Cooked on the 4th of July

Surrounded by countless ethnic restaurants, high- and low-brow delicacies, cutting-edge and traditional cuisine, New Yorkers receive undue credit for worldly palates simply by virtue of living here. But after observing their eating patterns, I would bet that on most days New Yorkers would still choose good American comfort food over anything else.

The success of the almost-year-old Westville and its newly opened sister restaurant, Westville East, confirms this suspicion. Though tiny, the restaurants are packed nightly and on the weekends for brunch. Every time I've passed either location—almost identical, whitewashed, redolent of New England quaintness—I've witnessed groups of people standing on their tiptoes, wishfully scanning the room for empty tables (of which there are none), and crowds filling the sidewalks waiting to be seated.

It's no doubt due to the food. Peppered with American classics like the BLT sandwich and macaroni and cheese, the menu doesn't offer anything you haven't had before. The cornerstone of Westville's success is the rare and winning combination of simple comfort food skillfully prepared, using high-quality ingredients and served in a laid-back environment.

Take the Westville Cobb salad ($10). Made with grilled chicken, bacon, avocado and bleu cheese with greens and balsamic vinaigrette, it's a good, solid salad. It's good not because some secret ingredient makes it so, but because the ingredients are of great quality. The advantages of good ingredients are only apparent when you have the pleasure to taste them in action—there is no need to overcompensate with additional salt or oil (or other fat), because the food has nothing to hide. The Westville cooks prepare their dishes with a light touch, which is perhaps the biggest distinction between home-cooked and bought meals—a distinction that is largely eliminated here.

What initially brought attention to Westville was its offering of the Niman Ranch fearless frank ($4). It's a hot dog, yes, but sans the risk of earlobes and nostrils. It's good, but I recommend trying something different. My favorite is the cod fish po' boy ($8), hot batter-fried fish on a white bun served with tartar sauce. I can't say if a Southerner would qualify it as the "real thing," but satisfaction trumps authenticity. I savored the juicy white fish between a double hit of white flour (batter and bun) and washed it down with a fine New York egg cream ($2.50), which got the thumbs-up from my native dining companion.

There's a fish-and-chips shack feel at work. The manager was grungy in surfer-style garb—low-slung cargo shorts, sneakers with no socks, a trucker cap with sideburns peeking out—and the sweet waitress showed enough tanned belly to make me believe that there's a beach around the corner.

The special entree, scrawled on the homespun chalkboard, was a grilled pork chop with a vinegary salad and garlicky broccoli rabe, my choice of one of many "market sides." (Westville's vegetable and grain sides are rotated several times during the week.) The pork was tender and flavorful, but the best compliment I can give is that when eating the leftovers at home the following day, I momentarily forgot it was takeout.

The cast iron turkey burger on a Portuguese muffin ($8) was basic: lean, juicy meat, served with an inviting, room temperature, red tomato slice (as opposed to the rock-hard, refrigerated pink mealy tomatoes that dominate hamburgers and sandwiches at many other establishments.)

Dessert was another great surprise. The blueberry pie was Norman Rockwell-perfect Americana—uniform golden crust brimming with the purplest of tiny wild berries ($5), and the chocolate layer cake ($5) was glistening with moisture and black as tar, the frosting fudgy, glossy and almost as dark.

Being a sugar junky, I returned to sample more sweets. Apart from a fine specimen of carrot cake ($5)—moist, gratifying, but not too sweet—the others, as handsome and appetizing as they appeared, are nothing to write home about. The Oreo, sparkling orbs of dark chocolate cookie sandwiching vanilla cream, was too rich and had the crumbly texture of a once-crisp cookie that had spent too long in the fridge. It was, however, preferable to the overcooked chocolate chip cookie ($3) and the Little Devon, Westville's take on the Little Debbie oatmeal sandwich cookie. Cute and appealing in theory and presentation, the oatmeal dried cranberry cookies and cream were cloying and buttery. o