If you've been paying any attention at all to what's been happening in the kitchens of Louisville's top restaurants, you're well aware that a growing number of chefs have been jumping on a culinary bandwagon that the national food press has dubbed "Kentucky Fine Dining."

The philosophy at the heart of this food is the use of signature regional ingredients -- country ham, black-eyed peas, free-range chicken, locally grown produce, for example -- in sophisticated dishes based on European and , recently, Pacific Rim cooking techniques. (I'm half-expecting "grits and red-eye gravy won tons" to appear on a local menu any moment.)

In the vanguard of this trend is chef/owner Kathy Cary of Lilly's. Recognized with multiple invitations to the James Beard House in New York, a slew of chefs' bashes from Chicago to Charleston and articles in the country's leading food magazines, Cary's style has been duly noted -- and imitated.

Lunch and dinner menus change frequently to take advantage of fresh ingredients. Friends and I dropped in for dinner the other evening to see what Cary and her able team of dinner and dessert chefs were cooking for spring.

With our elegantly presented cocktails, we shared an order of fried oysters ($9). These plump, juicy morsels had been rolled in shredded nori seaweed and deep-fried to light crustiness. They sat on a plate of seared, savory napa cabbage and Asian citrus sauce so delightful that I sopped it up with bread after the oysters and cabbage were gone.

The soup of the evening ($5) was creamy potato-leek. Cary herself makes the soups each day, and they are always well worth checking out. The base was richly reduced chicken stock and a dash of heavy cream. The potato and leek pruee was added, and the crowning touch was a dollop of fresh crab meat accompanied by a golden brown potato gnocchi.

One of my pals and I shared a Caesar salad with calamari ($6.50). The lightly creamy dressing and crisp roamine were fine foils to the excellent flavor of the calamari, which had been dusted with pepper and cornmeal before light frying. It is very possible that I could eat a barrel of squid prepared this way.

We found ourselves caught on the horns of a happy dilemma when trying to choose entrees. Everything sounded terrific, and our energetic server described the specials with such enthusiasm and loving detail that each sounded better than the last.

The trio of dinners we finally settled on did not disappoint.

The fresh fish of the day ($28) was a mesquite meal-encrusted halibut, served on a bed of arugula with a huckleberry-coconut milk reduction. The crust was tantalizingly peppery and crisp, encasing glistening fish that fell apart on the fork and melted in the mouth. A tart note was sounded on the tongue with the huckleberries, which was quickly replaced by coconut-milk smoothness. A generous zucchini cake on the side was a crisp, green version of hash browns.

Seared sea scallops ($21) ringed a mound of crisp pommes frites resting on a base of jewel-green spinach. The unusually large scallops had been cooked to an opaque luster, and their sweet seafood flavor was enhanced with a fine mango buerre blanc scented with tarragon.

Brand new on the menu that evening was a grilled chicken and country ham hash entree ($20). Grilled medallions of boned chicken breast, marinated in mustard, were placed on a bed of sauteed spinach and finished with lemon saffron veloute and topped with buttery Hudson Valley Camambert. Slivers of potato and country ham made up two large hash cakes and haricot verts completed the plate. This was not your grandmother's chicken and country ham.

We shared a bottle of 1997 Wild Horse Pinot Noir ($28) with dinner. My only gripe with Lilly's is with the wine list, which needs more distinguished, food-friendly bottles in the $25 to $40 range. The Cellar Selections list is loaded with $90-$500 vintage Bordeauz and California Cabernets, more suited to upscale red-meat emporiums than Lilly's. What's needed are bottles of boutique Pinot Noirs, Syrahs and Viogniers.

Yellow cake with caramel icing and vanilla and caramel ice cream was your grandmother's (or, rather, Cary's grandmother's) old-fashioned cake. And a tart finish was supplied by lemon trifle with chantilly and fresh strawberries. Both desserts were $6.