Along with a kitchen, a chef, and a waitstaff, one requirement for a neighborhood restaurant is that it have a neighborhood around it. For years, Oakland’s Uptown district hardly qualified. Its forlorn blocks along Telegraph Avenue and Broadway have long been dreary boulevards of broken urban promises, lined with shuttered storefronts and abandoned buildings. In 2002, Jerry Brown enjoyed a photo op by lighting the marquee on the Fox Theater, a grand movie palace that hasn’t screened a film since the early ’70s. (Let It Be was the title; the locals let it be, all right.) A picture that told a truer story appeared a few weeks later, when the sign’s neon O flickered out.

These days, of course (and you knew this line was coming), Uptown is on the upswing. Freshly minted condominiums rise amid dust bowls of new construction. Businesses are trickling back. Once as rare as the dodo, the occasional free-range pedestrian has been spotted wandering around Uptown after dark.

Among the recent arrivals are Thomas Schnetz and Dona Savitsky, proprietors of two East Bay Mexican restaurants (Doña Tomas and Tacubaya) whose popularity, to my mind, outpaces their appeal. But with their third venue, Flora, a California-ized bistro, they’ve hit their stride.

The restaurant occupies what was once the Flower Depot, in an art deco building overlaid with black and blue tiles, and its atmosphere pays homage to that era. Servers wear black vests. Bartenders, strapped in black suspenders, mix drinks against a moody backdrop of glowing bottles of spirits, enhancing the sense of time and place. Flora is a smartly rendered period piece, trendy-feeling but uncontrived. It turns the clock back to a romantic moment: the Jazz Age at the start of cocktail hour.

The power of nostalgia is especially compelling in this part of Oakland, where glorious but long-neglected buildings are hollowed-out reminders of a time when the city was the place to be. Who doesn’t root for Oakland’s full revival? But sentiment alone can’t sustain a restaurant. Flora also draws strength from its menu, approachable California cooking with just enough edge to match the restaurant’s worldly but laid-back air.

Chef Jason Moniz, formerly of Nectar in San Fran­cisco, toggles adroitly between classic and contemporary dishes, and pulls off modern touches with unpretentious flair. A bowl of chicken broth, light-bodied