There's no parking. It's hard to find if you don't know where it is. But it's worth the effort to ferret out a parking space in the city center and negotiate your way there.

I'm talking about Downtown, the sister restaurant to Kaimuki's Town, a breakfast and lunch spot in the Hawai'i State Art Museum.

The first time I went, it didn't even occur to me to make a reservation. Big mistake. Honolulu's downtown business community has discovered this spot in a big way, and they keep it jumping from opening to closing.

Luckily, that first day, some other diners didn't show up for their reserved table and I was able to slip in in their absence. Otherwise, my friend and I would have had to eat at the raised counter that divides the dining room from the takeout area (not a bad location, just not quite as comfortable as sitting at a table facing each other).

And, oh, the food! I had just returned from Venice, where I encountered great food everywhere we went. Downtown matched that experience: fresh, light, well-chosen and well-matched, interesting and (unlike Venice) reasonably priced, both for the quality and the volume.

This is the kind of restaurant where you leave feeling happily satisfied but not at all heavy or guilty about what you ate — no "plate lunch/too many carbs/too much fat" regrets.

Downtown is a light-filled room at the rear of the first floor of the museum (a place still too little-known and -visited), decorated with contemporary art and divided from the lobby by an attractive copper and wood water sculpture. It is one of Honolulu's most inviting lunchtime dining spaces.

You can sit down or you can order takeout from the "ASAP" counter; takeout customers can sit at the aforementioned bar or in an outside courtyard. Combinations include soup, antipasti and bread; sandwich, soup and antipasto; quiche and antipasti; and specials of the day.

Owner Ed Kenney has assembled a savvy staff, including chef de cuisine Steve Brown, general manager Bob Madison and Kenney's mom, the graceful and welcoming Beverly Noa, who acts as hostess some days. The waiters are generally smart and observant.

Both times I visited, I was early and had to wait for my lunch companion; the waiters were attentive, offering beverages (they have Italian sodas, pink lemonade, Waialua Soda Works sodas, organic iced tea with free refills, bottled water and colas), asking if I'd like to start with soup or a salad without seeming pushy or eager to get me out of there.

On both visits, we ordered the roasted beet salad ($7.50; roasted beets, arugula, orange sections, pistachio nuts, ricotta salata). Oh, yum. Nothing assertive. Just good, healthy food, attractively presented, with pleasing flavor and texture contrasts. (Ricotta salata, by the way, is a very mild hard cheese — not the creamed stuff — and it's shaved onto this salad.)

My main course was salmon — wild, from the Pacific Northwest — with creamy polenta and vegetables ($14.50). This dish was, quite simply, delicious. It's a special that will stay on the menu only as long as they can get the salmon that is its centerpiece, but if you're able to have it, do so. (On another day when I visited, the dish was served with warm white beans instead of polenta, and different vegetables. Brown changes the menu often, taking advantage of what is fresh and good.)

My companion ordered steamed chicken breast with genmai broth, ginger and green onion ($14.50) — a deconstructed version of familiar cold ginger chicken, but warm, with a fragrant stock. It comes with rice. I hate places where everything you order is so good that, when you go back, you can't decide what to order. On my second visit, I saw a woman eating this and I swear I wanted to order a second lunch.

Still, that second visit was not quite as blissful. We had the day's special of potato leek soup ($4; silky smooth with subtle, satisfying flavor) as a first course, and shared the beet salad (because I couldn't deny my friend the opportunity to taste it).

However, the bruschetta we ordered at the waiter's suggestion ($7.25; eggplant, cucumber, feta, olives on toasted bread) was much too salty. And even after I made it clear that it was so, our server didn't offer to remove it, take it off the bill or bring me something else. All he said was he'd tell the chef. I was disappointed that he didn't offer me another remedy.

The menu at Downtown is graced with some intriguing desserts, though I never had room for any: churros y chocolate ($6); liliko'i creme-fraiche panna cotta ($6); olive-oil cake with roasted strawberries ($6); and sorbet or gelato ($3).

The motto of this restaurant is "You Are Where You Eat." If you are eating at Downtown, you are, I think, in the right place.

Reach Wanda A. Adams at wadams@honoluluadvertiser.com.