant is framed by a luxury retirement block, which in turn is stuck at the end of a narrow lane just beyond the outskirts of Prague. It's difficult to conjure up a more dubious location for an establishment of this sort. To enter, you walk through the senior-living residence's lobby, which never really ends but simply segues into a public dining room. Same sturdy carpeting, same innocuous décor — it's disorienting, to say the least.

Recovery from the shock — "My God, I'm eating in an old folks' home!" — comes quickly, thanks to this gregarious lot. Waiters welcome you into their living room as old friends, playing on every opportunity to draw easy laughter, compelling you to relax. They smile while trotting out tray after tray of bread, introduce the chef like he's a favorite cousin, compliment, recommend and generally work the table.

With service like this in a setting like this, you'd expect — well, what should you expect?

Mediterra's arugula (rucola) cream soup is astounding. The assertive bitterness of the greens is mollified by a sharp, tangy Parmesan that also thickens the base. There are herbal undertones, but otherwise the primary ingredients are allowed to speak for themselves.

Medallions of tuna, seared and rolled in toasted sesame seeds, revel in smoky, nutty flavors sparked by crunchy bursts of sea salt. The combination works in support of the fish, holding the rich taste of fresh tuna aloft.

Unfortunately, the centerpiece salad showed signs of agony: brown spots, wilted edges and bland leaves that must have croaked earlier in the week. The effort to mold this decaying mess into a circle and send it out to the dining room seemed optimistic, at best. Granted, Chef Krátký was away the day I ordered this dish, but even the most novice salad prep guy knows when to pull lettuce off life support.

Likewise, the lamb osso bucco: meat so tender it falls from the bone at a touch of the fork, fresh, colorful vegetables and a brown sauce so invitingly dense it shimmered in a crimson aura. Too bad the deep red color also meant a surprisingly bitter taste, which gentle vegetal overtones couldn't mask.

I'm not certain what gave the sauce this wicked edge, but it illustrates something about Mediterra's shortcomings: When the kitchen misses the mark, it's never by much. Usually one element interferes with an otherwise well-considered composition. Thus, a vegetable terrine arranged on a mound of potent sautéed onions should have been an interesting experience (especially later, when you try to wrangle a goodnight kiss from your date). But a tyrannical balsamic, a caustic and overbearing marinade, turned it into an exercise akin to forcing down whole handfuls of Sweet Tarts at once. The same vulgar treatment ruined an order of grilled vegetables with warm goat cheese.

Well, just about. The goat cheese itself is tremendous. Rolled in dough and sprinkled with sesame, it develops a golden brown crust that subtle kitchen alchemy melds into the mild curd so a distinct layer — part pastry, part softened cheese — forms.

But the point is this: Mediterra suffers less from unskilled hands in the kitchen than from what seems to be a cautious consideration of costs and profit margins. A delicate (and more expensive) balsamic, aged and mellowed, would round out the flavor of grilled vegetables rather than pucker them up beyond all recognition.

Shortcomings aside, this is still a pretty good restaurant. It may just take you a few moments to suspend logic and accept that, yes, it's quite all right to barge into the retirement home, grab a seat and start ordering.