Trends come and go, but Joseph’s Fine Dining exists as a bastion of refined classics.

Here parade all the iconic names — piccatta, Marsala, meuriene and a l’orange — and upscale comfort foods we’ve enjoyed for generations.

Owner Joseph Freyre should have the chops to pull it off. Freyre spent two decades as maitre d’ at upscale Garden of the Gods Club and The Broadmoor. He’s also a serial restaurateur, once of Joseph’s Hatch Cover, currently co-owner of Manitou Pancake and Steak, and now a five-year veteran of Joseph’s Fine Dining.

Despite talent and some solid culinary hits, though, Joseph’s Fine Dining has become more of a museum piece with inconsistant value and elevated prices than a vital, evolving restaurant.

As the tableside flambé chef almost every night, Freyre creates Joseph’s justifiably most touted dishes, like the Hot Spinach Pernod Salad ($10.99). Oh, the drama and glamour as the Pernod liquor sears the bacon and onions with sugar and vinegar. You glow thanks to the flames and the personal service of the chef. And it is a good salad, the warm and cold elements playing together nicely.

Also prepared tableside, the thick disc of beef in the Famous Pepper Steak Flambé ($33.99) was cooked to perfection – medium rare, in this case – and was nicely peppery. But the steak, which was topped with a syrupy mango chutney and brandy sauce, was lacking key qualities like grass-fed, antibiotic-free or local sourcing that many modern eaters seek in a steak costing $34. And unfortunately, the scoop of potatoes and three spears of asparagus didn’t add much to the value – no matter how artfully they were arranged on the plate.

The Fruit de Mar ($23.99) included jumbo-sized scallops, mussels, shrimp and Atlantic fish, which were slightly dry but happily, saved by a buttery tomato-garlic cream sauce. Also at $23.99, the Crab-Stuffed Chicken Marsala offered quality Red Bird breast that was crisp on the outside and tender in the middle. Nice, but at that price and with only six spears of asparagus, potatoes and a Marsala reduction sauce, the question of value for price re-emerges.

Appetizers like the Crab Stuffed Mushrooms ($11.99) and Cape Cod Crab Cakes ($11.99) are pretty — served with fresh, dressed greens and veggies in a faux bowl made of a wrapped cucumber slices — but are built on forgettable crab reminscent of dozens of crab cakes you’ve tasted over decades.

There are notable exceptions, including the modern-leaning Ginger-Crusted Ecuadorian Cobia fish ($23.99). Crusted with carmelized ginger and drizzled with a blood-orange balsamic sauce, it’s one of very few dishes that strays from Continental-cuisine classics.

A big part of the upscale dining experience is service and decor. The wait staff here moves efficiently across the thick, dark carpet and past the brocade curtains, fake flowers and twinkling fairy lights. But they seemed to favor older diners and community luminaries with time and warm conversation. Which can be frustrating to watch while you wait 10 minutes for a drink refill.

The sweet spot of this Joseph’s Fine Dining is actually lunch. It’s the same atmosphere. In fact, it’s the exact same Sinatra soundtrack, but the menu offers simpler yet still gourmet food — in large portions and highly scaled back prices.

Vegetarians can salivate over the tri-color Tortellini Puttanesca ($11.99), where briny capers, olives and artichokes dissolve in a thin broth of fire-roasted tomatoes. Or go 14,000 feet high with the Pikes Peak Burger ($10.99), which is topped with Swiss, applewood-smoked bacon, two fat onions rings and — the best bit that ties it all together — sauteed wild mushrooms.

In the daylight, the atmosphere is still high-class, and Joseph himself still roams the floor. Rather than dinner, however, this gourmet-casual lunch is perhaps Joseph’s at its finest.