You tend to think of the coast as a spot for fine-dining excursions in the summer. It’s a place to drop the week’s grocery allotment on gourmet food and ambience. And, on a completely opposite note, you are loath to imagine any trace of flavor if the word “organic” appears anywhere on the menu.

Seaweed Cafe, a nouveau restaurant that opened quietly last month in the Southwest Harbor village of Manset, is a challenge to both these positions. Chef Bill Morrison, whose talents were honed in restaurants around Boston and Aspen, borrows tastefully from Japanese, Chinese and French cuisines. To this he adds a personal inclination for macrobiotic foods, and the result is a menu that sparks the taste buds and comforts the stomach.

Morrison appreciates natural, whole and organic foods, such as a pert salad of baby greens with a tangy Thai basil sauce or a smooth tahini dressing. The vegetable soup of the day generally combines beans and grains, fresh veggies and miso (fermented soybean paste). As appetizers, the maki sushi rolls combine Maine crab and cilantro, lobster and avocado, or avocado and veggies. Wasabi and soy build a bolstering fire on the tongue — even if we might like having chopsticks and just a flake more seafood with every bite.

As much as Morrison understands the lyricism of food (he studied poetry in college), he also understands something about size. Seaweed Cafe is a small enterprise, run by Morrison, his wife, Mary McLaud, and their kindergarten-aged daughter, Gillian, all of whom live above the restaurant. But when business is cooking, Bill is downstairs in the open-air kitchen on one side of the building causing all sorts of smoke and sizzles, and Mary and Gillian greet guests on the other side.

Mary, who also runs a hair salon, sometimes wanders with a maternal kind of grace from table to table asking patrons how they are doing or if they need anything. Young Gillian never intrudes, but, if prompted, will tell the occasional story about the trials and tribulations of running a restaurant. (“I sometimes get to bed late,” she confided one recent night.)

The dining room has only seven tables in it, which is scarcely enough space for conversational privacy but entirely perfect for the elegant family style intimacy Bill, Mary and Gillian create here. There’s something innovatively charming about the combination of urban simplicity with rural warmth, and the atmosphere at Seaweed — with low lights, comfortable chairs, earth tones and piped-in blues and opera — is deliciously easygoing. The only thing we longed for was a cloth, rather than paper, napkin.

If we agree that success is measured not in quantity but in quality, then the menu is yet another winning miniature. Four entrees, including pan-fried noodles with ginger sesame oil and vegetables, a roast porterhouse pork chop with shiitake mushrooms marinated in ginger coriander, a salmon in parchment with lime and cilantro butter, and a dinner chowder of nightly variations have big character.

Frankly, when the flavors are as smart and certain as these are, four’s enough. Morrison says the menu will continue to change from time to time, but his plans are to keep it decisive and small. In Aspen, he cooked for Hollywood stars (including Don Johnson), so he’s used to preparing food with personality. You’ll come away from dinner with a sense of fullness and well-being. Therefore, you can guiltlessly blow your diet with dessert. This, too, is apt to change each night, but we recommend chewy congo bars with coffee ice cream drizzled with caramel sauce. For the more daring, there may be chocolate torte with raspberries, frozen chocolate and peanut butter mousse, or almond cookies with ice cream.

Seaweed Cafe is a place you’ll want to go back to. And, with prices ranging from $4 for appetizers to just over $20 for nightly specials, you can afford to. Furthermore, the policy of BYOB assures personal satisfaction — a rich wine, cheap beer or no alcohol at all — before you even walk in the door.

One more note about diminutives: Operating hours are only Thursday, Friday and Saturday during the winter season. Lunches are served Thursday and Friday. Since tables are sure to be assigned quickly, call ahead.

For information about the Seaweed Cafe, call 244-0572. The restaurant accepts personal checks and cash, but no credit cards.