5 years in, this restaurant is still hot. Why isn't the food better?

The staff numbers many, and each individual seems genuinely lovely. They will banter if you want banter. They will recommend if you want recommendations. They will leave you alone if you want to be left alone.

But the food is inconsistent, sometimes mediocre. Against a backdrop of classy Italy-meets-Miami decor and Boston’s twinkling lights, being well cared for by the staff, no one really seems to notice.

Everyone seems to order the spicy lobster capellini, tingly with Calabrian chile.Barry Chin/Globe Staff

Everyone orders the spicy lobster capellini, eternally on the menu. The men in business suits speaking Mandarin at the bar are eating it. The 20-something birthday girl in the maxi dress is eating it. I ate it the first time I visited Contessa, and I ate it again last week. Each time, I’m confounded by the choice of this thin pasta. If it isn’t overcooked when it leaves the kitchen, it will be by the time it reaches the table, heating in its tomato-and-cream sauce studded with bites of nicely cooked lobster. What I don’t recall from past versions is that this sauce, tingly with Calabrian chile, also tastes powerfully vegetal, as if someone steeped it with bell pepper skins. It’s an unpleasant note that makes it harder to overlook the too-soft pasta.

The other thing everyone seems to order is squash carpaccio: thin orange slices of winter squash laid out like overlapping flower petals, sprinkled with pumpkin seeds, crowned with arugula, and drizzled with sweet-pungent agrodolce. Like the lobster capellini, it is well-engineered for Boston visitors who want Italian food as well as a reminder of place. It is also well-engineered for those who are eating light, packed with flavors and textures. Smart, all around, and one of the best dishes on the menu. It is just right for New England fall. It would be a wonderful Thanksgiving starter. And it’s a house favorite, so on the menu it stays year-round, even when farmers’ markets are brimming with July zucchini and summer squash, which could also make a nice carpaccio.

Meatballs in a creamy, mustard-tinged sauce taste almost Swedish.Jonathan Wiggs/Globe Staff

I am surprised at the lack of seasonality in general. Just about a week ago, spring pea ravioli were still on the menu, the peas hoary, their sugar long departed. (In time for this review, they were replaced with summer-lovely sweet corn ravioli; made with sheep ricotta, it’s very good.) The house Spritz Contessa, with prosecco and Aperol, still contains autumnal cranberry (at least theoretically, for I couldn’t taste it). Five-years-ago me preferred a July version with strawberry and rhubarb.

It’s not just that some dishes belong to earlier seasons. They’ve been here since Day 1. I get it. Who wouldn’t want to order meatballs, tonnato crudo, tortellini en brodo, veal Milanese, steak, or crema di Boston (a riff on Boston cream pie)? Every restaurant needs anchor dishes, and as this is a hotel restaurant, many customers won’t be back to notice the repetition. But the constancy of the menu feels a little lazy, a little checked out.

Tuna crudo with anchovies and artichokes is always on the menu.Barry Chin/Globe Staff

It would be one thing if the kitchen were always nailing it, but that’s not the case. It’s hard to taste the meatballs around their creamy, (lightly) mustard-tinged sauce, frills of cabbage on top. The dish reads almost Swedish. Veal Milanese is flavorless and dry. Crema di Boston is a lot of warmish vanilla custard layered with a little chocolate ganache, served with a desiccated ladyfinger.

I still like the tonnato crudo, raw tuna with anchovy and artichokes. And the wonton soup-adjacent tortellini en brodo, a simple pleasure, the clear broth poured tableside over al dente pasta with just the right amount of liver in the filling. Simple pleasures are what work best here, and no surprise. They’re often what’s best about Italian cuisine in general.

Broth is poured tableside over tortellini, a wonton soup-adjacent simple pleasure.Jonathan Wiggs/Globe Staff

For instance: a salad of shaved artichokes with chopped almonds, parmesan, and lemon (even if on one visit it’s overdressed and, on another, barely dressed at all). Or gnudi di pecora, utterly tender dumplings of sheep’s milk ricotta, dusted with crushed walnuts, in a sweet sauce chockablock with mustard seeds: It’s like a cheese plate remade as pasta. Rigatoni pomodoro joins corn ravioli on the newest menu — just pasta, basil, garlic, and tomatoes that make their own soupy sauce. Order this dish with branzino Portofino, the moist fish lightly rubbed with pesto, showered in torn basil, and served over fennel-olive salad with a slice of lemon for squeezing. It is summer, after all.

When Contessa opened, it was impossible to get a reservation. It’s still tricky now, at least at peak times. I understand the restaurant’s success, and its appeal. The bar is always hopping, a festive place to eat alone, joking with the bartenders and talking with adjacent strangers. The room, so gorgeous. The staff, so nice. On a recent evening, when we ask the sommelier to suggest something he’s enjoying right now, he offers up one of the lowest-priced selections on the list (although it’s still $100), a bottle of Sicilian Frappato, the light red ideal for summer. Even the ride up to the roof in the slow, ancient elevator, and the long wait to cram in on the way down, are kind of fun. It’s all part of the experience.

Lightly rubbed with pesto, showered in torn basil, and served over fennel-olive salad, branzino Portofino is a lovely summery dish.Jonathan Wiggs/Globe Staff

But there are plenty of wonderful Italian restaurants in Boston, many locally owned, serving consistently excellent food, changing up their menus, and pushing themselves, even when they don’t have to. It can be all too easy to get a reservation at them.

With out-of-town hospitality groups invading Boston, Contessa offers a possible glimpse of the future. How might these restaurants look once their opening buzz fades? For a five-year-old restaurant with a second branch in Miami and out-of-town ownership, Contessa is in a much better place than it might be. (For instance, it shines in comparison with Major Food Group’s meh fast-casual Parm, opened in 2022 in Back Bay and Burlington.) It serves its hotel customers well. It satisfies locals who want to mark an occasion somewhere beautiful with rooftop views. It maintains much of the energy it had on opening day.

I just want the food to match that.

CONTESSA ★★☆☆☆

3 Newbury St., Back Bay, Boston, 617-741-3404, www.contessaristorante.com/boston

Wheelchair accessible.

Prices Appetizers $16-$30, primi $26-$49, secondi $38-$69, dessert $9.50-$19, cocktails $22-$24.

Hours Dinner Sun-Wed 5-10 p.m. (bar until midnight), Thu-Sat 5-11 p.m. (bar until 1 a.m.). Lunch Mon-Fri 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Brunch Sat-Sun (and Monday holidays) 7 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Breakfast Mon-Fri 6:30-11 a.m.

Noise level Conversation easy.

Devra First can be reached at devra.first@globe.com. Follow her on Instagram @devra_first.