In Australia, a Kingswood is a model of car produced by the Holden subsidiary of General Motors. With its boxy outline and prominent grille, it looks suspiciously like an El Camino, with all the El Cam’s blue-collar associations. In fact, Kingswoods have come to be icons of sorts, stand-ins for a certain kind of hard-graft nostaligia for the 1960s and 70s. Today, Kingswoods tend to be driven either ironically, or by what the Aussies call bogans–Antipodean rednecks, if you will.

Take one look inside Kingswood (the restaurant), and it becomes immediately clear that a bogan sensibility is not what owner Nick Mathers had in mind in designing his newly opened Australian and British-inspired bistro in the West Village. That Nick, also of the Aussie burger and sandwich joint Ruby’s on Mulberry Street in NoLiTa, hasn’t bothered to let his American customers in on the joke, seems a bit strange–don’t New Yorkers love an ironic name more than just about anyone? Stranger still is that Kingswood does not announce itself or explain its origins or heritige in many ways at all–other than a lone Australian at the front of the house and a mostly antipodean wine list, there isn’t much to alert you that Kingswood is an import from down under. Aboriginal paintings are rejected in favor of retro, almost Victorian wallpaper, and a strikingly blue stuffed peacock is the only fauna in the room. The same approach holds true for the menu: unlike Eight Mile Creek or the New Zealand gastropub Nelson Blue, there’s nary a kangaroo skewer or barramundi in sight. The only nods to Australia are subtle ones like the Bronte burger, a classic Oz treat that’s topped with cheese and a sweet chili sauce and, on the dessert menu, an Eton Mess, a sloppy meringue parfait which is more of a British classic in any case.

And this is just as well, because anything as kitschy as an outback or Crocodile Dundee theme would inevitably distract from a restaurant whose cooking is generally very good, and in one or two cases, exceptional. This became clear from our first visit last week, where our appetizers included a peach salad ($12) with a wholly original and extremely pleasing combination of mesclun greens, croutons, savory crisped prosciutto, silky roasted peaches, and a large dollop of tangy, creamy mascarpone. The prosciutto, with its aggressive saltiness, and the acidic white balsamic vinaigrette would normally overpower a salad like this; however, the balance of the dried meat, tongue-coating cheese, and the honey-sweet peaches was unexpectedly wonderful. With this creative dish–one of the best salads we have eaten this year– we felt Kingswood’s originality kick into second gear.

Our other starter was one of the evening’s specials, a creamy celery soup (pictured above, $8) that our waitress dubbed a ‘celery extravaganza,’ no doubt inspired by the doubling up of celery and celery root purée in the broth, not to mention a small nest of thinly sliced, limp and greasy fried celeriac in the center of the soup. While we enjoyed the flavors of blue cheese and apple in the soup, the texture of the liquid was a bit hard to stomach–it was puréed (almost whipped) to within an inch of its life, yielding a foam that looked beautiful, but tasted like spooning out the froth from a cup of celery cappuccino. Still, the soup’s flavors were well-considered and worked well together, even if the soup would have been much better with a slice of the prosciutto from the peach salad thrown on top.

For main courses, our order of herb roasted rack of lamb (pictured above, $25) was cooked just past the requested level of doneness, and the portion was a disappointingly skimpy two chops. The crust, a mix of fresh herbs and parmesan, was too subtle to stand up to the accompanying tomato orzo, which, with its rich and aromatic sauce, turned out to be the best thing on the plate. On the other hand, the fish in Nosher’s monkfish curry ($21) was extraordinarily tender, something difficult to do with a fish that is notoriously gristly and difficult to cook. That said, the curry itself–Goan style, with coconut, tomato and a raita yogurt–was just a bit too sweet, with a few pieces of raw onion in the curry offering an unwelcome distraction from what would otherwise have been an excellent dish.

Our dining companion for the evening, Mary Ann Singleton, coincidentally raised in Perth, Western Australia, enjoyed a plate of pumpkin linguine ($18) with generous chunks of pumpkin flesh. Not overcooked into a hot mush as it sometimes is, the pumpkin here retained a toothsome bite. As Mary Ann commented, the dish would be an admirable option for vegetarians, and not a lesser one, at that.

Having now sampled half of Kingswood’s remarkably short menu (including appetizers, there are only 11 items), we can safely say that it is easily the best of the new crop of Australian and Australian-inspired restaurants that have opened in New York over the past five years–even if it feels less Aussie then any of them. And perhaps because of its stealthy approach, despite its provenance from the other side of the world, Kingswood feels like it fits: as comfortable as an old, beat-up, gas-guzzling jalopy, but one retrofitted with luxurious leather seats and a sunroof.

Kingswood, 121 West 10th Street, between Greenwich and Sixth Avenues. 212-645-0044.