By JONATHAN LERNER of Southern Voice

The only thing that soothes the loss of Zoe's Mediterranean restaurant in the shopping center at 10th Street and Monroe Drive is the excellence of what replaces it, a simultaneously casual and drop-dead elegant Vietnamese restaurant called Nam.

Nam comes to us from the same pair of brothers who not long opened the sensational MF Sushibar. These guys have a gut feeling for both visual style and accurate Asian cookery.

The little front patio, where I used to enjoy nibbling Zoe's tapas, is unchanged. But inside, the space is completely transformed.

The long bar down one side, the saturated colors and metal surfaces are gone. What replaces it is pale, gauzy serenity. "Booths" are delineated by filmy curtains. There are touches of frosted glass, a bit of mirror.

Soft world music plays, and the waitresses are dressed in white au dzai - the long, layered tunic that is a classic Vietnamese woman's outfit.

All of this conspires to create an exotic, enervating and subtly erotic atmosphere. For higher visual energy, peer through the horizontal slot in the curved rear wall that separates the kitchen, or visit the men's room where walls are bright red ceramic tile.

The food ranges from good to great. This is not the cheap fare of the fluorescent lit, storefront immigrant-neighborhood eatery. But I believe it is no less authentic. Vietnam, after all, has its history as a French colony, and an haute cuisine that resulted from that cultural encounter.

Nam is not especially cheap, either. Meat and seafood entrees run $15-30, starters $6-12, noodle plates around $12 and vegetable sides $10. Bottles of wine start at $32. But portions are ample, and value is high.

Service is charming. The waitress, whose flawless English bore the accent not of Saigon but of Sydney, seems to intuit that we might want to share our starters, and ladles our crab and asparagus soup into two dark-glazed stoneware bowls.

There is nothing wrong with this soup, but it is the least exciting dish we try - like hot and sour soup that is not hot and sour.

But the next starter knocks our socks off. A salad consists of long, tangled julienne of sour green mango (which isn't actually sour, but fruity without being sweet) that has an assertive dressing made with crushed peanut and licorice-scented basil. It comes with half a dozen grilled shrimp.

Claypot chicken has a similar punch. Bits of boned meat are battered to give them a chewy, not crunchy, crust. This batter is what is meant to be instead of the thick, icky stuff that usually comes on steam-table sweet and sour pork.

The sauce is also in its way sweet and sour - sticky and dark, the essence of the idea of caramelization, made with onion and chili. Quite a few menu items here get a similar treatment.

A hunk of pristine halibut is steamed in a package of shiny green banana leaves, snipped open and unfolded by a server. The filet is stuffed with a mixture of ground chicken and slivers of slightly crunchy lily flower.

In itself, the fish and stuffing are rather bland, but when doused with the accompanying ginger-spiked nuoc mam - the classic Vietnamese sauce made of fermented fish - this plate shimmers.

Try these entrees with an order of grilled Japanese eggplant, more than plenty for two to share. These have a fluffy, creamy texture under a mild garlic and scallion sauce.

Nam is a welcome addition to the Midtown dining scene and worth crossing town for, too.