For five years, chef Mike Phillips was the heart of the Craftsman. His cooking, and his work on the restaurant's famous cured meats, helped shape the place into one of the premier spots for locavores in the know. But Phillips left the restaurant late this summer to start an artisanal meat company called Green Ox Foods.

So how is his replacement, the experienced but new-to-the-executive-spot Ben Jacoby, making out? And how's that best-in-the-region charcuterie plate holding up? A recent visit on a Saturday night revealed a mixed bag of promise and peril.

The menu as a whole has shifted somewhat, but not dramatically -- the restaurant's soul feels intact. There's still plenty of seasonal and local fare, although the formerly carnivore-catering menu is now tempered with more vegetarian options (including a hummus plate) and a sheet of daily specials.

A few elements of our meal were out-of-the-park tasty. A cup of butternut squash bisque ($4) was creamy, comforting and richly flavored, although -- and this really, sincerely isn't meant to be any sort of a knock -- it conjured up a flavor balance vaguely evocative of a McDonald's cheeseburger. "How can that not be a knock?" you may be asking yourself. It isn't. The soup was great. It just had an oddly evocative flavor profile. That's life.

Cinnamon sugar beignets ($6) were one of the most faithful and skillful renditions of this dessert we've encountered, pillowy and light as they should be. And a pre-dinner drink, a cherry sidecar featuring apple-infused brandy ($9), was spot on, a sign that the bartending has maintained the standards it enjoyed before the departure of skilled mixologist Steve Filla.

One of the specials last Saturday was a vegetable lasagna featuring wild mushrooms. Purely based on the $23 asking price, the thing promised to be a dramatic reinvention of the dish. No such luck. The fungi never had a chance -- it was overwhelmed by eggplant and tomato sauce and cheese -- and the final result was a passable Italian dish dressed in fancy clothes.

The visit revealed a charcuterie plate that had evolved, with some missteps, without falling apart -- it still ranks among the Twin Cities' best. The lack of a thinly sliced dry-cured prosciutto-like aged meat was regrettable, and the two salami-style meats were underpowered flavor-wise. A stack of thick, barnyardy-tasting pickle slices was another lowlight.

There's no question that the Craftsman is a different place than it was six months ago. But it still has a lot of promise, and it's still a ton of fun to dine there. With some diligent attention to detail and an eye on the always-baffling but critical question of giving diners a fair value, the Craftsman's future is bright.