INDIGO chef-owner Randy Lewis was the talk of the nation before becoming the talk of the town.

Early last month, Food & Wine magazine pronounced Indigo’s young chef and owner, Randy Lewis, one of 10 best new chefs in America for 2001. This coronation came only three months after Indigo opened beneath the umbrella of trees in the expanding gourmet gully of Faubourg St. John. It happened before many of us could point to the bricked intersection of Bayou Road and Rocheblave Street on a map, and certainly before most of us had tasted the newcomer’s hype. When a restaurant becomes the talk of the nation before it’s the talk of the town, it’s time to skip talking and start eating. And so I did.

  A server presented our dinner menus with a nod about 20 minutes after we were seated, which allowed for a leisurely, Euro-style cocktail interlude between U-turns in traffic and menu decisions. It also formed the first indication that Indigo’s steep prices would be compensated with little luxuries. My dining partner inaccurately interpreted this and other pauses during our three-hour dinner as neglect. But whereas she had her back to the full dining room, I was privy to the purposeful waltz of indigo ties behind her and appreciated the discretions of service: the waitstaff’s inconspicuous glances at levels of San Pellegrino as they cruised the room, their decisions not to disturb single bites of molten chocolate cake left on a plate until the diner surrendered, and the civilized efforts to serve olive focaccia with tongs and tea already steeping in ceramic pots.

  Soon we began a tally of deliberate indulgences: teak chairs with petal-shaped backs and more give than wood is allowed by nature, the Zen composition of tiny wooden salt and pepper bowls and tiny oyster spoons on each table, and wines poured into appropriate stemware (narrow-mouthed for white; gaping for red). In fact, if you can keep from comparing the size of your diamond or the softness of your pashmina to your neighbor’s, the small pleasures at Indigo could lull you into state of deluxe abandon. Paying $28 for grillades and grits, for example, seems more like sky miles than an Amex bill when steaming toilet water is heating your seat in the ladies’ room.

  That spa treatment might have been a fluke (twice), but organic touches in the brassy, deco-style space and Lewis’ use of superior seasonal ingredients are not. His culinary responsibilities already extend beyond the kitchen to photo shoots and celebrity appearances, but his focus is intense upon particulars like single chervil leaves decorating butter dishes, edible flowers on desserts and the balance of a sunny-side-up quail egg atop a feathery mound of mizuma. If the egg was more like over-medium, and if there were tauntingly few strips of Spanish-cured pork loin on the salad, the mouthfuls of sharp greens, manchego cheese and sherry vinegar were worth the sacrifices.

  Speaking of simple pleasures, dunking triangles of grilled sharp cheddar cheese and crawfish sandwiches into a cup of vichyssoise is springtime comfort perfected. Lewis spikes the chilled potato leek soup with crawfish boil seasoning, so that its background flavor is of the empty red shells scattering backyard picnic tables throughout Louisiana.

  Sometimes the greatest taste surprises come wrapped in the most delicate packages, like the tuft of clover-shaped micro greens alongside the soup and the shoots of baby corn that decorated a shrimp appetizer. While the yellow fronds looked like weeds, they tasted like the milky evanescence that sprays from fresh sweet corn when you yank back the husks. Crunchy corn kernels and firm flageolet formed a bonus puddle of succotash beneath the andouille-stuffed shrimp cocooned in shredded phyllo.

  And a special entree preparation gave the most luxurious arguments I’ve tasted recently (possibly ever) for a $27.50 piece of nearly bare halibut: tightly scrolled fiddlehead ferns, pristine morel mushrooms, chunky knuckles of lobster and a green puree of sweet pea and mint (a mushroom powder dusting was indiscernible).

  I should note that Lewis imports much of this gourmet produce from faraway growing regions. Despite the importance of supporting our local farmers, I wouldn’t deny a morel mushroom in April for all of Ponchatoula’s strawberries. I should also note, however, that the fancy produce is not a substitute for talent. The only vegetables in his signature dish of mascarpone grits with a veal shank "grillade" oozing marrow are cooked to mush in a dark braising gravy. Still, you’ll swoon.

  The only luxury I missed at Indigo – aside from a food dictionary to decipher the menu’s gourmet word jumble – was an acknowledgement when I returned a painfully salty ham hock salad uneaten. A creamy coating of egg white and pickled okra couldn’t cut it; neither could my tongue, which was cured into the following morning.

  Even the peppery bite of beaded watercress bouquets at Indigo is louder than that weak moan, though. And while I recoil from the city’s recent influx of restaurants that remain unaffordable for many deserving diners, I did find one bargain. It was a delicious $6 glass of Cote du Provence Rose, which barely teased my tongue before its slippery slide down. Taken with the restaurant’s little luxuries, I slipped just as easily into Indigo’s celadon glow.