A friend once described for me his ‘can’t miss’ idea for the Bar Mitzvah party to top all other Bar Mitzvah parties: an international theme where each table of guests represents a different country. Not only would the food served at each table represent the cuisine of the country, its flag would be used as a tablecloth, replicas of national monuments would serve as centerpieces (Big Ben, Eiffel Tower, Leaning Tower, etc.), and guests would be expected to dress up to fit in with their table’s theme. The piece de resistance? Instead of a candlelighting ceremony, each table would send representatives to a mini-Olympics, where they would compete in an egg-toss, three-legged race and a breakdancing competition (this was the 80’s, after all). Winners would receive medals embossed with the winning phrase ‘Gelt medalist at Benjamin’s Bar-Mitzvolympics.’ This idea, my friend proudly announced, was just like transforming Disney’s Epcot Center into a coming-of-age ceremony for a young boy. Luckily for everyone involved, the Bar Mitzvah in question never happened.

Twenty years later, when I first set eyes on The E.U.’s multilingual, butcher paper menu, I couldn’t help but think that finally, someone took my friend’s idea and turned it into something worthwhile. Open since late last year, The E.U. offers diners choices from across the (European) continent, with a strong emphasis on French and Italian specialties. There’s a foie gras terrine listed next to a selection of mostly Italian charcuterie, a baked rigatoni dish mentioned in the same breath as a very British pot pie with puff pastry, as well as a nod or two in the direction of of Germany and Austria, including a $13 homemade pretzel served hot with bauernwurst and sauerkraut. But there are some surprising omissions–strangely, there less here from Spain than might be anticipated, especially given that country’s recent increase in local culinary popularity. For that matter, neither is there any of Portugal’s wonderful cheese, nor a single one of its standout fish dishes, nor much of anything Scandinavian or Greek…and forget about new EU entrants like the Czech Republic or Poland. This is more what the E.U. would have been, circa 1959. But that’s not a bad thing necessarily; menus cannot be unlimited in their scope.

Despite a bit of head scratching over the menu’s national biases, we found some big flavors and real winners at E.U. . One good example was the escarole and treviso (radicchio) salad (pictured top, $10) I ordered as my starter, delightfully crunchy and fresh, and served on a flat butcher’s block instead of a plate. The treviso is a milder, less-bitter type of radicchio, and this pairs better with the hardy escarole, blue cheese and crunchy apple slices than the more common chioggia radiccio would. Our sole quibble was that the salad was a bit overdressed with its tart balsamic emulsion. Also excellent was Nosher’s cuttlefish orzo dish (pictured above, $11), an inky black stew of tender fish and, instead of rice, handfuls of slivery orzo pasta slow cooked in a rich broth to resemble a risotto. One very clever touch–lemon zest on top of the pasta– not only added color contrast, but added a much-needed floral and lightly acidic bite to the dish that kept the cuttlefish ink from becoming too strong and musky.

My favorite cultural combo came in the form of a sumptuous bowl chicken and dumplings ($21) that blended Austrian and Italian themes into a seamless creole. It’s not at all clear from the menu, but this is chicken soup deconstructed into its essential parts. Tender slices of pan-fried breast meat lay in a half-inch of heady, savory broth at the bottom of the dish, each piece of poultry positioned with its crust of glistening skin reflecting the lights above the table. And while the chicken might have been inspired by Central Europe, its accompaniment was pure Italian: half a dozen doughnut hole-sized malfatti dumplings held together with ricotta and chard. At once light, creamy, gooey and a little bit sweet, these dumplings–essentially Venetian gnudi–were the highlight of the dish and reflected a refined hominess that the restaurant’s rough beams and pocket doors seems to be channeling.

Nosher’s main course took him to France via a baked monkfish and piperade ($22), a dish that benefited greatly from the surprise appearance of several fat mussels on the plate. This was, as our server told us, the perfect dish to eat while sipping a glass of the restaurant’s very cold, very dry Vermentino ($8).

The dessert menu, while short, remains multi-regional with few surprises: there’s a sticky toffee pudding that could have walked out of British central casting, and a paper-lined enamel pot of straight-out-of-the-oil French beignets. Slightly heavier and more doughy that the beignets at The Modern, these brought back lovely memories of Elephant Ears that you might buy from a carnival vendor–if only state fairs offered the E.U.’s choice of chocolate sauce or thickened condensed milk caramel to dip them in.

The vibe at E.U. is exceptionally cozy and casual, more English gastropub than French brasserie or Italian trattoria. Reclaimed wood lines the ceiling and industrial fittings on the brick walls and in the bathrooms prod you into believing that you’re in a neighborhood restaurant somewhere in Europe.

This appealing conceit is strengthened further by the fact that the staff genuinely pays attention to everything that goes on in the restaurant. We found this out when, after being told sotto voce by two servers that ‘Things are a little crazy in here–the New York Times critic is here again,’ we were nonetheless approached by E.U.’s very genial general manager, Anthony, when he spotted us (discreetly) snapping a photo of the aforementioned beignets. We were duly impressed. When Frank Bruni is sitting in the dining room a few tables away, we hardly expect restaurant staff to pull themselves away from the attention vortex his presence inevitably creates. Yet there was the GM, chatting happily and confidently to us about the farms where the restaurant sources its ricotta.

This, more than anything, tells us just how misguided the local community board was last year when it waged an epic battle with The E.U. over its liquor permits. The restaurant famously ran into trouble before it even opened last year when, despite a good record with licenses at their other restaurants in the city, owners Jason Hennings and Bob Giraldi (of Jean-Georges, Vong and Mercer Kitchen) could not convince neighbors that they had no intention of plying binge drinkers with beer and wine into the wee hours. Yet given the staff’s ability to multiask even in the most stressful of situations, The E.U. actually seems to be the NYC restaurant least likely to let loose a flood of drunks into the East Village.

With its hard-earned license, The E.U. has modeled itself after some of the best gastropubs in Europe. Its wine list is well-edited, if pricey: bottles average in the mid $40’s, but wines by the glass are a much better deal at $7-10. There are also a few smaller E.U. countries represented on the wine and beer lists (i.e. the Czech Republic and Belgium) that round out the European theme, yet always because the product is genuinely superb, not just to add another country to the gustatory roster. It is easy to see why Giraldi and Hennings fought so hard, because ultimately, the wine and beer menus square the thematic circle and make The E.U. more well-conceived resto-bar than precious bar mitzvah.

The European Union, 235 East 4th Street, near Avenue B, 212-254-2900.