A duck confit 'pot pie' is among the 'small tastes' on Taste's interesting menu. (Courtesy Taste Gastropub)

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The gastropub trend of upscale tavern cuisine finds a somewhat unusual playground in Delray Beach – Taste Gastropub, a place that feels nothing like a tavern. (Well, it would if this were a tavern on The Jetsons.)

A stark white space of hard edges and minimalist chairs designed without regard to our more maximized assets, the place feels jarringly different from the concept described on its website: "An unpretentious, affordable, 125-seat, indoor-outdoor dining destination, geared to locals, offering soulful retro dishes."

Because we visited Taste on a rainy (and rather busy) Saturday day, we found seating was limited. The handful of tables in the main dining room were filled and the back room was reserved — so we were told — for a private event. We were given seats at a window-side high-top communal table where we endured the aforementioned seats and a cold blast from an A/C vent.

That said, we enjoyed a splendid meal. What Taste fails to achieve in its over-thought minimalist setting, it makes up for in its dishes. They are fun, flavorful and often fabulously presented.

In his foray into Palm Beach County, Chef Allen Susser, one of Miami’s original fusion masters, has brought us a menu built around the concept of taste, the nuance of flavors, the celebration of food memories.

Should one choose to travel the tapas route, there’s an appetizing selection of Iberian tavern fare to nibble on while sipping something from the well-rounded wine and beer menu. The house marinated olives with roasted garlic ($6) and a charcuterie dish of Serrano ham, Manchego cheese and arbequina olives ($9) come to mind. Salty smooth, the finely sliced ham seemed to melt between sips of a warm, hearty red zin, the Layer Cake Primitivo Puglia ($10 a glass).

We enjoyed a few other small plates. There was the woodsy, creamy tostada of wild mushrooms ($7), a delicious dish served in deconstructed fashion with chunks of lightly toasted baguette on the side. There were the lollipops of jerk chicken in a mango barbecue sauce ($9), slow-cooked, tender and pleasantly spicy. And there was the lobster mac and cheese ($16), a soup bowl filled with vaguely creamy and not-too-cheesy shell pasta and chunks of lobster.

Understated in size and presentation, these were dishes meant to be shared over cocktails. There are larger plates, but even those are designed to be shared. This is the concept as explained to us with notable flair by Kurt, our superb server who not only showed command of the menu but also of the nature of its ingredients. (He described one of the various espresso selections as "racy." Needless to say, we ordered it.)

Concept aside, the larger plates make for perfectly good entrées for those who’d rather take the more traditional approach to dinner. The Creekstone Ranch skirt steak ($23) is ideal for this option. It’s perfectly seasoned, grilled Argentine style and served with a garden salad and a side of thin, garlic-herb fries.

I could have made a meal out of one of the mid-sized specials that night — the pork belly sliders with huckleberry jam and mache lettuce ($12). Smoky, tender and just slightly toasty, the pork belly arrived in two gorgeous, seared cubes, nestled into slider buns. Kurt described it well as chunks of "naughtiness" on bread.

The naughtiness continued with the dessert course. We sampled a mighty fine Key lime pie with brown sugar meringue ($5), a sweet selection of homemade candy bars confectioned to taste like Almond Joy, Snickers and Kit Kat bars ($8) and a not-so-hot s’mores cupcake ($4). By then, I had grown accustomed to the blasts of the air vent and the difficult chair.

Yes, I would have preferred to sit in one of those empty tables I spied in the back room, where the private event never seemed to materialize. But I could not complain about the meal, nor the service.

Yes, I’ve seen this movie before — the small plates artfully fashioned for our inner child, the reinvented mac and cheeses, shakes and candy bars. Most flamboyantly, I’ve seen it on South Beach. And perhaps this is the omen Taste brings to Delray’s dining district, that this is yet another step toward the impossibly trendy. One can only hope the minds at Taste steer clear of the food-as-fashion pretensions and stick to what works.

R E V I E W

Taste Gastropub

FOOD: B+

SERVICE: A

ADDRESS: 169 N.E. Second Ave., Delray Beach

TELEPHONE: (561) 274-4444

WEBSITE: tastegastropub.com

PRICE RANGE: Moderate to expensive

HOURS: Dinner Nightly: 6 p.m. – midnight

CREDIT CARDS: all major

RESERVATIONS: Suggested for parties of five or larger. Can be made online, at tastegastropub.com (Reservations are not taken for parties of four or fewer)

WHEELCHAIR ACCESS: Yes, including restrooms

WHAT THE GRADES

MEAN:

A