With winter right around the corner, the impulse to eat like a glutton and crawl into my burrow for a nap becomes nearly irresistible. As the temperature drops, I start to emulate bears by eating more than I should, and mimic squirrels by putting food up for the snowy months ahead. I was delighted, then, to stumble on the Cellar Door in the renovated basement space of the Green Lantern Inn in Fairport. Featuring a menu that is billed as fresh and seasonal - right now it's full of squash, and late-season greens, and lots and lots of carbs and meat - this seemed like a good place to go to ground for an evening or two.

The entrance to the restaurant has a speakeasy quality to it. Tucked under the main porch of the Green Lantern, down a narrow set of stairs, it's not the easiest of places to find unless you are looking for it. Even then you might find yourself (as I did) wandering into the banquet hall attached to the back of the Inn and heading down the stairs only to end up in the coat room. When you do find your way in to the restaurant, the space is cozy, low-ceilinged, and dim, the walls are covered in velvety wallpaper, the banquettes are soft and deep, and there are no windows - just the way you'd like a lair to be on a chilly night.

As promised, chef Matt Laurence's menu cleaves very close to the fresh and local. Start off, as I did, with a bottle of Ommegang Abbey Ale, a nice dark ale perfect for autumn meals, and work your way through the "To Share" side of the menu. Pretzels go well with beer, and Laurence's trio of soft pretzels served with spicy mustard and a generous cup of Welsh rarebit (beer and cheese sauce) are superb ($6). Coated with coarse salt, sesame seeds, or enriched with dried cranberries, the pretzels came to the table piping hot (too hot to touch, actually - we kept burning our fingers but coming back again and again because they were too tasty to leave alone), dense, chewy and delicious.

While munching pretzels, order up a Thai pizza ($8) and a plate of crab cakes ($15). Laurence managed a hotel restaurant in Baltimore, and he advertises his crab cakes as "Baltimore-style." I'm pleased to tell you that his characterization of these treats is dead-on. A true Maryland crab cake is a rough-hewn item, chunks of lump crab meat barely held together by mayonnaise and a very small quantity of binder (usually breadcrumbs) to hold them together. Laurence's crab cakes were a model of their kind, bite-sized and savory with a nice bit of dill thrown into the mix for good measure. The remoulade on the side was a nice touch, but I barely touched it the crab was so fresh and good.

Thai pizza, a trendy mix of halved grapes and chicken sate on a peanut-sauce base, was similarly tasty - almost a salad on a flat bread. The well-cooked crust was heaped with a colorful mixture of shredded carrots, cucumbers, and grape tomatoes along with the promised grapes, the peanut sauce acting as an earthy sweet dressing.

If your taste runs toward the lighter side, soup and salad would be a great way to go here. On my second visit, the chef was offering a sweet and rich butternut squash soup ($4) finished with a judicious but not overpowering dollop of cream (too often soups like this end up tasting like pumpkin pie filling) and a masterful hand with the spices. Pairing this soup with the frisee aux lardons salad ($5) that I had on my first visit would satisfy even the most jaded of palates. Frisee can be overly bitter, but Laurence clearly found a supplier of baby greens and uses them to good effect, tossing them with a zesty sherry dressing, scattering a handful of crispy bits of smoky bacon over top, and then sliding a snowy white and primary yellow poached egg on the top. This isn't a huge salad, but the flavors explode in your mouth, lighting up your palate like a pinball machine.

The Cellar Door also offers its own version of the trendy charcuterie plate, the Preservation Platter ($13). Locally made jalapeno liverwurst, Hartmann's smoked sausage, a heap of paper-thin slices of prosciutto, a dish of excellent giardiniera (incidentally, this is the same mix that goes on top of the Thai pizza), and four "devils on horseback" (dates and almonds wrapped in thick slices of crunchy bacon) jockey for position on an abundantly stacked plate. Served with crunchy slides of crostini, this would be a perfect bar snack or a good beginning to a truly indulgent supper.

Perhaps I've become jaded over time, but entrees rarely excite me anymore - I've developed something like foodie ADD, losing focus on my meal long before I've finished it. Laurence's entrees are quite good, and entirely satisfying, but they aren't as creative as his shared plates. The plate of pork tenderloin with apple brandy cream sauce, fresh spaetzle, and broccoli rabe ($18) reminded me powerfully of a nearly identical dish that I had in Baltimore almost a decade ago. The spaetzle were light, airy, and pleasantly slippery, a nice sop for the sauce, and the pork was well-cooked with a good sear on the outside to enhance its flavor, but it wasn't particularly exciting.

Similarly, the pumpkin chipotle pasta with roasted squash and rabe in brown butter-sage sauce ($16) was a solid execution of a classic preparation. The pasta was cooked to a pleasant al dente and the bitter greens played well with creamy squash and wild-tasting sage, but I kept glancing back at the menu that our waitress had left behind and wondering whether I should have ordered the lamb meatballs, or baked brie instead.

To find The Cellar Door in City Newspaper's online Restaurant Guide - including a map, user reviews, and more - click here.

The Cellar Door

1 E. Church St., Fairport

(585) 223-0556, thegreenlanterninn.com/cellardoor.aspx

Lunch Tuesday-Saturday 11 a.m.-2 p.m.; Dinner Tuesday-Thursday 5-9 p.m., Friday-Saturday 5-10 p.m.; Bar Service/Snacks Tuesday-Saturday 2-5 p.m.