There are few places in Pittsburgh where the man is larger than the restaurant. Such is the case at The Carlton Restaurant in Downtown's BNY Mellon Center, where owner Kevin Joyce has stood watch for 20 years.

As a board member of the Pennsylvania Restaurant and Lodging Association, Mr. Joyce has been a fierce advocate for the local restaurant industry. He's a leading critic of the Allegheny County Health Department's proposed grading inspection plan -- it's unfriendly to the hospitality industry, he says. He has objected to the county drink tax and the state Liquor Control Board's attempt to raise markups on wine and spirits and has even gone after the city when it pushed nighttime enforcement of on-street parking, saying it would discourage diners from coming Downtown.

He has committed as much passion to upholding the reputation of the 31-year-old Carlton. It remains a Pittsburgh institution in the face of mounting competition from the city's rapidly changing dining scene. To keep step, Mr. Joyce closed the restaurant for just over a month five years ago for a $1.4 million overhaul to update the wine room, carpeting and infrastructure such as air conditioning and plumbing.

The Carlton is like a college eating club for bankers and business types, with better-trained career servers, a compelling wine list and a clubby bar with a fine happy hour (Some Mellon folks go so far as to call the bar "Conference Room C"). Its location on Grant Street also draws pre-theater and pre-hockey crowds.

Some aspects of the place are timeless. The dining room is open and handsome, framed by wine racks that display the restaurant's strength -- it has won Wine Spectator Magazine's Award of Excellence for the past 21 years. With more than 500 selections, the restaurant maintains a huge variety of fair-priced old and new world wines.

And then there's the food, which is unapologetically conservative. You may wish he had updated the menu, too.

The pork cheek appetizer ($12.99) is an interplay of savory and sweet with caramelized onions and crispy leeks on toast. Served over tomato sauce, calamari ($11.99) is delicate; sometimes, I'm sure it's spot-on but on a Monday night in the bar it was served cold.

For an entree, the Maryland crab cakes ($15.99) are a straight shot -- not too dense with a moist interior. The julienned vegetables round out the dish, although it includes buttermilk-whipped potatoes that clash textures with crab cakes.

An evening special, the sea bass ($34.99) was perfect on its own, served with citrus-tossed Napa slaw, lo mein noodles, daikon and wontons. The panko-crusted grouper ($29.99) is also fine, with a dusting as opposed to a coat of bread crumbs. The fish is so flavorful, why have it at all?

Sometimes, a dish is lawless. Take the duck pasta ($15.99), an amalgam of any ingredient that ever could be paired with duck, such as spinach, caramelized walnuts, dried cherries, tomatoes, Marsala cream, grilled pears and herbs. The Pittsburgh salad ($13.99) has too much that doesn't go together, but perhaps it's only odd to me, an out-of-towner: thin or fat fries, atop a couple of types of lettuces, red and yellow peppers, seared steak chunks, mushrooms, cheddar and jack cheese along with ranch dressing. It's less a fine or even casual dining dish than a late-night stop at Primanti's.

While the menu may not resonate with the slow food set or foodie crowd, the service will. The career servers are a pleasure, and diners are well taken care of. It's a relief the staff is not reading from the have-you-been-here-before script. They're polished and poised in their crisp, white button-downs and ties.

Much of their work includes serving wine dinners and this is where the value lies. One month may feature five interesting Napa Valley wines and five courses for $109, with the winemakers in attendance. Other dinners may be orchestrated in conjunction with wholesaler Joseph Barsotti.

The Carlton knows its place in the market and has not strayed from it for a very long time. In the Post-Gazette's last review of the restaurant in 2010, Mr. Joyce said he was considering changing the menu. For the most part, with the exception of specials and in-season ingredient swaps, it has remained the same.

Mr. Joyce shows little angst about the increased competition from new Downtown restaurants. My favorite recent example was when I discovered that it doesn't succumb to the gimmicks of Valentine's Day but keeps it business as usual. It's a class-act decision, since there's no attempt to lure diners with a high-dollar menu on one of the busiest days of the year.

Yes, The Carlton is old-fashioned. But even in the middle of Downtown's restaurant boom, it still has legs. Industry advocate and restaurateur Mr. Joyce remains as relevant as ever.

Melissa McCart: 412-263-1198 or on Twitter @melissamccart.

First Published: February 26, 2015, 5:00 a.m.