Nearly everyone who’s combed the San Diego bar and restaurant scene can cough up a memory about Dobson’s, the pubby haunt nestled in the east side of the historic Spreckels Building in the heart of downtown.

Rousing happy hours frequented by lawyers, politicians and money brokers marked the end of workdays for many urbanites through the 1980s. Heavy steak dinners lacking fresh produce persisted as the bill of fare. And, of course, the menu’s famous Mussel Bisque en Croute, served in lion’s head bowls and capped with vaporous puff pasty, brought rapid brand recognition to the restaurant – and joyfully still remains.

It had been at least six years since I’d set foot into this San Diego institution, purchased in 1984 by matador-turned-entrepreneur Paul Dobson, who soon after added a kitchen and an upstairs dining area to the cozy layout. Now, with a professional food consultant and talented chef onboard, the menu has tilted to the whims of contemporary tastes with a greater variance of side dishes on the plates and more seafood choices.

The mussel bisque is a mid-winter night’s dream that I wasn’t about to pass up on my return. Chef Michael Davis assured me that the recipe, using shrimp shells, milk and heavy cream, hasn’t been altered one iota since it was introduced by a French chef two decades ago. The soup arrives tightly sealed at the top with a dome of puff pastry that is egg washed and baked until golden brown. As it’s placed under your nose, the waitperson pokes a hole through the top and pours in about a shot’s worth of Harvey’s Bristol Cream, adding a delightful boozy essence to the savory yellowish broth housing a few chopped mussels at the bottom. The result is nirvana. And newcomers will be remiss to overlook it as a starter.

But it was Davis’ recent arrival to the kitchen that ultimately brought me back again. The young chef, formerly of Pamplemousse’s catering operation, has respectfully altered the menu with some lighter, fresher meals and comforting suppers like seasonal risotto, oven-roasted salmon, bistro chicken and basil-marinated pork tenderloin. He’s clearly helped move the cuisine forward in a place that seemed almost resistant to change for the past two decades.

In a creative twist on crab cakes, he presents the sea meat in the form of hash as an appetizer. The dish offered the same texture as corned beef hash, crispy and salty on the outside, nourishing and mollifying on the inside with bursts of corn and fried capers in the scheme. I wouldn’t have guessed that the hash is held together by Ritz Crackers, given its stark purity.

My companion opted for the daily special, which consisted of several slightly overcooked shrimp on a bed of arugula adorned by bright cherry tomatoes and dressed in the house’s orange-based vinaigrette. Light and flavorful, its presentation was spa-like – a radical departure from plates that were once loaded up with steam-table veggies and rice pilaf in the restaurant’s earlier days.

Davis delivers fresh, contemporary elements to his meals with such accompaniments as baby red onions, butternut squash, braised leeks, marsala black figs and fresh baby asparagus, which flanked the mondo Free Range Veal Chop I ordered. The veal came medium as ordered and soaked up the bath of sherry veal stock reduction beautifully that was lurking underneath.

Steaks can still be found here, yet they appear almost as footnotes at the end of the entrée listing – a grilled prime flatiron cut and a 10-ounce prime filet mignon. Their “sets” are subject to change with what’s in season. In the same week I visited, my partner and his mother hit Dobson’s for lunch and came away raving about the flatiron steak sandwich with roasted red pepper sauce – and of course the bisque.

The wine list is affordable in comparison to many other downtown joints and offers a handful of good cabernets from Napa, including those from Caymus and Frank Family. In addition, a full range of cocktails are available, which still fuels the ambience at the wooden-clad bar that greets you monumentally upon walking in. Weekday happy hour specials these days are $1.50 drafts and $2.50 margaritas.

The winds of change have indeed blown through Dobson’s, yet they’ve glided over perfectly those things that are good enough left alone.