My first visit to Café 8 on Barracks Row was last winter. The cozy, dark walls, lit by the glow of the back-room fireplace, and the warm bread served by the Mediterranean bistro were a balm against the biting wind of a chilly Washington evening. I’ve returned many times since then, and have enjoyed Café 8’s evolution into a popular spot for simple, good food with an energetic and thoughtful new chef at the helm, Chef Jordan Davidowitz recently of Zaytinya.

Dining by the fire is great for winter, but in summer opt for a table on the lovely interior courtyard. Sitting in the dappled sunlight over a basket of fluffy, thick-sliced bread, perfect for dredging in olive oil and the restaurant’s signature spice mix, and you will swear you are somewhere near the Mediterranean Sea.

They have a good selection of beer here (the Italian Peroni is popular) and delicious red and white sangria ($30 for a pitcher that two people can share all evening). Jon Genderson of Schneider’s helped shape the complex wine list which has excellent deals by the bottle – many under $30. I tend to favor the Greek and Turkish wines, having discovered excellent red and white offerings from both countries on this menu. A great choice for summer is the Santorini, a crisp and refreshing white.

Starters here come in two categories: mezze and spreads. Ordering the three-spread sampler lets you pick what you like. If you want to range beyond hummus and baba ghannouj, I recommend the white bean hummus and the kalamata olive spread. As for the mezze itself, sticking with the sampler platter is a good bet. Try the Borek which is phyllo pastry stuffed with feta, parsley and dill and fried to a golden brown, or the falafel served with a creamy cilantro-spiked sauce.

The salads at Café 8 are simple and balanced, and they always arrive cold and crisp. They are large enough to share and deconstructed enough to allow everyone to choose what they like best. The full-flavored olives, sharp onions and salty cheese are the highlights.

If soup is more your thing, the red lentil soup here is a treat. Not too spicy, bright with citrus, it is perfect with bread to dip or without. I first enjoyed it in the winter but also found it charming in warmer weather.

The standouts on the Café 8 menu are the pizzas and the Turkish pides, which are a kind of folded-over pizza. When the restaurant first opened, nearly everything that came out of the kitchen involved the same thick bread, so ordering one of these dishes after enjoying the bread basket felt like overkill. However, one of the improvements made by Chef Jordan (in addition to making things less salty overall) has been to diversify the bread textures. The pides are now crisp around the edges, and the pizza itself arrives on a super thin crust.

So what should you order to go into them? Well, in the pide arena, the shrimp version combines chopped shellfish with fresh and gently cooked mushrooms, tomatoes and excellent cheese, which is a balance of earthiness, salt and tart. The excellent Café 8 pide comes with ground lamb, spinach, feta, tomatoes and pinenuts.

The best of the pizzas is the grilled vegetable, which offers chunky toppings with a bit of sauce and cheese. The more basic pizzas are just that, basic, and the margarita pizza isn’t the version that has become trendy in DC. It is just a gently flavored tomato-basil sauce and melted cheese, no sliced tomato or basil leaves. It is lovely for what it is, but if you order it expecting something else, you will be disappointed.

The entrees here tend heavily toward meat, so despite the rich possible offerings from the sea that give Café 8 its geographic focus, no fish or seafood appear, save a mussels dish in the mezze. For meaty richness, these dishes don’t disappoint, especially after their makeover in the hands of Chef Jordan. The Iskender Kebob, thinly shaved slices of marinated lamb and veal topped with a rich tomato sauce over rice and a yogurt-coated layer of bread cubes, provides layers of flavor. It is beautiful to look at and complex when it hits your tongue. It doesn’t hurt that it is less than $20 (the top end of pricing here) and generous enough for leftovers.

At Café 8, the desserts are either fun or familiar – and always delicious. My two favorites are the baklava and the chocolate-caramel pyramid cake.

The baklava, with its delicate honey drizzle, is nuttier than many versions and just as spicy as my Armenian aunt used to make, which means it is savory, with each element standing on its own. Baklava is an art, after all, and this offering is a masterpiece in phyllo dough.

The cake is a plateful of novelty, complete with edible sand and a river to dredge bites of cake in. Match that with moist cake that isn’t overly sweet, and you have a perfect end to a meal.

It is worth saying that I ordered this dessert twice when they had run out, though the third time was the charm. I also ordered the mussels mezze twice and was twice told there were none to be had. Alas, even my favorite wines (most notably that crisp Santorini) have occasionally been unavailable. Happily, this is a menu where such minor inconveniences are truly that – minor – as every dish is worth eating.

Those small problems are also made easier by the service at Café 8. Most of the servers I have had are friendly and knowledgeable, able to recommend different wines from the diverse list and describe the visual components of dishes as well as their flavors. Service overall has become increasingly better as the months have gone on, though on a busy night you do have to wave your server over or point at your empty glass and smile.

But of course, restaurants evolve. This one is moving its cuisine to a steadily richer number of Mediterranean ports that allow Chef Jordan to show his stuff, planning seasonal menu changes to complement their focus on farm-fresh ingredients, and settling in very nicely among the dining destinations of Capitol Hill.

Café 8 is located at 424 Eighth St. SE. They are open daily for lunch and dinner and offer outdoor dining in an enclosed back patio behind the restaurant. For reservations or more information, call 202-547-1555 or visit them online at www.cafe8dc.com.