Bryan Caswell's Latuli is his Eras Tour, evolved for 2025.

Pizza pescatore wasn't part of the plan.

At a Latuli dinner recently, my companion and I had settled on a couple of fish dishes that sounded promising—both in terms of their ingredients, and because chef Bryan Caswell made his name at Gulf seafood pioneer Reef back in the aughts.

But when the freckled wheel of lump crab, crisped little planks of guanciale and lightly dressed watercress landed on our table, our menu blew up. The pizza was unexpected. (Don't sneer, as a matter of policy, I paid for it by increasing the tip commensurately.) It quickly reduced us to mumbled superlatives.

"Can you believe the crab isn't overwhelmed by the guanciale?" I asked my friend. "And the balance!" she enthused, fishing a bright red morsel of fermented Fresno chile from among the pecan pesto and lemon-glossed greens. "What do you think that little sweet note is?" I asked, before I figured it out: wisps of caramelized shallot.

We consumed two pieces each and kept going, knowing that fish would be out of the question now. There was no point taking any leftovers to go; with its crisped and chewy crust in a quasi-New-York style, the pizza was as good as it ever was going to be at that moment. We agreed we'd be idiots not to take advantage.

There's a "Roman Holiday" section of the menu here, but the pizza proved that the menu's handful-and-a-half of Italian ideas are not just a rehash of Caswell's Stella Sola era, one that intersected the early Reef years. They're an evolution.

Caswell's restaurants have run the gamut from Tex-Mex (El Real) to sliders (Little Big's) to the deeply Southern- and Louisiana-inspired menu at Oxbow 7 in the Hotel Meridien, a promising 2018 restaurant that was gone too soon.

At Latuli, Caswell seems to be reflecting on (and refining) all those eras. After a 6-year hiatus from the head-chef scene, he has not returned with Bryan's Greatest Hits. Latuli's menu offers something subtler and more exciting than that.

So after scarfing our pizza, what to eat next? We had already devoured a bargain-priced-at-$14 shrimp cocktail in which 6 huge, gently poached shellfish met a trio of finely detailed sauces: frisky remoulade, a twangy red cocktail dip, and a deep, grabby ponzu made with a mother sauce that Caswell has tended for 21 years. (Which dates it back to Bank, the restaurant he opened for Jean-Georges Vongerichten here at the Hotel Icon in 2004. That followed a Manhattan era when he worked for such high-flying chefs as Gabriel Kreuther and Rocco di Spirito, interspersed with stints in Hong Kong and Barcelona.)

When a server tried to whisk away the remains of our shrimp plate, my friend, who is half Japanese, grabbed the ponzu and held onto it for dear life. It was that charismatic. By meal's end, she had put every drop to good experimental use.

I was eager to reacquaint myself with a Reef favorite of mine, the heirloom tomato salad with Russian dressing and onion rings. Not just any Russian: house-made from the ground up, including the ketchup tint; and gigged with minced cornichons, no less.

Not just any o-rings, either: these were fat, puffy tempura-fried 1015s, impeccably light and sweet. A blob of burrata came along for the ride; and a ribbon of basil oil; plus a mix of big red slicers and marinated cherry tomatoes that landed more emphatically than heirlooms often do.

Like I said: not a rehash, an evolution.

Having given up on big plates of fish, we ordered three of the vegetable sides to share instead. They fascinated, too—and were labeled "Produce," a nod to Caswell's long dedication to sourcing local ingredients whenever he can, a defining feature of Reef.

Batatas bravas brought the Spanish icon home to the Gulf South: fat diamonds of sweet potato had been braised, air dried and fried in tallow until their crusts puffed, then made to jump with chile-spiked creme frâiche and a crunch of pecan-shallot cracklin.

Crisp-tender broccolini had its pleasant bitterness offset with the twinge of preserved lemon rind, agro-dolce drunken cherries soaked in bourbon, verjus and rice vinegar, plus a surprise crackle of house-made granola.

That haunting herbal note? A ton of Thai basil steeped with the cherry liquid, as if it were tea.

Then there was a marvelous field pea posole verde that reminded me of something Caswell might have served at Oxbow 7. Its lady cream and purple hull peas drifted in a bronze broth along with rafts of smoked pork and avocado. The soup rocked—especially with additions of pickled serrano chile wheels, sliced radish, cilantro leaves, crema and a squirt of lime from its condiment plate.

I could eat that field pea posole verde for lunch this fall, and I plan to. Latuli is open continuously for lunch and dinner 7 days a week, a minor miracle in this era of reduced hours. And there is a long, welcoming bar, separated from the handsome dining room, a boon for solo dining. Dropping by for a course or two is a way to make the experience less of a splurge.

The dramatic main room, a whitewashed and woodbeamed imperial ranch hall, was filled with a prosperous crowd from neighboring Memorial, dyed-in-the-wool Caswell fans from around the city, and dressed up young women who, I suspected, would soon be posting photos of the night on their social media pages. It was a full house that grew louder as the evening progressed, but it had that happy restaurant din in which it is still possible to converse.

"This salad is Instagram famous!" a floor manager announced as our heirloom tomatoes were set before us. I winced, and chortled, because the influencer wave had already swept through the three-month-old restaurant. With its enormous twin potted palms demarcating the dining room, and its handsome alcoves of swirling, blue-and-white botanical scenes, it has the right look.

A word about the staff. I was recognized, which ups the attention, but the tables around us seemed to be lavished with attention, too. The information level is high. Caswell's 11-year-old son, Jennings, was one of the bussers that night, and his social skills are—to put it mildly—spectacular.

Most cheerful of all, the estimable Jeb Stuart, of Coltivare fame, has returned to Houston to superintend the interesting wine list. He pointed us to an affordable Otella Lugana white that had an almost Riesling-like ability to stand up to spice and pickling while also supporting calmer flavors. I've always considered Lugana an underrated wine, and it was a pleasure to confirm that.

I departed thinking I had been wrong about Latuli. When the venture was announced, and I learned that its mystifying brand spliced together the first two letters of Latuli parter Allison Knight's three children's names, I worried that it might be a vanity project.

It doesn't feel that way. The hospitable Knight, a former real estate executive who supervised the impressive buildout of a former dry cleaning establishment, seems wholly invested in the restaurant. She's working the floor, meeting and greeting, eyes and ears attuned to the details. She's serious.

The Hedwig Village location on the Eastern fringe of Memorial is a little obscure. (It's long blocks down Gaylord from Bar Bludorn, with no handy I-10 freeway frontage like the nearby Goode Company Cantina.) But I suspect it won't be obscure for long.