Beatrix's creative catchall in hotel setting

Coherence is overrated. That's the conclusion I draw from Beatrix, an agreeable hodgepodge of a restaurant that opened six months ago in River North and has been doing brisk business ever since. Focus? Fuggedaboutit. This Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises concept features three chefs, serves breakfast, lunch, dinner and brunch, and also features a coffee bar and grab-and-go pastry case. Beatrix sits just off the lobby of the extremely hip Aloft Chicago City Center hotel and is essentially Lettuce Chairman Rich Melman's re-imagining of the hotel restaurant. Beatrix is dimly lit, energetic and hip; the concrete floors, wood beams and exposed mechanicals give the space an urban-loft vibe even though the construction is brand new. The no-frills look is belied by very comfortable seating (the heavy leather chairs are wonderful, though the fabric ones apparently stain too easily). You could rename the menu "Stuff Rich likes to eat," and you wouldn't be far off. The back story is that every dish at Beatrix was developed in Lettuce's test kitchen but never made it onto a Lettuce Restaurant menu, a sort of culinary version of the "Island of Misfit Toys." "These are recipes we all loved," says John Chiakulas, part of the three-headed chef hydra that runs Beatrix (Rita Dever and Susan Weaver are the other chefs), "but for whatever reason never made it into those stores." OK, "Island of Misfit Toys" is too harsh. The menu may defy categorization, but the individual dishes are well conceived and, unlike the fabled misfit toys (a train with square wheels, a boat that can't float), tend to work. The bottom of the menu bears the slogan "Taste over Trend," and that's not exactly right either. No insult intended to the taste half of the equation, but the menu is loaded with trendy influences, current and recent. Korean-spiced beef, check; hamachi crudo, check. There's raw kale with the burger, and braised kale with the turkey "neatloaf." Quinoa appears on the menu twice, and that's still trending well, at least until Foodie Nation goes freaky for freekeh. Which is also on the menu. The urban look and the playful menu names mask the fact that Beatrix's menu plays things about as cautiously as you might expect a hotel dining room to do. There are salads, some pasta and meatloaf comfort-food items, a couple of fish, some braised dishes, a steak. Two things distinguish the collection: A good selection of lighter, health-conscious touches (which the menu doesn't even point out) and enough clever twists from the kitchen to keep the audience from nodding off. Entrees are particularly attention-worthy. Branzino is topped with a golden-brown brioche crust that looks like a plank of wood but contributes crunch and buttery notes, and makes the sea bass taste a little like Dover sole. Salmon gets something of a south-of-the-border treatment, topped with a mole-like chocolate-chile glaze and served with corn tortillas and a light coleslaw flecked with smoked almonds.