The Ritz-Carlton on Arlington Street opened in 1927, closed in 2001 for renovations, and reopened last fall. Before closing, the parent company opened the new Ritz on Boston Common, with a hypermodern dining menu of Pacific Rim fusion dishes. At the time, I speculated that the new dining format signaled that the new Ritz was aimed at younger travelers, and that the old would reopen with traditional food service to serve older travelers and locals with Ritz nostalgia. In fact, the refurbished Ritz is rather better than that. It honors the service, atmosphere, and décor of the old hotel, and brings back the lamented Ritz Café power breakfast — but all in a contemporary style. The updates are generally smooth, and the rooms shine with fresh gold leaf. This must be how the Ritz seemed in 1927, flashy yet conservative, French provincial rather than Art Deco, a reminder of the good old days before the Great War.

The hallmark of the Ritz has always been a paradox: here is service such as only the elite of any era has been able to command, yet it is applied equally to anyone who comes through the doors. One modernization is the addition of complimentary "amuse-bouches," the micro-appetizers and desserts. Our meal began with a demitasse of buttery winter-squash soup with chunks of bacon, and ended with a bit of lime mousse and a tiny stick of a cookie, as well as a tray of sweetmeats and truffles with the check.

The first of many specialized waiters came around with a choice of Evian still water or San Pellegrino carbonated. Then came a bread waiter with soft-crumbed versions of the popular black-olive and raisin-nut breads, as well as an old-fashioned French baguette. All this service was remarkably unobtrusive, even when the dining room was nearly empty on a snowy night, but it did pose a problem with a group of soupy appetizers. The new high style with soups is to pour them at the table, adding garnishes from another dish, and to use wide, shallow bowls. This preserves the freshness of some garnishes, but it makes it hard to serve soup much above room temperature. This is not a problem with the puréed watercress soup designed to cushion frog-leg persillade ($18). Puréed soups are often tastier at room temperature, and the frog meat is very diverting, nuggets of boned frog legs sautéed with a lot of fresh parsley. But on the winter-vegetables pot-au-feu ($17), the broth needs to be hotter for contrast with the very nicely done leaves of chard in two colors, another of savoy cabbage, a broccolini floret, a baby carrot, and a baton of salsify. This is actually the opposite of a pot-au-feu (boiled dinner) in that the vegetables are made carefully and individually, with the broth and its luxurious shavings of black truffle added at the last minute — but it has to be hotter, hotter. Much the same strengths and weaknesses are evident with the aromatic broth of Mediterranean fish ($15): the chunks of squid and shrimp are impeccable, but the fennel-scented broth would be a lot more aromatic if it were hotter. Those tableside propane stoves used to make flaming desserts could be set up to reheat the soup stocks easily enough.

Our one cold appetizer, lobster caesar salad ($19), was terrific. It offered lots of flavorful lobster meat and long leaves of romaine in a nice dressing that suited both.

In stodgier times, one ate well at the Ritz by concentrating on seasonal protein, and avoiding the overly buttered vegetables. That certainly might have led one to the beef tenderloin ($39), a simply amazing piece of beef served with a "daube sauce" that added the gravy of pot-roasted beef to the flavor. I wanted the Dover sole ($39), an old Ritz specialty, to see if they’re still importing real European Dover sole. They are, as this meaty flatfish is unmistakable, and even a modernized small portion was entirely satisfying. It’s wonderfully set off by a few spears of asparagus, a few perfect soufflé potatoes, and a bit of white sauce.

Roast pheasant ($36) can be dry, especially when served as a sliced boned breast, but wasn’t, and again, it was ideally mounted with some foie gras, and lots of braised red cabbage, peeled green grapes, and slices of sautéed apple. Seared day-boat scallops ($32), a dish on almost every winter menu, are here highlighted with broccolini, flavorful tomatoes that might have been dried and then reconstituted in butter, clams gratinée (four shells filled with a mix of clam meat, onions, and such), and a long decorative slice of poached cuttlefish, flexible as pasta, on top.

The wine list at the Ritz remains intimidating. It is long and detailed, with seven vintages of La Tâche, a rare Burgundy that puts your check into four figures. There’s not a lot under $90 a bottle, but the trick is to order the cheapest wines you can spot, because they will be well selected and served with just as much panache as the La Tâche. Our 1999 Château La Fleur ($50) was not one of the famous La Fleurs, just a minor château in the lesser Lalande de Pomerol district, but it was still the best merlot we’ve had all year. Coffee and decaf ($2.50) are as fresh and strong as I remember them, and tea ($5) is served in a proper pot.

A cheese platter ($16) gave us a choice of 16, aptly described by our waiter. All the cheeses were in peak condition, and the ultra-ripe, double-cream, sharp-aged Franche-Comté and bitey goat cheese we picked were nicely presented with cherry sauce, fruit mustard, and plenty of crackers and bread.

Dessert is the one course that falls a bit awkwardly between the eras. Bananas Foster ($30 for two) is flambéed tableside, which is a lot of fun, and better than many attempts at this dish because excellent cinnamon is dusted on and the vanilla ice cream is of high quality. But pineapple fritters ($12) have too much batter, as they probably had in 1927. With postmodern presentation, the dessert comes on a big plate with a disk of dried pineapple, very convincing pineapple ice cream, and a pineapple sauce. Monte Carlo ($12) is a long, thin slice of chocolate mousse with random-shaped pieces of thin chocolate candy on the sides, and a topping of edible gold leaf. It looks more like a model railroad than a casino or a deck of cards, but mainly we are relying on the flavor of chocolate mousse, something the Ritz used to serve more or less on its own in a ramekin or a parfait glass. Sometimes you should just keep doing the classics.

When I started reviewing restaurants, the three fanciest in town were Locke-Ober, Café Budapest, and the Ritz. In the last year, I’ve been in all three spaces again, and I must say that the refurbished Ritz is the easiest to like right away, in comparison to Lydia Shire’s somewhat overpowering revival of Locke-Ober, or the ultramodern Saint in the old Budapest basement. It’s probably the service and tone, or maybe the big cushioned chairs or the view of the garden or the sight of the cobalt-blue goblets again. The room seems smaller, but everything was bigger in the old days. I also don’t remember the cigar smoke leaking from the street-level bar (that problem will go away when smoking is banned in Boston bars in early May), or the clashing background music — live jazz from the upstairs lounge, classical harp or guitar from a side room. This is probably because I remember the Ritz-Carlton Dining Room crowded, and that, too, will likely come back.

Note to readers: after publication of his review of Tea Tray in the Sky ("Dining Out," 8 Days a Week, February 14), Robert Nadeau was informed that the restaurant will be closing on March 24 and reopening in late April as Solstice. Nadeau can be reached at RobtNadeau@aol.com