Vissar, one of Philly's few scagliola artisans, had just finished applying the final touches to her work on Ferdinand's center bar: a polished faux marble slab shining like ruddy glass atop Kamihira's Moorish-patterned tile base. Past a series of subtly blotchy arches with low lighting provided by purplish lamps encircled by black lace scarves, the effect is craftily sexy — underlit without that Hammer Horror glow foodies find at too many restaurants Still, wide-eyed and matter-of-factly, Vissar looked at me and said, "Owen's crazy."

DESIGNER CHIC: "I spent the last 10 years of my life in restaurants," says Owen Kamihira in his Bar Ferdinand. "I knew what I wanted and what I didn't want." : Michael T. Regan

And the thin, curly-haired Kamihira — who's designed and crafted most of the toniest restaurants and night-boites in town — wasn't throwing glasses. He wasn't slapping customers looking to sample urban Spanish fare like surtido de carnes and pixín con panceta or chef Blake Joffe's mod, flaky dátiles con bacón.

Owen was harried and focused on the devils in the details that would make and keep Bar Ferdinand a "true and simple and honest Spanish tapas bar." It's what Kamihira said he intended when he snagged the corner spot on Liberties Walk across from Laura Vernola's red-red-red Deuce as he applied finishing touches to her space.

Simplicity is pretty complex.

At that recent July soft-opening there Kamihira was, making sure the cut-glass bull mosaic executed by his sons Leks and Toshi glistened as if yanked from a Hemingway novel, and that the tortillas were perfect.

"Owen has his hands in everything — he wanted a fried little birdie on the menu and I gave him a fried little birdie," joked Joffe — a classically trained veteran of Alma de Cuba and El Vez who apprenticed at La Cuchara de San Telmo, a tapas bar, in San Sebastian, Spain — about his quail, spinach and Cabrales cheese salad.

"It's an amazing thing," said Vissar, referring to a designer famed for Continental, Buddakan, Zee Bar, Blue Angel and Red Square opening a restaurant he'd be at on an almost nightly basis. "But he's crazy."

Weeks later, on a not-as-mad evening, Kamihira cranes his strained neck muscles. It could be the fact that earlier today he dropped off Leks at the dorms at the New School in Manhattan for his first year of college. Then again, with 84 seats inside, 20 at the bar and 48 outside, Bar Ferdinand is no small undertaking for a first-time restaurateur. Especially for someone so driven to authenticity. Not that Bar Ferdinand is trying to be an authentic Spanish restaurant — all paella or all hot-and-spicy.

"Tapas is good, small-serving Spanish bar food that's affordable," says Owen.

That, he's nailed.

Like a great tapas spot on the road to San Sebastian in Spain's epicurean north, Ferdinand is a bar with simple, tiny food plates — carrot and beet skewers, sea bass, slowly fried pork with Mahon cheese and mustard, and the like. It also happens to be a hangout. With a great wine list. And dollar PBRs.

Joffe cooked in Spain, but Owen lived there as a kid when his father — who did Ferdinand's gorgeously soft murals — moved there on Guggenheim Foundation arts grants. His memories are fond. And Owenclaims his owncooking skills at home are as sharp as his intuition when it comes to what's chosen as Bar Ferdinand's cuisine.

"He knew his tastes exactly," says Joffe of Kamihira's choices of menu items.

Tonight he's poking at a grilled skirt steak with truffle and an organic egg, hoisting a few charred pieces of watermelon with Serrano ham and tarragon, and advising that the Bloody Marys might not be quite perfect yet.

"Working as I have with Stephen [Starr], I spent the last 10 years of my life in restaurants. I knew what I wanted and what I didn't want."

He wanted a restaurant that was all his — concept, food, design. And now that he has it, has he had any nervous meltdowns?Hovering over a black concrete table while fingering a soaked orange slice from his homemade sangria, he jokes about taking on consulting work for Chris Painter's Kitchen 233 and Bob Platzer's Chop House ("Got to make some money while this grows") while thinking about my question: "Meltdowns? No. Growing pains, yes. OK, then again, with all this pain I'm in ... I didn't melt down. But my neck did."

(a_amorosi@citypaper.net)