By Paul Reidinger

VIEWED FROM A certain table, the pointy tip of Zuni Café – the entryway – is like the prow of some great glass ship, slicing festively through the night though never moving. After more than a quarter century the place is a fixture, solid and immovable but full of ceaseless human motion through sun and moon, night and day.

The table I speak of can be found along the Market Street windows, just past the end of the copper-topped bar. It is perhaps the table for the tête à tête-minded, and also for the observation post-minded, who from the table's slight remove will note the graceful convergence of glass and, in the other direction, the enormous kitchen, which, as at Chez Panisse, seems to take up about half the main floor and announces even to the half-attentive that food is serious business here, even if everyone does seem to be having lots of fun, including the staff.

We arrived at the secluded table one evening after a brief skulk along an alley that achieved fame of a sort in the restaurant's early years (it opened in 1979) for being the place where the kitchen did its grilling on a Weber kettle. In those far-off days the food had a southwestern bent – hence the name – and the restaurant was far smaller and more easily overcrowded. These days, despite a succession of expansions that have produced a stylish nook-and-cranny effect, Zuni can fill up in a hurry on any given night, and you are well-advised to make a reservation. But the powers that be at the host's station still welcome walk-ins, even reprobates who slink in from the alley, like feral cats drawn by the scent of milk.

The practice of alley grilling had ended by 1987, when Judy Rodgers became Zuni's chef. She had cooked at Chez Panisse in the late 1970s, and it was she who completed Zuni's shift of menu from its original southwestern emphasis to a California cuisine whose roots ran directly to the country kitchens of France and Italy. (As a teenager, Rodgers spent time with the Troisgros family, famous restaurateurs, and later traveled extensively in France and Italy.) Today the kitchen, brick oven, cast-iron flue, and all, still belongs to Rodgers, the food continues to reflect the Italian ethic of radiant simplicity, and you can still get a hamburger on focaccia, a roast chicken for two with bread salad, and a Caesar salad that are not only as good as reputation makes them but probably about as good as such things can ever be – which is quite good indeed.

Rodgers belongs to the salt-early-and-often school, and the day-before seasoning she gives her meats pays unmistakable dividends. The burger ($11.50), of house-ground chuck, is juicy and flavorful all the way through; no doubt it helped, in my case, that the meat was cooked to the rare side of medium-rare. The grilled focaccia bun did its part by managing not to offend, and the plate was spruced up by pickled vegetables in preppy-camp, Crayola-crayon colors: pink onions and green cucumbers. French fries would be nice, or maybe just expected, but they are extra.

The famous chicken ($38 for two, and allow 50 minutes) also reflects the wisdom of pre-salting. The golden bird is presented in pieces laid on a rough bed of bread cubes dotted with currants and pine nuts and tossed with some mixed greens in a vinaigrette. The dressing's acid helps balance the rich greasiness of the bread (which shows every sign of having been stuffed in the bird during the roasting) and also of the flesh, which is burstingly moist and tasty. While I adhere to my previously announced position that everyone should be able to roast a chicken, the Zuni version reminds us that chicken, when handled simply and with care, has an elegance quite worthy of a restaurant setting.

Although the eye tends to wander toward those menu items that have long been associated with Zuni's fame – including the fabulous Caesar salad ($9), whose anchovy breath is artfully cut with a bit of lemon – the less notorious dishes are no less worthy. I particularly liked a butternut squash soup ($7.50) not only for its piped pinwheel of crème fraîche but its seasoning of garlic and cumin – nicely sharpening harmonies to the squash's inherent sweetness – instead of the usual ginger or curry. And a plate of spaghetti ($13) joined pasta made from farro flour (which gave a nutty, whole-grain effect) to a sauce of bread crumbs, chili flakes, minced anchovies, and grilled halves of baby fennel root – bright and substantial as a sunny winter's day. There's even, on occasion, poultry that isn't chicken, as in a warm quail salad ($9.50) on an unruly mat of frisée and dressed with oloroso sherry (an oxidized, and fragrant, variant) – though with, since this is Zuni, some seared chicken livers for ballast.

We left as we'd come, skulking along the alley, though perhaps somewhat more slowly, since we'd demolished, seriatim, a whole chicken and a slice of sweet-stout apricot-frangipane tart ($6.75) with a blob of vanilla ice cream. (Frangipane is a close relative to marzipan but made with a mix of nuts instead of just almonds.) The tart was quite similar in texture to the gâteau victoire ($6) from an earlier visit, though the latter was made of chocolate. Behind us as we slipped away, the glass ship sailed glowingly on, splitting the night. Zuni Café. 1698 Market (at Franklin), S.F. (415) 552-2522. Dinner: Tues.-Sun., 6 p.m.-midnight. Lunch: Tues.-Sat., 11:30 am.-3 p.m. Full bar. American Express, MasterCard, Visa. Moderately noisy. Main floor wheelchair accessible.