The interior, from glass chandelier to room-length banquette, consists of straight steel and wood-grain surfaces, and the minimalist cocktail bar, artfully lined with yellow leather bar chairs, is fringed with candles. The owners call the design “rough beauty.” The marble and steel bar, for example, has been deliberately roughed up around edges, and a concrete floor has been painstakingly crafted to appear as though it had a rough life.

The menu here is powered by Chef Jefferson Alvarez (Philadelphia’s Morimoto Restaurant), listing about a dozen French-Spanish Fusion items. The primary object of desire here, however, is the deconstructed spicy lobster lasagne, an abstracted rendition, transformed into a split, crisp, rectangular object far removed from the traditional lasagne.

Juricic juiced the idea of naming the place Flight 55 – Flight represented taking off in another dimension and 55 was what the city determined what the capacity of the little place was. Hearty idea, and it looked great on the signage and business cards. Alas, by some fluke, when the permit was issued, the city bumped the capacity up to 56.

People will complain that Flight 55 is a block out of their way. True, there's no use dropping bread crumbs to this ugly block. As the name implies, there’s a certain simplicity to Flight 55. Though it shares some obvious chromosomes with venues like China Doll and Coco Lezzone, Flight 55’s design is light years removed in temperament from the College Strip hotspots - and their deliriously sluggish staff that rolls their eyes at customers for their M.O. that’s 0.09 seconds out of date. - A.J.