For dining with no cons, try the Liberty Hotel's Clink.

Your glass of wine might be classified "minimum, medium, or maximum security." You'll be peering through bars as you have dinner inside a restaurant called Clink., where the waitstaff sports polo shirts with prison numbers. For room reservations, you dial 866-507-JAIL. And if you venture downstairs for a drink at Alibi, you can order a "doing thyme" (h'oh!) cocktail and check out famous mug shots of bad boys from Frank Sinatra to Mel Gibson. (His alibi? "The Jews did this to me.")

Yes, the Liberty Hotel gets a lot of cutesy mileage from its vaunted past life as the Charles Street Jail. With one of the swankiest hotel lobbies in town, crowned by a soaring rotunda with ornate chandeliers, the Liberty is Boston's newest hot spot - and a fitting addition to the Lyons Group's stable of nightlife attractions.

Display panels near the restrooms chronicle the gorgeous building's evolution, from a celebrated (and later criticized) jail opened in 1851 to its shuttering in 1990 and subsequent $150 million renovation that transformed it into a high-end hotel that debuted early last month.

Yet somehow none of this gimmicky back story bothered any of us on a recent Sunday - not even our resident fusspot whose threshold for cuteness is notoriously low. It was indeed a little excessive at times (do we really need four options for ordering wine, replete with explanatory illustrations?), but it also struck us that Clink. is that rarity in Boston's dining scene: a comfortable and stylish place to be seen at and to enjoy a good meal. It's what the Beehive could be and what District should be. (Another fine-dining establishment, Scampo, will open in the Liberty later this fall under the tutelage of chef Lydia Shire.)

At Clink., executive chef Michael A. Goodman's menu focuses on tapas-style dining, with a decent range of seafood, meat, and vegetable options. We took the advice of our waiter, a polite young gentleman we'll call "1765" according to his shirt's prison numbers, and each ordered two small plates along with a "for the table" entree (appropriate for two) and a Japanese hot-stone platter with 4 ounces of dry-aged strip loin to cook ourselves. (It sounded like work we weren't willing to do, but the meat was fantastic.)

We got off to a good start with some of the comfort food masquerading as chichi snacks: the fried balls of mac 'n' cheese with tomato sauce went down like candy, but the bland fried pork cracklin' could just as easily be called pork rinds.

The small plates arrived at a staggered pace, but nearly all of them were worth the wait, except maybe the Parmesan polenta, though its accompanying chanterelle mushrooms were delicious. The tuna sashimi was fine enough until one of us broke the rules and threw strips of it onto the Japanese hot stone. Voila! It shot to the head of the class.

The espresso-braised short ribs, our lone entree, were not as massive as "1765" had described them, but they were among the best we've had in recent memory: tender, juicy, and perfect when slathered with the creamy sauce of honey-glazed cippolinis. Chunk after chunk, we tore at it until we decided who got the last bits.

Clink. also scored with its dessert menu - no creme brulee or molten chocolate cakes here, thankfully. Instead, we ordered the fleur de "cell": grilled peach kebabs with a side of whipped lavender mascarpone with a wisp of phyllo planted in it.

The whole evening was so enjoyable, we vowed to come back another night to sit in the lobby, where the full menu is offered (though the service is noticeably slower). Sure enough, two nights later I was back, and emboldened by a glass of wine, I fantasized about getting a room. After a friendly chat with the receptionist, he handed me an envelope and smiled. Back at my chair, my friend and I decided $295 for the cheapest room was a little steep, and at $5,500 the money spent on the presidential suite would be better suited to paying off student loans.

Instead, we kicked back in our plush chairs and marveled at how this place really - forgive me - raises the bar on hotel dining.

Clink. at the Liberty Hotel, 215 Charles St., 617-224-4004, libertyhotel.com. Small plates: $8-$15. "For the table" entrees: $38-$48. Desserts: $7-$14. Wines by the glass: $6-$16.

James Reed can be reached at jreed@globe.com.