ROM the bay window seats at Brown, the street life of a neighborhood in transition plays itself out. Hasidic men pass by on Hester Street on the Lower East Side, heading east toward Gertel's bakery and the accordion shop on Essex Street. Chinese women shepherd groups of children west, back home from playing in Seward Park. Recently arrived hipsters stop in for coffee.

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Brown opened in October 2001 when the owner, Alejandro Alcocer, converted a tiny gallery space to a cafe because there was "no place to get a good espresso in the neighborhood," he said. That must be the raison d'être of thousands of cafes across the country, but few have someone with a background like Mr. Alcocer's behind them.

He left his native Mexico City at 16 to travel, cook and surf. A decade of wanderlust took him through kitchens from San Sebastian, Spain, where he trained under the chef Juan Mari Arzak, to San Francisco, with stops in Ibiza and San Diego along the way.

He finally settled in New York and opened a catering business, Green, based in a storefront next to what is now Brown. (A small fancy-food shop called Orange now shares space with the catering business.) The restaurant added a short dinner menu and nighttime hours last month.

The food at Brown reflects Mr. Alcocer's globe-trotting in its mix of ingredients — marcona almonds, canned Sicilian tuna, obscure French cheeses — that mingle on the plate. His training shows in the consistency and attention to detail in every dish.

The restaurant sleepily opens at 9 a.m. and begins to fill up around 11:30, except on weekend mornings, when — even in the dead of winter — diners fill the little tables outside the restaurant. Dinner is casual and unhurried; on a recent Saturday night I saw a solitary diner nurse an espresso for half an hour while flipping through a travel guide. No one at the restaurant seemed at all anxious to get the table back.

Brown is a place for those disposed to lingering, and its menu offers plenty worth lingering over, even for breakfast. There's a range of baked eggs ($6.50 to $11), and the Tuscan breakfast platter ($9), an ample spread of creamy herbed ricotta, prosciutto, and wildflower honey with a tangle of lightly dressed greens.

The restaurant mixes its own mesclun, using greens from Satur Farms on Long Island and Chino Farms in Southern California, one of the country's top growers of boutique vegetables.

But despite marquee suppliers, the menu makes no mention of the provenance of its produce or sandwich meats (some of which Mr. Alcocer imports from Umbria and sells in the shop next door). Brown just isn't that kind of place. The restaurant is clearly more concerned with balanced, interesting sandwiches and simple, well-executed main courses at dinner than with prestige.

None of the sandwiches I tried misfired; a mix of salty prosciutto cotto and funky taleggio cheese on warm raisin walnut bread ($8.75) was my favorite. Most of the sandwiches from the lunch menu are available through dinner, and they make for excellent shared starters. Salads, including one with marinated octopus and chickpeas ($9), and a charcuterie platter ($12) meant for a crowd round out appetizer options.

Among main courses (all $15), the pan-roasted chicken breast, served with zucchini, carrots and buttery mashed potatoes, is moist and well-seasoned, and probably as good as chicken breast can be. Slices of grass-fed flank steak are fanned around a potato gratin, fortified with Gruyère, that makes it seem as if the potatoes should have top billing. Someday I'd like to hunker down with a bottle from Brown's very reasonably priced wine list ($22 to $32) and see just how many side orders of that gratin I could put away.

Until then I'll stick to ordering too many of Brown's super smooth espressos, each lovingly teased from the handsome espresso machine, no matter how late it gets.

Brown

61 Hester Street (Essex Street), Lower East Side; (212) 254-9825.

BEST DISHES Tuscan breakfast platter; baked eggs; charcuterie; all sandwiches; pan roasted chicken.

PRICE RANGE Breakfast items, $2.50 to $11; salads and sandwiches, $8 to $12; main courses, $15; sides, $5.

CREDIT CARDS American Express.

HOURS Breakfast and lunch 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily; dinner Wednesday through Sunday, 6 p.m. to midnight.

WHEELCHAIR ACCESS One step up.

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