Enough foodie jokes about the Upper West Side. The precincts north of Lincoln Center now support at least a half-dozen truly adult restaurants - Ouest, Ruby Foo's, 'Cesca, Aix, Nice Matin and Compass.

Latest to join the party is the Neptune Rom, specializing in "Mediterranean seafood." It's another blow to the margarita mills, with its superb service and no TV, and it's downright pretty at night.

Gently vaulted ceilings form nautical parabolas over three distinct dining areas. Chains of shimmering glass squares like flower petals soften brick walls and terra-cotta tiles. Cushioned banquettes and booths are as comfy as they look.

The Neptune Room is priced to compete with Nice Matin, a few blocks south. But where Nice Matin in gently yuppified Mediterranean, The Neptune room under executive chef Glenn Harris is Mediterrean-ized modern American - a crucial difference in emphasis.

Don't miss the house-pride "bait bar" lineup of small plates of briskly seasoned uncooked and cooked-but-cool fish ($6 each). In lesser hands, they'd be ruined by acidic and herbal overload.

But Harris gets them right, and the sole odd note is the puzzling presence of blueberries on a plate of gorgeously pink raw king salmon tickled with Dijon and Dill.

There are pricier appetizers too, like seared tuna belly ($10) that's swell if you happen not to get a specimen full of fatty sinew.

Most entrees are well-conceived and smartly turned out. Sweet roast lobster ($27) takes on the chile-and-pepper inflection of the chorizo paella on which it's served; the paella is made with bomba rice that absorbs liquid easily for a pleasing texture.

Poached turbot ($22) enjoys the earthy attentions of morels, straciatella and a chile-garlic-scallion treatment unhelpfully called "charlion."

The menu has as odd way with words; we wondered what blue snapper ($19) might be.

"It's a young fish," our waitress informed us. "Does it turn red when it gets old?" we asked.

In fact, the creature, unrelated to red snapper, is a small bluefish - a dark-meat species rare on Manhattan menus. It's roasted to a moist turn, topped with scrumptious deep-fried oyster mushrooms and bathed in porcini sauce to parry the natural intensity of the fish.

We made short work of richly herbed and garlicky cioppino ($23) anchored by a wedge of monkfish. But monkfish "osso bucco" ($21) was thin, tough and overcooked beyond repair.

Pastry chef Wayne Harley Brachman's desserts ($7) are right on the Mediterranean-accented money. Lush robiola cheese seems to merge with the sweet fennel-seed cracker on which it's served. Warm chocolate is tucked in an exhuberant swirl of phyllo and accompanied by fig gelato.

Harris and owner Jeff Lefcourt earlier launched ear-shattering Jane downtown, where I recall clueless waiters serving ice-cold orzo. The Neptune Room is another story: a real restaurant for real diners in a part of town finally discovering its appetite.