Pulling up to Kinley's Restaurant & Bar on a recent evening, a soon-to-be customer said she always thought it was a diner. Indeed, it used to be a diner, and although it's hard to put your finger on why, the exterior hasn't quite exorcised that ghost. Maybe it's the boxy bungalow shape that signals the presence of ham and eggs. Maybe because it's perched on the side of a highway. Or maybe because we don't expect fine dining in Midtown.

The sense of dislocation doesn't exactly clear up when you enter and are greeted with icy blue walls decorated with photos of ant-size people skiing down monstrous slopes. Add the white table clothes and napkins, and you get a big existential chill. All of it so at odds with an extraordinarily warm food and attentive staff.

That's not to say that those of us who live in the area aren't glad that one of the most exciting chefs in Anchorage, Brett Knippmeyer, decided to sharpen his knives in our 'hood and bring with him über wine connoisseur, Solomon Loosli. There are lots of us, and we've been too long ignored.

And he came with a bang. When Knippmeyer moved from Jens to Kinley's he brought with him some of Jens' Austro-Hungarian Empire-inspired cuisine but left some of the old-world behind and added a more modern, both more local and more global touch. There's the requisite amount of locavore-ism here, but Knippmeyer doesn't let the farm-to-table movement, or any kind of food-faction for that matter, keep him from touching all the corners of the globe. This season's menu, for instance, pairs rockfish with a smoked clam streusel, offers a braised Indian curry lamb shank, a short rib with chilies and chorizo, and huge and sweet Kodiak scallops served delightfully with coconut curry. A recent special featured goat -- raised by a local 4-H club -- that melted into a thick Caribbean-style sauce and made everyone who tried it wonder where goat has been all of our lives.

It's a united-colors-of-the world kind of menu, priced to match the new world economy. Amazingly, you can actually get a nice appetizer, a salad, and a perfectly wonderful entrée for under $30. Add another $20 for a perfectly decent bottle of wine. But it lacks the united-colors rosy ambiance. The blue walls and the weirdly uninviting dining room invites you to eat in the bar area, where the lively bartender keeps you from feeling like you're eating in an igloo.