330, 222 Baseline Road (Sherwood Park)

Two weeks ago, I was invited to Via Cibo’s grand opening. They come from the same Restaurant Group that brought The Burger’s Priest to Edmonton last March. They have locations in Toronto and Calgary, and are slowly expanding. It’s located right off Baseline Road, and there is ample amount of parking around the restaurant. It’s designed to be a face-pace and quick, without sacrificing quality.

When you first walk into the restaurant, there are large boards with menu options. After placing your order, you’re given a number on a silver stand, then you proceed to order drinks, and then you place your number on your table and they’ll find you to serve you. Similar to the way that Tres Carnales works. The kitchen is open and visible from anywhere in the restaurant.

We ordered a couple of lunch menus, and decided to get one pasta, and one pizza and went with the Gnocchi and the Prosciutto E Arugula Pizza. The interior is relatively nice and spacious. It was relatively quick, and our food came out nice and hot.

The gnocchi comes with a Gorgonzola cream sauce, slow roasted tomatoes, pancetta, green onions, shaved grana padano cheese. I’ve had gnocchi a number of time, and I’ve found that restaurants can be relatively inconsistent with the texture of gnocchi. It often comes out overcooked or undercooked. That being said, the gnocchi at via cibo came out perfectly. It was nice a tender, but not mushy. The Gorgonzola cream sauce went really with with the Gnocchi. Out of our two items, this was by far my favourite. If you’re in the mood for one of their pastas, I definitely recommend this one.

The Prosciutto E Arugula Pizza came out nice and hot as well. It comes with prociutto, arugula, fior di latte mozerella, slow roasted tomatoes, shaved grana padano cheese and a fig-infused balsamic reduction. The good: the crust was relatively good. It reminds me a little bit of the crust at Famoso a little bit. It held together nicely, and was easy to eat. As for the toppings, I found that the prosciutto was overwhelmingly salty. It was difficult to taste anything beyond this. If you isolated the fig-infused balsamic reduction, it does add a nice sweetness to the pizza, but difficult to taste among everything else. There was a generous amount of all of the toppings, which I liked, but it the prosciutto was a little bit much. I think I would have preferred a different pizza.

Overall, my experience at Via Cibo was relatively good. It does exactly what it sets out to do, which is provide a casual-dining experience that is relatively face, without sacrificing too much quality. The prices at Via Cibo is definitely reasonable, and is a good addition to the food scene in Sherwood Park. Check this place out if you’re in the area!