Klee.(Restaurant review)

"To emphasize only the beautiful," the artist Paul Klee said, "seems to me to be like a mathematical system that only concerns itself with positive numbers." Klee shares a name with a European-American brasserie (sample dishes: Kobe-beef hot dog topped with sauerkraut, Tyrolean "mac and cheese") opened last fall by the Austrian-born chef Daniel Angerer, an alum of Jean Georges and Bouley, and Lori Mason, who works the front of the house, in addition to being a litigator and Angerer's fiancee. (He proposed the day they closed on the Chelsea storefront.) The beautiful: warmth, heart, light, and a menu and Web site sumptuously wrought in deep purple. The ugly: hit-or-miss flavor and amiable but seriously gawky service.

Things begin pleasingly. Herb butter in a jar. Salty bread. A bar with a homey steel sink and pastel cocktails suggests hospitality, ease. You order starters. Forty-five minutes go by. "There was some sort of malfunction with the machine, and it didn't get your order." No problem. The Holunder margarita, with elder-flower essence, has induced spa-worthy levels of relaxation. The Klee salad, when it does arrive, has ...