RESTAURANT REVIEW: MK’S : First Impression : A husband-and-wife team offers professional service and top-quality food at new restaurant.

The word on the street: MK’s is hot. But on a recent late summer afternoon, walking into the restaurant’s courtyard for the first time, I found MK’s to be an oasis. A warm breeze flowed through the patio as the sun sent shadows dancing across the restaurant’s desert-colored walls.

The restaurant is the creation of two MK’s: Michelle Katherine Sandoval and Martin Kenneth Gay. They’re the husband-and-wife team who previously operated the successful Voila in Ventura. Voila’s success may have created a sense of anticipation for the Sandoval-Gay project.

Now that MK’s is open for business, it’s frequently packed--both with locals and out-of-towners. But reservations are usually easy to get. And the service is friendly and professional. Sandoval, who is usually seen moving about the restaurant, seems to have done a first-class job in training her staff to be responsive to customers.

Her husband runs the kitchen, and some of his dishes are very, very good. There’s seafood Vera Cruz, full of fresh salmon and scallops, prawn-size shrimp, olives and fresh mushrooms in a salsa wine sauce. And there’s an impressive “grazing platter” of grilled vegetables, grains, soft cheese, chutney, salsa and an occasional surprise or two. In his penne vodka, Gay takes a vodka and cream sauce, adds sun-dried tomatoes and reduces the mixture down so it’s not cloyingly heavy, as white sauces often are.

His pork chops are stuffed with a carefully seasoned mixture of apples, raisins and almonds, then flamed in a Madeira sauce.

Once, when I ordered the grilled chicken breast marinated in tequila, I did get an overcooked piece of meat. But the waiter very graciously took the chicken back and replaced it with a juicy breast that did justice to its tequila sauce.

There are a couple of so-so dishes. The chopped salad with sun-dried tomatoes, for instance, forces one to look carefully for the tomato hidden among the greens. And MK’s fideo , vermicelli cooked in a chicken broth with vegetables, was surprisingly bland.

But there is great bread here--perfect, fresh cracked wheat bread that MK’s gets from a small wholesale operation in Ojai called Monica’s.

And there’s always dessert. You’ll go far before finding a better apricot cobbler. Its pastry is soaked with apricot juices and it’s not too sweet. This is the sort of dish that could take even a non-dessert person right to the edge.

* WHERE AND WHEN: MK’s in Ojai, 139 E. Ojai Ave., Ojai. (805) 640-8001. Breakfast 8-11 a.m. Monday, Wednesday-Friday; until noon Saturday-Sunday. Lunch 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Monday, Wednesday-Friday; noon-2:30 p.m. Saturday-Sunday. Dinner 5-10 p.m. Wednesday-Monday. Full bar. Reservations accepted. Major credit cards accepted. Meal for two, food only, $26-$58.