When Alex Ureña opened Ureña last year, reactions, including mine, were mixed. The Spanish restaurant reached impressive heights of creativity, with dishes such as foie gras yogurt, but the dining room’s bright infelicity coupled with highish prices to make the overall experience somewhat unwelcoming. In my March 2006 review, I preferred the experience of sitting at the restaurant’s front bar, where inexpensive and fun tapas made for a much more comfortable evening of dining.

So I was pleased, on the whole, when Mr. Ureña dismantled that garish yellow décor and the needless elaborations of the menu, reopening the restaurant under the name Pamplona. The new operation is subtler and more casual, with menu prices significantly lower and dishes correspondingly simplified — but not without plenty of the chef’s interesting ideas. Gone from the list are the foie gras and the clever foams and gels, replaced by more easily liked fare, such as Spanish meatballs and skewered shrimp. Bocadillos ($6) — pressed grilled sandwiches cut into bite-sized wedges — are a delicious holdover from Ureña. One is a luxurious, rich concoction filled with creamy goat cheese and shreds of tender, braised rabbit; the other a plainer and arguably tastier affair of Serrano ham and buttery Iberico cheese. Much of the menu is similarly enjoyable and down-to-earth, such as the buñuelos, fried balls of mixed gooey cheeses ($5). What’s not to love?

It’s not in the chef’s nature, though, to leave things too simple. His version of chickpea fries ($5), the inexplicably popular fritters of creamy puréed garbanzos, is dressed up with diced tomato and lengths of pickled Spanish pepper, and sauced with an emulsion of the same, adding a taste of northern Spanish intrigue to the Mediterranean fries. Hunks of cured tuna ($5) have the pink color of the raw fish but a definite, interesting chew to their texture that proves they’re no sashimi; it’s drizzled with an aioli made from sobrasada sausage, with a distinctive peppery, porky savor.

When in the hands of a clever chef, a bit of wariness is natural, so it comes as a surprise that the hamburger listed on the menu ($18) is indeed a hamburger, the regular kind, served on a bun with a side of fries. It’s quite a change from the elaborations of the previous restaurant, even though Mr. Ureña gives the juicy burger delicious Spanish complexity and depth by grinding suckling pig and chorizo into the mix. With a faintly gamy sweetness, it’s not the sort of burger you see every day, or would want to eat every day, but it is a great burger.

Four sea scallops ($24) don’t make for a very substantial dinner, but they satisfy nonetheless. It’s a complex dish: The scallops are only the headliners of a finely balanced show that involves a tart, dark sauce, bits of unusually smoky chorizo and rich blood sausage, and earthy pieces of mushroom and salsify.

Those main courses are for single eaters; there are also a few dishes designed to be shared: a hefty steak and a paella. The latter ($30) is a winning, saffrony classic of succulent rice, chewy sausage, mussels, shrimps, and just a few shreds of braised rabbit that leave you wanting more.

Chocolate buñuelos ($6) — fried balls of chocolate dough, sprinkled with sugar and filled with hot, thick chocolate sauce — make any other desserts unnecessary, although the churros come in at a not-too-distant second place. Leche frita ($6) — a plate of fritters filled with runny, citrus-flavored condensed milk — doesn’t have the gravitas required to wrap up a meal on its own, and an assortment of ice creams comes in interesting flavors, such as star anise and peanut, but the flavors are diluted and hard to identify.

The beverage service has gone downhill just a bit since Ureña days — one server didn’t know the difference between brandy and whiskey, and visibly panicked when asked to talk about a wine — but it’s still possible to drink well at Pamplona. The calimocho ($8), Spain’s fun cocktail of Coke and red wine, here gets an injection of potent, dry Martiniquais rum that increases its impact while improving its balance. Sangrias come in red, rosé, and tasty sherry varieties, at $10 a glass and $35 a pitcher — a good way to pair sherry’s nutty musk with a meal. A glass of 2003 nebbiolo ($8) was uncomfortably restrained, but other options on the short wine list, such as the Cachopa winery’s velvety, berryish tempranillo ($12), take up the slack very nicely.

It’s unfortunate that New York didn’t go for the imaginative touches of the earlier restaurant; but it’s good that Mr. Ureña is able to roll so smoothly with the punches. Pamplona is a pleasant simplification, not a drastic compromise.

Pamplona (37 E. 28th St., between Park Avenue South and Madison Avenue, 212-213-2328).