By: Christiane Lauterbach of Knife and Fork

If anyone can get to believe in the notion of a glamorous Vietnamese restaurant and force you to take another look at this aging shopping center anchored by a shabby WinnDixie, it is Alex Nguyen, who, together with brother Chris Kinjo, made you eat elegant sushi next to Krispy Kreme on Ponce de Leon.

The same loungy sensibility that lured you to MF Sushi Bar makes the new nam an exuisite place for the matriarch of the family to cook some of her most traditional dishes and, thanks to the conceptual sophistication of her sons, expand into the realm of a nouvelle Vietnamese cuisine rooted in authentic flavors.

While a few other Atlanta-area restaurants have explored the possibility of making Vietnamese cooking attractive to the mainstream, this sexy newcomer holds on to genuine values and, instead of editing its food for the American taste, unleashes the power of truth. Unlike The Slanted Door, in San Francisco's Mission District, a groundbreaking restaurant with a top-notch imagination, Nam stays extremely close to its roots while upgrading the quality of the basic ingredients.

The most impressive specialties on the menu involve time-consuming techniques and faith in traditions. Banh nam, called "rice flour tamale" on the menu and rarely seen outside of home kitchens, consists of a soft paste of rice flour topped with ground pork, shrimp, and wood-ear mushrooms and steamed in banana leaves. Open the charming bundles one at a time, pour a bit of pungent fermented fish sauce on the fragrant inside, and, chop sticks in hand, get ready to experience the easy texture and intense mystery of this remarkable dish. Slightly firmer and milder, banh beo takes the form of small disks of rice cake topped with ground shrimp and scallions and comes with mellower fish sauce.

The staff will make sure that you know how to eat the grilled ground shrimp on sugar cane how to eat the grilled ground shrimp on sugar cane (slide the big wad of shrimp paste off the long piece of cane, deposit some on charming little mats of vermicelli laid on lettuce leaves, wrap, and dip). Ditto the banh xeo, a tradiotional Vietnamese crepe made with rice flour, bean sprouts, scallions, pork, and shrimp, that has a glorious marigold color, and the exceptionally plump and firm cha gio "Crispy Imperial Rolls" tightly packed with glass noodles, shrimp, pork, and wood-ear mushrooms. Little bundles of ground beef cooked in gorgeous green leaves are self-explanatory.

Never before have the good folks of Atlanta been able to pair sophisticated wines with the likes of fish head soup, sour green mango salad with grilled shrimp, and sautéed baby clams with black seasame crackers. Grilled Kobe beef, "shaking filet mignon wok-fried with chopped garlic and onions, and banana-leaf-steamed halibut with dried lily flowers and ginger sauce are very far indeed from Vietnamese street food and can stand up to selections ranging from Gigondas to Viognier and Riesling.

It was with deep, heartfelt respect that we ate the striped bass steamed whole inside a split opo squash layered with a paste of ground pork, wood-ear mushrooms, and lily buds and tightly bundled in banana leaves, a revelatory dish in which the vegetable, dewy, juicy, and perfumed with a multitude of ingredients, almost trumped the delicioius fish. Many of the dishes, be they caramelized, grilled, or fried, come with their own individual sauces, and all are prepared with focused attention.

Nguyen, who is trained as a designer, created a seductive décor with gauzy white curtains and sexy red lights. His artwork, life-size drawings of long-haired beauties in sultry poses, hangs around the room, and he has assembled a team of willowy Asian beauties in traditional slit tunics and matching silk pants as servers and hostesses.