The home page for Arborvine puts it right out there: “Fine dining.” I like that in a website. No shading, no obfuscation, just a quick description of the restaurant’s purpose and goals. And much of the dining here is “fine,” especially if you apply both meanings of the word: “high quality,” which describes most of the salads, traditional seafood appetizers and entrées; and “satisfactory,” an apt description for the meats and a few desserts.

The setting is more than fine – it’s ravishing. The restaurant fills an 1823 white clapboard Cape in Blue Hill, one of the prettiest villages in Hancock County. The grounds are immaculately maintained with pots of delphinium near the entrance, additional perennials planted along a picket fence next to the parking area and luxuriant tendrils of Dutchman’s pipe, the vine that gave the restaurant its name, climbing up and around the original front door. The dining room – or rooms – are just as attractive, with expertly preserved mantelpieces in the larger areas; architectural artifacts and half-hull ship models mounted on the stark, white walls; and gleaming, honey-colored wood floors. The restaurant is easily elegant enough for special occasions – the night we visited several couples were celebrating anniversaries – with prices to match.

“We bought the house in 1998 when it was in need of quite a bit of repair,” says Beth Hikade, who owns Arborvine with her husband, John. (The couple previously owned and operated The Firepond in Blue Hill.) “Our family did all the restoration work – it was quite an undertaking – and we opened to the public in 2000.” Today John and their sons run the kitchen. Beth is responsible for the front of house.

The Hikades lavished such care on the property it’s not surprising that presentation is artful here, too. Take the “Tower of Blue Hill Bay Crabmeat” ($14), a vertical salad of seafood, mango and avocado topped with garnet-colored amaranth spouts and surrounded by thin slices of English cucumber. The name of the dish, and the appearance, seemed to shout “Look at me, I’m impressive!” and impressive, too, was the flavor – the fresh seafood sweet and nicely chilled (not numbingly cold, which is the case in too many restaurants) and complemented by juicy bits of mango and buttery chunks of avocado tucked underneath.

Arborvine spotlights produce from local farmers and thoughtfully lists their contributions on the menu. Last week, the salad of pickled baby beets ($11) from nearby Horsepower Farm was pretty good. Served with an eye-catching variety of tender young lettuces, a single viola blossom and a crumble of Danish blue cheese, the plate looked lovely, and the beets and greens were crisp and refreshing. (I wondered, though, why the kitchen added those slices of seriously under-ripe Bartlett pear. Even a drizzle of tart, Meyer-lemon vinaigrette couldn’t make the pears appealing.)

I also liked the comforting bisque ($8) made with Maine crab, shrimp and corn. The chef clearly has a way with seafood, and this bisque was a fine example. Packed with shellfish – and flavor – the rich broth was beautifully seasoned while cubes of tomato and snippets of fresh chive added color and freshness. I kept dipping my spoon into the cup to savor the shellfish and, occasionally, a milky kernel of corn. No disappointment here – except for the appearance of an empty bowl. It came much too soon.

The Hikades’ passion for fine seafood was underscored when I speared a grilled Blue Hill Bay scallop, served with Four Season Farm new potatoes and a few vibrant green leaves of young kale ($30). The scallops were plump, sweet and tasted bracingly of the sea. (I briefly wondered who was murmuring sounds of appreciation, emitting a sort of lowing, until I realized it was me.) The scallops came with a perfectly good dill-flecked aioli, but I didn’t want anything to mask their flavor. I savored them solo, relinquishing only two (with regret) so my friends could share the rapture.

Nearly as good was roasted fillet of Maine halibut ($32), topped with buttered bread crumbs and a mustardy cream sauce. The dish was traditional and the preparation straightforward, and, once again, the seafood was moist and impeccably seasoned, and the texture was marvelous – almost velvety on my tongue. My friend agreed, murmuring “nicest fish I’ve had in a long time.” The halibut was served with a small broccoli floret, a few tender carrots and green beans. It needed nothing more.

Crispy Roasted Duckling with apple/ginger chutney ($30), on the other hand, needed more of just about everything. More crispness, more spice and more flavor. Yes, the portion size was generous and the dish nicely browned, but the beauty went only skin deep: The skin was rubbery and the meat disappointingly dry. Stick to seafood at Arborvine and you can’t go wrong.

Desserts (all $8.50) reflected the kitchen’s occasional inconsistency. The crème caramel was outstanding, a silky, slightly sweet custard (not too eggy) served in a pool of pale caramel sauce that tasted almost nutty. Also good was a rhubarb crumble served with sprigs of mint and ginger ice cream, a fresh and syrupy celebration of summer. But the Bartlett pear tarte tatin was an upside-down letdown. True, this time the slices of Bartlett pear were soft and yielded easily to a fork, but they weren’t well caramelized, and the pastry tasted soggy and bland.

Arborvine seems to have something of a split personality. The hostess who greeted us upon arrival was warm and welcoming, but the service at table was more professional and perfunctory. The seafood was memorable and lovingly prepared, but some other elements of the meal were disappointing.

Fine dining, or dining that’s merely fine? A bit of both, I’d say.

James H. Schwartz has covered food, travel and architecture for The Washington Post, Downeast, Coastal Living and Southern Living magazines for more than 30 years. Long a commuter between Portland and Washington, D.C., he retired from his job as vice president at the National Trust for Historic Preservation in 2013 and relocated to Maine.

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