Coconut Grove has long been a magnet for drifters. It's easy to stop by for a beer and fall in love with the colorful, quirky neighborhood. But for a Chicago-themed eatery that plopped down in the ungainly spot that once housed Don Quixote, it has been a tough transition.

With a facade weighted with curly-cued wrought iron and faux marble, Chicago's Steakhouse looks more like a Moorish castle than a Windy City meat emporium. Inside, the red crushed velvet booths, black Formica tabletops and towering ceilings create an eery, haunted-house look. Murals of shiny Chicago skyscrapers do little to lighten the dank feel.

Since the place opened three months ago, other innovations have included a new management team. (Our lithe hostess made sure to tell us how bad the old one was.) The menu, too, has changed, but I'm not sure it was for the better. It's not too heavy now, our sweet waitress explained, which means the hearty, onion-laden steak sandwich I enjoyed a few weeks back has been nixed.

I'm told you can buy classic Chicago dogs at the next-door bakery, but it was closed both evenings I stopped in. And what they dub Chicago's barbecue is a head-scratcher. America's Second City is known for a lot of great food, but slow-cooked and smoked meats are not among them. Here you get generic ribs and such slathered in a thick, sweet, dark sauce that tasted like a doctored bottled version.

The vast menu detours to the Caribbean and beyond with such odd offerings as mango crab cakes, Jamaican-grilled chicken wings, battered and fried pepper jack cheese and a range of pastas. There's even a black bean veggie burger and a coconut cream-sauced vegetable stew over Spanish rice. This is one transplant in the throes of an identity crisis.

As for those crab cakes, the pair of golf ball-sized patties were perfectly adequate, even with their slightly burned char marks and a heavy orange dressing that crisscrossed the plate, '80s style. Spicy chicken wings come with arthritic carrot sticks and a dense blue cheese dressing.

For a place bearing the brand of one of this country's most respected meat lockers, Chicago's ought to serve better quality beef with some age and tang. Our New York strip looked great with its deep, cross-hatched grill marks, but lacked any flavor but for salt.

Even a simple Caesar salad was gloppy and flagging, more because the greens were aging than because the kitchen didn't know how to handle them.

We hoped the deep-dish pizza would redeem the experience, but it was a fiasco. We waited more than half an hour for it to arrive, only to watch the pan fall on the floor as our waitress struggled to cut the pie. It was just as well: The pieces we salvaged had overly sweet tomato sauce, gobs of cheese and a crust as tough as shoe leather.

Chocolate cake with ``raspberry'' sauce sounded appealing but had the commercial flavor of store-bought with a thick strawberry gel that would be at home in a school cafeteria.

At least the generic wine list is well-priced, with most markups less than double retail and lots of by-the-glass options.

Victoria Pesce Elliott reviews Miami-Dade restaurants. E-mail her at velliott@MiamiHerald.com.

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