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When the original Basso debuted at the end of 2012 at the Cheshire, it was meant to be the cooler, more casual sibling to the newly refurbished hotel’s portentously named showpiece, the Restaurant at the Cheshire. Subterranean, with a wood-fired hearth, flickering lamps and a very of-the-moment Italian gastropub concept, Basso hit that “cooler than� mark with ease.

Funny thing, though. While Italian gastropub now sounds like the punchline at the end of aughts dining, in practice it simply meant charry Neapolitan-inspired pizzas, pastas deftly perched between rustic and elegant and a hefty burger in defiance of the looming smash-burger craze. It helped that Basso had hired a ringer as chef: Patrick Connolly, a St. Louis native who had won a James Beard Award at the Boston restaurant Radius.

Meanwhile, the Restaurant at the Cheshire struggled to find its voice. It wasn’t a bad restaurant, but it took few risks, and its eagerness to deliver familiar upscale pleasures often felt sweaty. Basso was cooler than the Restaurant by design — and better than it day by day.

Basso has now outlasted the Restaurant and its successor Boundary and the usefulness of the term gastropub, Italian or otherwise. It has continued on without Connolly, who departed a decade ago. I check in once every of couple of years or so. I’ve had dinners there that I’ve enjoyed and dinners that were satisfying but I struggled to recall in detail the next day, but I’ve never regretted visiting.

Lodging Hospitality Management, the local powerhouse that renovated the Cheshire and operates Basso, has since undertaken even more ambitious projects to remake Union Station and Westport Plaza. At the latter campus in Maryland Heights, LHM has already imported versions of its downtown restaurant and bar with a sweeping view, Three Sixty, and its Union Station throwback diner and soda fountain, Soda Fountain. (LHM’s ambitions are grand, its names less so.)

Basso on the Plaza debuted in late May on the plaza’s grassy quad, another newer feature where you can play cornhole and watch baseball on a giant screen. I thought I knew what to expect here, and broadly speaking I was right. The expansive space replicates the original’s upscale-bar look and a few old-timey light fixtures without trying to obscure the fact that this Basso isn’t underground.

The menu is also familiar, with pizza, pasta and a few other main courses, the burger included. The pizza evokes the Neapolitan ideal with its crackling speckles of char, but the crust is more restrained than its inspiration. It’s more compact, with a firmer structure throughout, able to support ingredients both luxe and straightforward and let them shine on their own merits.

The total experience is fresher, though. No doubt it benefits from the addition of natural light. But the kitchen hums with an energy only partly explained by a new restaurant’s nerves. Like the original, the new Basso has turned to a chef with impressive bona fides: Dan Sammons, who previously led the kitchens at Polite Society in Lafayette Square and its nearby sibling, the Bellwether.

Whatever the cause, Basso on the Plaza’s vibe dissuaded me from returning to such signature fare as its burger or the malfada pasta with pork ragu. Instead, I found a piece of grilled swordfish as tender and meaty as a strip steak sharply accented with briny olives, peppery arugula and bright, tangy Peruvian drop peppers in a citrus gastrique. A dish of lemon ricotta ravioli bridges the sweetness of spring with the ripeness of summer: cheese-stuffed ravioli with peas, shallots, bits of pancetta and a few tiny tomatoes in a silky, garlicky white wine sauce.

The core Basso menu is nearly 13 years old now, and the new edition nimbly treads the boundary between timeless and time capsule. Lemon aioli and a generous garnish of capers spark a classic plate of beef carpaccio, while a tangle of both banana peppers and pickled Fresno chiles keeps tried-and-true fried calamari interesting bite-to-bite. The blistered shishito peppers won’t convince those of us who believe this occasionally spicy chile to be perpetually overhyped, but they make for a fun snack.

Unlike its counterpart at the Cheshire, Basso on the Plaza is open for weekday lunch, and in addition to the regular menu, the kitchen offers sandwiches both light (mozzarella and prosciutto with pesto) and hearty (crunchy chicken Parm with tomato sauce and perfectly gooey Provel).

Given Basso’s Italian essence, you might skim past the dessert menu’s vanilla chiffon cake in search of the gelato or cannoli. Don’t miss this slice — or, really, this slab, big but light and moist, festooned with coconut flakes. I wanted to love Basso’s gelato. The cherry flavor in my order was spot on. But the texture at the center of the scoops was grainy with ice rather than smooth.

Unless this was a new Basso trick so I would also stop at Soda Fountain for a milkshake before I went home.