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Via la France!

by Ann Bauer   ::   posted on Aug. 05, 2007 - 11:16am

Via, the stylish new restaurant by Mission American and Atlas Grill partners Anoush Ansari and Hadi Anbar, is now open in the old Pizzeria Uno location on France Avenue, across from Southdale, in Edina.

If you sensed a few freakish juxtapositions in that sentence -- "stylish" "Pizzeria Uno" and "Edina" -- you're not alone. The last guy who tried to bring sophistication to the Southdale area, David Fhima, went down in flames when people flat-out refused to see Louis XIII (which was tucked in between Maggiano's and an Ulta outpost) as a destination on the level of La Belle Vie.

Via has a couple things going for it that Fhima's restaurant did not: first, it's separate from the mall; second, it's coming in just ahead of the Westin at the Galleria; and third, it doesn't take itself quite as seriously as the heavily-chandeliered Louis XIII. Also, these guys have proved their mettle with Mission American and Atlas -- two long-lasting and consistently high-quality restaurants.

Still, Via is ambitious. The décor -- similar to Mission with its bold, masculine, geometric scheme that fairly screams "Do your billion-dollar real estate deals here!" -- barely clings to the frame of the old pizzeria. And the menu, featuring items such as a $32 New York Strip in red wine reduction and an $11 chocolate fondue for two, assumes a certain blasé spendthrift quality. The wine menu is pretty ballsy, too, with a few "low-end" $30 wines and a number of reserve bottles priced in the $120 range.

If anyone can pull it off, though, it's Ansari -- our area's most consummate restaurateur, a man so courtly and well-presented you can imagine him in a coat with epaulets announcing the queen's guests: Lord and Lady Throckmorton now arriving on France.

Even in Edina, across from the 16-screen AMC Theater, in the site of the old Pizzeria Uno. I can see it. . . .