Restaurants: '90s restaurant Palomino keeps packing them in

There was a time when Palomino, which opened with a major bang in 1991, was the city's ultimate reservation. In the intervening years, the restaurant has been surpassed by countless hot spots. Few of them have endured, while Palomino keeps packing them in at 9th and Hennepin.

There are plenty of reasons for its impressive staying power. First off, the location, within steps of the State and Orpheum theaters, can't be beat. Then there's the sort-of Italian menu, which feels designed to overlap as many dining-out demographics as possible and hasn't changed all that much over the years.

Here's where all visits should start: pizzas. The browned, slightly blistered and parchment-thin crusts are terrific, and when they're judiciously topped -- the cheeses can get a little heavy handed -- the results are marvelous; I could happily eat the colorful combination of tender pulled chicken, tangy onions and sweet red peppers on a near-daily basis. Those same crusts are fashioned into delicate crisps that are tailor-made for scooping up a creamy white bean hummus, a baked brie finished with pistachios and honey or mellow, slowly roasted garlic cloves.

The kitchen expertly grills up several decent Kansas-raised black angus cuts, including a beautifully briny bone-in rib-eye. There's a decent spit-roasted pork loin, and scampi-style prawns have a sizzling bite.

Lunch features a soup-salad combination that's good enough to make me a noon-hour regular, and I can't imagine stopping in and not ordering the kitchen's best idea, a cool and refreshing toss of shrimp, scallops and calamari dressed with herbs and preserved lemon.

Some dishes were flat-out bad. I've rarely encountered mussels so stringy and off-tasting. Scallops were seared into rubbery oblivion. Ravioli, the size of a Netflix envelope, were tough, and if they were filled with lobster, my taste buds couldn't detect it. Chicken Parmesan had all the pizazz of a heat-and-serve meal.

There's plenty to admire in the appealingly basic roast chicken, but it was swimming in oddly flavorless pan juices and paired with an aggressively overdressed salad. Speaking of salads, there are a number of notable ones -- the Caesar has a feisty garlic-anchovy kick, and the famous "Chop Chop" remains a justifiable crowd-pleaser. Still, I'm not sure why a gorgeous piece of grilled salmon was sharing a platter with a mound of minuscule, flavorless shrimp. Crab cakes were more filler than crab. Most of the pastas could use a good editor.

Palomino may be the place where the color mauve has gone to live out its final days, but the restaurant is so fastidiously maintained that it possesses a certain crazy dignity. It helps that there are enviably high ceilings, enormous scene-setting windows, a roomy lounge, a see-and-be-seen dining room and what might be one of the city's first exhibition kitchens.

The service staff is on it, whether they're tossing out a heartfelt welcome at the door, scrupulously keeping water glasses filled, or appearing from out of nowhere armed with a hunk of Parmesan and a cheese grater or inquiring about parking validation. Palomino's buzziest days may be behind it, but that hasn't stopped its employees from hustling as if they're working in the hottest shop in town. I love that.