RESTAURANT REVIEW : True Grid: Matrixx at the Nikko

Most hotel restaurants, are known for safe, conservative cooking. That’s why Matrixx, the in-house restaurant of the fancy, still-being-completed Hotel Nikko on La Cienega Boulevard, is one of the last places you’d suspect of having a menu with a slightly zany, innovative twist. . . . Let’s just say, they don’t call it Matrixx for nothing.

But the first thing we notice are all the laminated glass sculptures mounted above the tables in the upper dining room. At night, lit by deep pink lights, they glitter and loom like some kind of other-planetary organic life or one of those fabulous ice sculptures that hotel chefs used to make for their buffets--the leaping fish, flying birds, huge hearts of solid ice--now melted beyond recognition.

Decorative frosted glass serves to create privacy among tables. A partially visible kitchen is set in the back, behind a lavish, altar-like display of heaped breads and vegetables. Through the plate-glass windows facing east, one sees the overflowing traffic on La Cienega and a brightly lit Fatburger.

As soon as we settle down, our waiter arrives with a droll sweeping flourish. “Allow me to explain to you how the menu works,” he says genially. “It’s a little unusual.”

He is referring, of course, to the tricky, innovative part of the menu, the part featuring pasta. An explanation is helpful because the various kinds of pasta and pasta toppings are presented in a grid, or rather . . . a matrix!

Six kinds of pasta, ranging from Italian angel hair pasta to Japanese soba noodles, are listed across the top. Down the left side of the page are nine kinds of toppings, ranging from “Rotisserie Chicken With Asparagus With Pan Juices” to “Sauteed Sweetbreads With Pistachio-Cilantro Pesto.”

There are 54 different possibilities and, to aid the confused and indecisive, the chef has selected 18 of the more preferable combinations. All the pastas come in both full and half-orders, which, if you wanted to get technical, doubles the number of possibilities to 108. Lest one still be overwhelmed, the menu does offer a manageable selection of non-pasta starters, entrees and a few daily specials.

Only after much deliberation do we make up our minds. Our waiter punches our orders into a little hand-held computer, a cunning gadget that he happily demonstrates.

I wish I could say that the food justified all the rigmarole. Of the pastas we ordered, all were dominated by what was, to my mind, their least desirable element. The safe-sounding combination of angel hair pasta with fresh artichoke, tomato, garlic, olives and basil tasted so strongly of Kalamata olives that the artichokes and even the garlic did not make their presence known.

Taking a risk, I mated the topping of oven-dried tomatoes, white beans, olive oil and marjoram with the cassarecci , tightly curled flaps of pasta about the length and width of a cigarette, that are chewy and have lots of good crevices to hold sauce. Unfortunately, the topping I chose had way too much marjoram.

The soba noodles were healthful and tasty, but we ordered them with stir-fried slivered beef, which had an unpleasant, slightly mealy texture and little flavor. The cured fish with lobster broth, paired with Japanese udon noodles, wouldn’t be a good choice for anyone who doesn’t prize fishiness as a virtue.

The truth is, we found some of the best food outside of the pasta matrix. The seared tuna starter was fresh and pretty, and nicely set off by what the menu called “Oriental salad,” a delicious bit of lettuce and nutty dressing topped with crisp little strings of fried parsnips. Less compelling, but not without its own charm, was a tidy little bundle of cured salmon containing mushrooms and artichokes.

Braised salmon, with a light cream sauce full of small morel mushrooms, was unexpectedly right; the salmon was fresh and mild, the mushrooms bosky, and there was a generous and wildly delicious mound of fragrant mashed celery root. The whole plate of food reminded me of an industrious day in the deep woods.

The rotisserie chicken, starred on the menu for being low in fat, cholesterol and sodium, was a bit overdone, but still juicy; the accompanying spaetzle , while not of an unpleasing texture, reminded us once more that spaetzle is, essentially, boiled dough.

Desserts ran the gamut from a good apple tart to a standard creme brulee to a hideous crustless cheesecake: a quivery cone of jelled cream cheese plopped on a plate of stewed berries.

Matrixx at the Hotel Nikko, 465 S. La Cienega Blvd., Los Angeles. (310) 246-2100. Open seven days for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Full bar. All major credit cards. Valet and self-parking. Dinner for two, food only, $28-$62.