Maybe like me, your favorite New York restaurants seem to reflect your best friends: Unique, reliable, interesting, fun. Above all, you can trust your friends. At restaurants, there’s a comfort level that keeps you coming back for another serving of crisp, juicy pork belly or a glass of Sancerre or two at the bar by yourself. The restaurants, like friends, can fall into different categories, too. You’re willing to drop some serious change at Daniel or Eleven Madison Park when you want impeccable service fit for an Upper East Side trust fund baby. You sneak into Txikito in Chelsea or L’Artusi in the Village for a casual but intimate dinner. And sometimes a Katz’s Deli pastrami sandwich or the steaming soup dumplings at Joe Shanghai beckons when you want to stay real and feel at home. For 20 years, San Domenico, Tony May’s Northern Italian restaurant on Central Park South, stood as one of New York’s favorites.

But sometimes things change — for better or worse. You never know what will happen when a menu undergoes a total revamp, a new chef takes over the kitchen, an interior designer completes a makeover or your favorite restaurateur moves onto a new, sexier project. I never dined at San Domenico and only peeked into the old school, elegant space as a tourist years ago. From what I’ve read, however, a lot of New Yorkers mourned its closing last year.

Now San Domenico is reborn as SD26. Tony May partnered with daughter Marisa May in creating this sleek, modern reincarnation sitting on the north end of Madison Square Park alongside a host of the city’s best restaurants. I was ready to meet this old/new friend.

On a recent damp autumn evening, I passed a cascade of shimmering glass beads by the front door before stepping into the clubby feel of the front bar with its dark wood floors and low lighting. Skinny model-types in three-inch heels and men in business suits crowded around the Enomatic, a fancy 21^st century machine that pours several dozen types of wines. You charge a “smart card” at the bar and sample away.

Before I was brave enough to figure out the high-tech wine dispenser, a hostess whisked a friend and me to some cushy red leather seats with menus and the electronic wine list, which basically could be mistaken for an oversized iPhone you could text away at all night long. Instead of a bulky binder listing some of the thousand or so wines in the cellar, you can search for a glass or bottle of wine by grape, country and type. One note on the menu — which long-time head chef Odette Fada has divided into salumeria, vegetables and salads, pastas, fish, meat, cheese and dessert — is that many of the dishes can be ordered as smaller plates.

So we sipped our flutes of Prosecco while gazing at the expansive space, designed by Massimo Vignelli, with lights flickering above like stars in the night. We didn’t linger long at the colorful balls of yarns adorning the walls or the open kitchen before a plate of charcuterie arrived. The treats from the salumeria, which is tucked off the side of the main dining room, included a classic sopressata ($7.50) that was balanced between fat and salumi mixed with hints of pepper and garlic. The mortadella ($7.50) — a spicy, silky pork sausage flecked with pistachio nuts — was especially tasty, rich but not overpowering.

Next a few servers, whom speak Italian, brought the octopus carpaccio served with slivers of sundried tomatoes and herbs ($14.50) and yellow tail tuna ($17) we’re told had been cured in citrus juice and sugar for 20 minutes. While the octopus was perfectly tender it paled in comparison to the tuna’s fresh just-from-the-ocean flavor with a side of springy frisee and a brush stroke of black squid ink oil.

With the starters finished, we couldn’t wait to experience the uovo in raviolo ($22.50) for the first time. It’s a San Domenico signature carried over to SD26. The al dente square of pasta is laced with truffle butter on the outside and filled with a blazing yellow egg yolk inside. Once your fork breaks apart the pasta, the yolk bursts out and in your mouth, the combination of richness from the egg, earthy flavor of the truffle butter and texture of the soft pasta is Italian comfort food at its best. It was a tough act for the pappardelle with wild boar ragu ($16) to follow, which was a hearty autumn dish.

We would’ve been more than satisfied to end the meal there. But we scrolled through the iPhone-like wine device and then zeroed in on the halibut confit ($17.50 for a small and $28.50 for a large portion). A pan-seared venison loin ($21/$37.50) with celery root, brussels sprouts and Fuji apples was enticing, too. As we waited for our fish and meat courses, our attention started to meander beyond the packed room to the shiny white walls and above the silver railings. The private dining rooms above appeared empty and it begged the question, is the space too big? What if the dining room wasn’t packed, wouldn’t that make it feel sparse and cold? To their credit, Tony and Marisa May worked the room all night, stopping at tables to shake hands and introduce themselves to San Domenico regulars and new SD26 fans. Later in the evening, Tony May sat at a chef’s table in the kitchen having dinner.

There’s definitely a touch of the old-school Italian charm that still lingers in the modern space. I decided not to dwell on the room too much. I was too distracted by the fish and meat dishes anyhow. The halibut was cooked just right, with my fork pulling apart the flakey fish atop the aromatic chick pea puree and clam ragu. The slices of veal were perfectly pink and although a tad salty, it was smartly paired with the seasonal accoutrements.

We didn’t end there. We sampled an array of cheeses (plates ranging from $13.50 for three to $26 for six). The starcchino, a soft creamy cheese with a mild flavor was a hit and you couldn’t go astray with the taleggio and pecorino either. As for dessert (very reasonably priced in the $7.50 to $9 range), we couldn’t stop from cleaning up the tiramisu, which took on a modern twist with mascarpone semifreddo, espresso granita, chocolute coulis and savoiardi. It wasn’t too sweet and fun to eat. The zabaglione with its string of marjoram and caramel with roasted pears, Muscat gelee and vanilla sticks was subtle and a nice, light dessert to end the night.

We sat there more than satisfied, surprised at the overall reasonable prices for a restaurant of this caliber and the quality of food rolling out of the kitchen. If SD26 is only a shade of San Domenico, it must have been one amazing restaurant that any of today’s top restaurants would have a hard time living up to. Change can be a good thing, after all. Your good friends change and you accept them. New doesn’t have to mean bad or inferior. Restaurants can undergo the same transformation. Like SD26’s name suggests, it’s new but a part of the old still exists. Both will bring me back.

SD26 is located at 19 E. 26^th Street (near Madison Ave.), 212-265-5959, www.sd26ny.com.

— Bao Ong

Andrea Strong