Mare Nostrum is beautiful, with a minimalist elegance, high ceilings and wide spacing between the tables. And so is the fish glistening beneath refrigerated glass as guests enter the dining room.

I like being told, when I ask, what each is called and its provenance — that stuff of Portlandia spoofs being important when it comes to something as fragile as seafood. (I can take or leave the exact temperature setting under which the fish were shipped from the Mediterranean, though some folk enjoy being let in on such trivia.)

The pleasantries continue at the table with nice béchamel croquetas as amuse-bouche, their simplicity suggesting that I’m in for basic good food and little frou-frou. And, I confess, choosing from the wine list on an E-tablet is way cool.

Mare Nostrum, as the name connotes, is mostly a seafood restaurant. There is a pasta craftsman on board, though I didn’t sample his wares. I came here for the creatures of “our sea,” as the Romans, the original Latinos, called that ocean to their south.

Why import seafood from across the Atlantic when there’s so much of it a few blocks away, in the mare nostrum we call the Caribbean? When La Dorada in Coral Gables pioneered this practice over two decades ago, it was because Miami had an enormous appetite for Spanish food, including the actual fish of the Hispanic clientele’s ancestral waters. But we’re sailing elsewhere here, no longer with the ancient mariners who were our great grandparents but with the foodies, who want the authentically precious.

And here is an appetizer of fried shark bits, incredibly tender but not very flavorful. Razor clams in a marinara sauce were the opposite, flavorful but not as tender as one might wish.

Main courses had more punch. Sea bass fillets were cooked to perfection, simply prepared in a skillet. Equally straightforward was the tuna, cut thick and grilled rare, like a good beefsteak. This is Mediterranean tuna, with a stronger funk factor than our local version — not a minus, but buyer beware.

And then there was the Spanish classic, dorada (sea bream) baked in salt. It was served, as it must be, at the table, the salt crust cracked open, the fish filleted and plated. And it was, no doubt about it, excellent and cooked au point. However, the tableside protocol was slow and labored, and a goodly number of bones came with the fillets.

I can’t help compare this routine to La Dorada’s, where last time I ate there, maître d’ and co-owner Domingo Gándara expertly served the fish with the natural grace that Spanish tradition demands. And when, in the middle of his faena, his attention was urgently required elsewhere, a waiter smoothly took over without missing a beat. And the fillets were boneless.

Back on the plus side, Mare Nostrum’s luscious manchego cheesecake with quince sorbet redefined the cheesecake genre. I was indifferent to an olive oil cake with olive oil ice cream, which was like a sweet focaccia, more interesting than satisfying. However, the albariño wine, a 2010 Filaboa, was absolutely the best.

Mare Nostrum is the child of a corporation, and it shows. Not that I want to urge an Occupy Restaurants movement, but in these artisanal-above-all times, slow, small and local are beautiful.

Mare Nostrum doesn’t stray far from the old ways of preparing fish from that very old ocean. But I catch the scent of corporate fabrication, as I do in most big-time South Florida restaurants.

Truth be told, my heart belongs to restaurant people who are crazy in love with cooking and serving, raving mad about food, willing to take chances. Gastronomy can be an amour fou. Let’s get crazy.