My companion and I are seated in a bright, airy dining room at a table covered in screaming white linen. The walls around us are painted in rich earth tones. An amuse-gueule, a long plate with slices of orange and pineapple drizzled with balsamic vinegar, arrives along with the waitress, who takes our drink orders. A few minutes later, I am sipping a martini infused with lemongrass and ginger when the first course of my 10-course tasting menu arrives - a small, square plate with four largish florets of deep-fried cauliflower dressed with tamarind and chili. There is an artful swirl of sriracha sauce on the edge of the plate. This is not your typical Indian restaurant.

Amaya Bar and Grill has been open for about six months now, holding down a space in the Tops Plaza off Clinton Avenue in Brighton. The two previous tenants in this spot were typical Indian restaurants, inheriting and reusing many of the furnishings from the previous tenants and offering menus that were nearly identical to their predecessors. Amaya is different, and intentionally so.

When Drs. Rahul and Nirupama Laroia decided to open a restaurant in Rochester, they wanted to offer something different: a new interpretation of what can only be thought of as the American-Indian restaurant canon. For years, "traditional" Indian restaurants have been dominated by all-you-can-eat buffets, chicken makhani, chana masala, and dishes "from the tandoor." In collaboration with chef Shabber Chowdhury - a classically trained chef whose 20-plus-year career has taken him nearly around the world and all over the United States, but whose first love has always been what he describes as "Mughal cuisine" - the Laroias developed a concept and a menu starkly different from any other Indian restaurant in Rochester. Amaya, they decided, would offer contemporary Indian cuisine filtered through and refined by classical French technique - basically, haute Indian cuisine. In this, they have been entirely and amazingly successful.

For those of us who have spent most of our lives believing that a day without curry is a day wasted, who have willingly driven miles out of our way in search of new Indian restaurants, and who could order from those restaurants almost without looking at a menu - even when there's not a buffet - your first dinner at Amaya can be a pleasantly dislocating experience akin to discovering that your favorite burger joint suddenly started serving foie gras and sweetbreads. But once you readjust your expectations, setting the mental dial to somewhere between "Indian restaurant" and "fine dining," you are in for a memorable, even revelatory, meal.

So, just what does a classically trained chef bring to an Indian repertoire? First, there's presentation. While Indian food is one of my favorite cuisines for the complex and layered flavors that it brings to every dish, no one could argue that your typical Indian dish makes for a beautiful presentation. The trade-off for all of those deep and well-developed flavors that suffuse every bite of a dish is often colors that are dull studies in dark greens, reds, and browns. Now imagine a world in which lamb palak - spinach and lamb infused with ginger, garlic, cumin, and coriander - came out of the kitchen a rich, vernal green instead of the usual dark, grassy color, and in which the lamb in the dish was actually still medium rare rather than the woefully overcooked variety that prompts many Indian restaurants to skip the meat and substitute paneer in the dish.

Or try to picture a deconstructed version of bhindi masala, another classic Indian dish. Usually made into a kind of starchy stir-fry in which the naturally gooey sap in the okra pods acts like a sort of glue, bhindi masala is an acquired taste (and one of my personal favorites) and has a frankly disquieting presentation. Now think about how someone with an intimate knowledge of how food "works" would remake the dish, cutting the starchy pods into quarters, salting them lightly, and then allowing the natural goo in them to leak out, forming a ready-made batter in which to deep-fry the pods. Scoop the flash-fried veg out of the hot oil, dress it with a bit of salt, a dash of cayenne, and a bit of cumin and then serve with a garam masala mayonnaise and you have a new and exciting reinterpretation of a classic.

Shabber Chowdhury works the same magic with every dish on Amaya's small but intriguing menu. Sure, there are Indian restaurant staples here - an excellent, well-balanced chicken makhani in which the curry leaves play a very nice supporting role chief among them - but the tiny alterations in preparation or presentation that the chef brings to each dish make a world of difference. At first glance his samosas look run of the mill, but cut into them and you'll discover that the curried potatoes have been married with bits of umami-rich sun-dried tomato and salty-sour capers that balance the fat in the pastry and starch in the potatoes. Tandoori chicken is every bit as rich, and a bit more juicy, than its cherry-red cousin at other restaurants, the finely ground paste of garlic and ginger and spices still clinging to each gorgeously charred chicken leg (the breast is less appealing, but chicken breasts usually are). Add a squirt of lemon and a bit of onion or green pepper and the flavors positively pop.

One of the best dishes on the menu, though, is one that is thoroughly Indian in flavor without much in the way of precedent in the Indian-American canon, a marinated fillet of fish covered in a thick coating of garlic, ginger, chili, and curry-leaf paste, broiled and finished with a bit of sesame oil. The fish is tender, flaky, and just fatty and flavorful enough to stand up to the potent mix of herbs and spices on top of it, each bite a little trip to heaven. Add in a bite or two of Chowdhury's shredded papaya and ginger chutney now and then and you won't need meditation to find your way to nirvana.

To find Amaya Bar and Grill in City Newspaper's online Restaurant Guide - including a map, user reviews, and more - click here.

Amaya Bar and Grill

Tops Brighton Plaza, 1900 Clinton Ave. South

(585) 241-3223, amayabarandgrill.com

Lunch: Tuesday-Saturday 11 a.m.-3 p.m., Sunday noon-3 p.m.; Dinner: Tuesday-Saturday 5-10 p.m., Sunday 5-9 p.m.