Pearl & Mary is carrying on Philly’s oyster bar tradition. The menu is a work in progress.

I was craving a briny snack, so I took a detour to 13th and Sansom where I found refuge from the steamy summer heat at Pearl & Mary. Perched on the far corner of its white marble raw bar, I could feel the chill of the long ice bank where shuckers in perpetual motion opened and stacked oysters, clams, and lobsters onto tiered trays for a steady parade of seafood towers. A few gingery sips of an icy Bourbon Buck continued to cool me down.

But the action around me was heating up at the bar. To my right, to my left, and down the way, I was surrounded by couples out on dates, dressed to the nines, downing mollusks and cocktails at a steady clip and drawing closer (to each other) with each slurp. Awkward for a solo diner? Perhaps. Except that I was getting my own shellfish fix, too, with the Savage Blonds from PEI packing their own salty kiss. The energy at this good looking corner fish house is charged with undeniably sexy vibes.

A group of four women danced a conga line out from the rear dining room and dropped winks and a hug as they passed a couple beside me at the bar and headed giddily out the door. The momentum of a lively $2-buck-a-shuck happy hour carried into the evening as the daylight streaming through this window-wrapped corner room faded into the warm patina glow of vintage-style pendant lights.

The food? I’ve got plenty of notes on a potentially appealing seafood-centric menu that’s still seeking consistency and touch. But the elements of potential success are in place.

The service is reliably energetic and outgoing. The drinks are fun and well-crafted (the rummy and refreshing Ron and Baker is a favorite). You’ve got the Schulson Collective’s corporate pastry chef Abby Dahan assuring sweet endings with can’t-miss banana cream pie, among other delights. And the crowd — youthful, stylish, and effortlessly diverse in ways most Center City restaurants can only aspire to — is proof that an oyster bar can still be a relevant magnet in Philadelphia, even if you wouldn’t know it by the current scene.

Only a handful of places now have a raw bar worth mentioning, with Oyster House remaining the city’s gold standard, Parc serving plateaus in grand French brasserie style, and My Loup and Vernick Fish offering their own modern twists. Sweet Amalia Market & Kitchen has become a focal point for New Jersey’s spirited oyster revival.

But consider how the mollusk is profoundly coded into our DNA as a onetime seafood hub of the Mid-Atlantic. There were 376 oyster houses in this city in 1881, according to a report from the United States Bureau of Fisheries. We may never recapture that level of glory, but reconnecting on some meaningful level to that historic pedigree feels essential.

Most attempts at an updated identity of the 21st century Philly fish house have floundered since the demise of the Bookbinder restaurants that once defined our restaurant scene. Pearl & Mary certainly has that ambition. It’s relatively accessible, with almost all entrees under $30, and it sits at an epicenter of Philly’s vibrant nightlife dining scene, the Midtown Village crossroads where Schulson operates half a dozen restaurants. Appreciative crowds clamor for its 108 seats, including 30 rattan chairs outdoors lining the Sansom Street sidewalk beneath powder blue striped awnings.

If this kitchen can deliver this menu with any consistency, P&M should have a solid run. I like the spirit behind its blend of classic American fish house fare with stylish nods to the global influences of Schulson’s other restaurants. A crispy branzino fillet topped with herbs and fried shallots served with lettuce wraps cradling lacy shreds of Vietnamese-style pickled veggies and a nước chấm dip is an example of this menu at its brightest.

A Mexican-inspired octopus al pastor was more problematic. The tender arms were caked in so much al pastor marinade before being grilled that the overly pasty blend of chiles and spices clumped between the tentacles and was scorched like overdone breading.

The issues were largely a matter of attention to detail. Several meals here over the past five months proved that these relatively simple dishes can be deceptively hard because they rely on a finesse that’s been elusive. I didn’t eat a single chowder here that tasted properly seasoned, be it creamy New England (with milder smoked haddock subbing for bacon), thin red Manhattan, or a more recent milky corn chowder with (add-on) crab that was simply bland.

The crudos have consistently lacked acid to perk them up, or were obscured with a heavy hand on crunchy garnishes, or missing an expected signature note, like the advertised gochujang for the salmon crudo that was so subtle, it was invisible.

We enjoyed some notable successes. The steamed clams with Italian sausage brought a satisfying bowl of broth for dipping, while the clams casino hit the savory spot with its broiled stuffing of bacon-spiced crushed saltines. An early visit lobster roll brought a butter-crisped bun stuffed with sweet meat in lemony aioli that I’d order again, if it wasn’t so petite for $32. A classic seared crab cake full of meat (a rare relic of the ‘90s now in a town once awash in crab cakes) was cleverly served with snappy strands of potato “noodles” tossed in Dijonnaise and would have been perfect if they had dialed back the roast pepper sweetness that obscured the delicate crab meat. A plump fillet of snapper with scallions in hot oil was a satisfying callback to Pod/Buddakan days.

Pearl & Mary’s raw bar is also solid, though shy of spectacular. The oysters are fresh but trend small and inconsistently retain enough of their natural liquor. The predictable East Coast/West Coast selections offer little acknowledgment of the reviving oyster industry around Barnegat and Cape May.

When the raw bar gets special seasonal offerings, however, they are worth the splurge, such as the Nantucket Bay scallops we savored with zippy Thai chile-spiked ceviche marinade, or the plumper sea scallops, an April special broiled with chimichurri.

One thing I appreciate about Pearl & Mary’s menu, at least in theory, is the more casual option for sandwiches, which is smart given the bread skills of corporate baker (and ex-Parc wiz) Nicholas Brannon. But even a plush milk bun can’t save a weak smash burger that’s been griddled without a noticeable sear, or a tuna burger of ground bigeye scrapings too mushy for a patty.

And while I love Brannon’s sourdough, it’s not the right choice to sandwich a theoretically delicate fried soft shell crab BLT. Unfortunately, the crab’s beer batter was already too thick, a doughnutlike pillow that should have been crisp. But then I wasn’t entirely surprised based on P&M’s history with fish and chips, whose beer-battered crust ranged from disappointing (an oil-soaked bag of soggy crust on my first try) to significantly improved at a later visit, where the hake was encased in the tawny crackle of a well-fried shell.

Pearl & Mary can do it! The question is which version will you encounter? The future of Philly’s oyster house tradition can only benefit from its success.

114 S. 13th St., 215-330-6786; pearlandmary.com

Dinner Monday and Tuesday, 4 to 10 p.m. , Wednesday and Thursday, until 11 p.m.; Friday, until midnight; Saturday 11:30 a.m. to midnight; Sunday, 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Wheelchair accessible.

Gluten-free options are available.