As soon as the chef Eli Sussman learned that James, a beloved Prospect Heights restaurant, was closing, he tried to contact the building’s owner to inquire about the space, without luck. A couple of weeks later, Nate Adler, a restaurateur whom Sussman knew casually, invited him to drinks. Call it coincidence or call it bashert, the Yiddish word for predestined: Adler and his wife, Rachel Jackson, who own Gertie, a “modern Jew-ish diner,” in Williamsburg, had secured the lease. They asked if Sussman—who had cooked at Mile End, a Montreal-inspired Jewish deli in Boerum Hill, before opening, with his brother, Max, a counter-service Mediterranean place called Samesa—was interested in going into business with them.

Subsequent conversations confirmed that the trio shared a vision for the restaurant that would become gertrude’s just six months later, in June. “We wanted to describe it as a New York City bistro,” Sussman told me the other day. They pulled inspiration from institutions such as Prune, Diner, and Minetta Tavern, as well as from their own backgrounds: “We talked about a menu that, if you had grown up eating specific dishes at your grandparents’ house on specific Jewish holidays, would seem really nostalgic and familiar to you,” Sussman said. “And, conversely, would be appealing even if you had no interest in Jewish cuisine. There’s a chicken, a fish, a hamburger.”

The result transcends expectations you might have for a neighborhood restaurant while also resisting gimmickry—though not humor. The half chicken is brined, cleverly, in dill-pickle juice before it’s roasted. The excellent hamburger is sandwiched on a tall, shiny braided challah roll, which can also be ordered on its own, with a schmear of duck butter. All entrées, including a beautiful whole trout—stuffed with lemon rounds and showered with chopped green olives and herbs—come with a choice of fries, greens, or latkes. The latkes are available as an appetizer, too, topped with celery crème fraîche and trout roe—as elegant as a dish of thin-sliced coins of beef tongue, both tender and crispy, drizzled in a persillade made with parsley, garlic, capers, anchovies, and Fresno peppers.

The eggplant “schnitzel” (in quotes, Sussman explained, because if you added marinara and mozzarella it could be a parm) features a lengthwise slice of eggplant, deep-fried until its bread-crumb crust is impressively crunchy and its interior turns to custard. You might find the house chopped salad at a red-sauce joint, were it not for the beef salami, Swiss cheese, and caraway vinaigrette among the lettuce, chickpeas, tomatoes, and pickled onion. I loved a Niçoise that substituted hot-smoked bluefish for tuna, and was delighted by Jackson’s Seder Plate Margarita, made with mezcal, bitter orange, parsley, and salt water. Next year in Jerusalem, next week at gertrude’s. (Dishes $8-$38.) ♦