Umbria

Umbria will delight you physically. Although situated between Mt. Airy and Mt. Pleasant on Germantown Avenue, its gastronomic gravitational center is located somewhere among Miami, Berkeley and Montego Bay.

A deceivingly succinct pink and gray storefront portal opens into a dazzling shebang of recessed lighting fixtures and shapely hanging lamps. The effect balances an ultra-modern luminescence with the comforting coolness of indirect shadows thrown at marbled white walls.

Ordering is easy. The soups are extraordinary, the polenta fabulous, the sauces rich and grand; and the Caribbean dishes are as casual and creative as a folk song's lyric.

Soups are served with a mound of hot sourdough bread whose taste will make you pucker. Within one cheek, squirrel away a huge hunk of bread. Then bring a soup spoon of Black Bean broth studded with African black pepper and sour cream to your mouth. Swirl your tongue into a ladle and maneuver your jaw so that the liquid drenches the dough. Add another soup spoon quickly until what's below your palate is actually swelling. When the mound in mouth is fully engorged and when the redolence of the hot black pepper is about to cause you to sneeze, open your lips wide, flare your nostrils and swallow whole. Your eyes will glow as golden as embers in a well-drafted fireplace. Ask for another loaf of bread.

The Jumbo Shrimp entrée over rice and the Red Snapper under French-cut string beans are perfectly done, fawning in freshness and inherently delicious. Each item served here that comes from the sea bursts with waves of honest flavors and with spices as delicately handled as the cross-examination of an expert witness.