Cafe Via

We have driven by this place many times not knowing what this place was was all about. Excellent service from Justin and the food was freshly made, so good we ate it all! We had the Penne Puttanesca and the Spaghetti Marinara with Meatballs. Two thumbs up! Worthy of 5 Stars, –only drawback is the place is a little small and the furniture is a little outdated. A young man proposed to his girlfriend while we were there. The chocolate fudge cake was too tempting to pass up.

One of the best Italian Restaurant in Fresno.
Linguini and Claim is my favorite. My wife loves salmons sandwich, my boys love spaghetti and meatballs. The place also quiet and elegant enough to conduct business lunch.
The owner, Matt, is super nice. He always come out to make sure we have a pleasant experience. Definitely a place to consider when you are thinking about Italian food !

Good pick for us tonight! Great wait staff and impressive little menu from starters to soup/​salad, entrees and yes dessert, did I mention the wine? Nothing, super fancy — but awesome service — chef came out to see us and great food — we chose something from every menu, very good, especially dessert!

Really great place for take out! Salmon sandwich was absolutely delicious. A small place, but was conveniently located right by the hotel I stayed at.

My daughter and I had tonight’s dinner at Café Via and we will be sure to come back. The restaurant is next door to a popular Chinese restaurant we’ve eaten at many times but never thought about switching things up and stepping next door to Café Via until now. I had the Shrimp Scampi Marinara which was plentiful and chocked full of shrimp in a spicy marinara; the dish was flavorful and tasty. My daughter had the Meatball Spaghetti Marinara which she enjoyed equally as much. The restaurant is small, quaint and clean. The staff was friendly and provided great service. I prefer independent mom-​n-​pop establishments to chains as the food tastes better and the service is usually more personable. Café Via was no exception.

Good waiter and all that but my dish (penne puttanesca) and my bf’s dish (shrimp scampi) was simply overpriced for the quality of food served. Food’s not bad, just nothing special.

This is a wonderful, locally owned restaurant. Nice variety on the menu. Reasonably priced. Great tasting. Love that the owners come out of the kitchen to talk with the customers. My wife and I go there at least twice a month. Please try it!

My wife and I wanted to try something new, so we checked the reviews on here and it seemed to be decent.
Let’s start with the good. All the ingredients are organic and local. They grow their own herbs. The pesto ranch was fantastic. Also, the waiter was really nice. He really tried. And this is where we get to the bad. We were his only table. For as long as we were there. That had us worried, and rightly so as we would find out. The food was way overpriced for what it was and lacking in flavor. Pasta had a plastic taste and the sauce was watery and was a small portion. Not worth $ 18. The calzone was alright. Whole wheat with organic ingredients or something and a decent portion. Not very flavorful though and not worth $ 9. The atmosphere was very odd. Pop music in the background, blue lighting in the molding of the ceiling, and probably the eeriest of all was the lack of people. It was just us and another table. Probably won’t ever come back when there are so many other options around.

Chicago style deep dish pizza in Fresno? Wait, let me look out the window, are pigs flying?

Imagine my surprise when I noticed a stealth item on Café Via’s menu – yes, they offer deep dish pizza! Oddly enough, it is not listed on their website menu. If they are test-​running the pizza this review may aid them.
As far as I can tell, this is the only place in the Fresno area to have deep dish pizza that is based upon Chicago Style (I have searched high and low). So, the million dollar question: Does it compare to the real-​deal Chicago Pizza places (e.g. Lou Malnati’s and Giordano’s in Chicago, Emmett’s in NYC, Patxi’s by Stanford, or even Uno)? No. Unfortunately, there is one fatal flaw in this deep dish pizza and that is the crust (see pics I posted). You see, typically, Chicago Style pizza has a thick, biscuit-​like, flaky crust (often with cornmeal); however, for some unknown reason, Café Via does their pizza crust differently and uses wheat – this is fatal for Chicago Style pizza because it creates a thinner, pliable, and moisture absorbent crust. So, the crust at Café Via doesn’t hold up (no pun intended). It just doesn’t sustain all-​that-​is-​unique to this style of pizza; that is, toppings, tons of cheese, and then the chunky sauce. All of that is rather heavy, so the wheat, bread-​like, crust at Café Via undoubtedly got soggy and was hard to hold.
There is a silver lining to this story, however. All the chefs at Via would have to do is move to a traditional crust and they’d for sure have a winner on their hands – I actually asked our waiter (a new skiddish fellow, Matt V.) to inquire in the kitchen if they offer a different crust. They do not. So, if the chef’s at Café Via are reading this, just convert to the traditional Chicago style deep dish crust and you’d have a line out the door. I would definitely return for that!
Wheat crust notwithstanding, the pizza was very tasty! Cheese and toppings were excellent, as was the sauce. The price was 20 bucks and the pizza was quite small; ok for two people if one of those people is dieting. The restaurant was not crowded and there are about 13 tables, ample parking, and decent bathrooms. I noticed a patio but it seemed to be shutdown. Like I said, Café Via, fix that crust and I’ll be back.
(*disclaimer, I am quite serious about my pizza)

Everything was so good! The service was prompt and very attentive! Had the clams for appetizer and they were delicious! The two of us couldn’t finish our plates because we were so full from the yummy appetizers! I can’t wait to eat the leftovers! I will be back for sure!

I love it here, very small, casual, fresh made Italian food. Great atmosphere. My new favorite place. Very attentive service.

Stopped here solely based on the Unilocal reviews while traveling from the Bay Area to Sequoia national park… Honestly, was a little disappointed.
We tried to following items:
Cheesy garlic bread — Was just ok certainly had lots of cheese!
Chopped salad — again just ok nothing special
Pizza — Was ok nothing special
Chicken Alfredo– taste was ok but the sauce was so running like a soup
I wouldn’t go out of my way to eat here.

Just Awesome. Everything was made fresh from scratch. Their flavored wine spritzers were second to none. Staff was friendly and personable. Try the Salmon BLT and the Crème Brûlée! Really Six stars for this one!

3 ½ stars. Food here is pretty good and they’ve some really cute waitresses that work here. It caters to a regular crowd that’s part of the older generation of Fresno. I wonder how long the place has been open. I’ve been a couple times and I enjoyed the food every time. It’s quiet.

My wife and I had a truly wonderful lunch stop here on our way from Los Angeles to Lake Tahoe with our 2 dogs. We had selected Café Via in advance based on Unilocal reviews, and also because chef Matthew had personally responded to my email query to let me know that they have patio dining where our dogs would be welcome.
Both the food and the attention to the customers were exceptional. Chef Matthew came over to chat with us and even prepared a small plate of chicken pieces just for our doggies! We were made to feel extremely welcome as guests. I ordered a vegetarian sandwich and my wife had the spaghetti with meatballs; both dishes were excellent.
Next time we travel the same route, we will certainly be arranging a stop at Café Via.

Set up a team dinner/​birthday celebration for my daughter’s volleyball team. As usual I relied on Unilocal to find the perfect place. The restaurant isn’t much to look at, squeezed in a strip mall off Blackstone but the food, service and ambience was wonderful.
I had 21 people in all meet at the restaurant for dinner. My original reservation was for 15 but they willingly added tables and chairs to accomodate our expanding group. The group itself was composed of 17 and 18 year old girls and their «slightly older» parents.
The group ordered off the main menu and I was gratetful that they didnt require us to order off of the catering menu. The prices were reasonable between $ 13 – 22 for main dishes.
The food came out within minutes of each other so no one person had to wait while the others ate. The girls gave thumbs up to the pasta dishes they had (spaghetti and meatballs, penne puttanesca, shrimp scampi marinara (nice kick to this dish). The adults enjoyed the calzone selection. They allowed us to bring in our own cake (as the birthday girl was allergic to coconut).
Would return again to sample more of the menu. I appreciated the patience and professionalism of the wait staff. They were able to take our orders and didn’t bat an eye when we asked if they would split the bill.
The only thing that I missed was the piping hot bread that is normally brought to the table when dining in an Italian restaurant. That would have made it beyond wonderful.

Does not look like much from the outside, but this is a traditional «hole in the wall» where the food is outstanding at every turn. The prices are very reasonable, service was impeccable, and we will come back many times.
I had the New York strip steak sandwich, and the interplay between the caramelized onions, the basil and aioli, and the blue cheese was mouthwatering. My wife ordered the chicken Alfredo, and it was the rare Alfredo that was flavorful yet subtle, and the chicken was tender and in perfect quantity.

We sure have missed coming here regularly but finally made it out again a couple of days before Valentine’s. As always the food was amazing, although I was quite sad to see that my favorite potatoes off the menu. However, I would have to say that the award winning gumbo made up for that! It was amazing (according to my husband who loves gumbo) and I agree since it was my first time having it ever. However, the crowning moment is always their banana tart, which I fell in love with all over again.

You couldn’t talk me into coming back here under any circumstances.
Unilocalers have a really awesome track record of leading me and my family to places we really love and agree are really good. If Unilocalers overwhelmingly like it, we pretty much are guaranteed to like it too. In fact, this is the first place I can think of that we’ve been to that was almost universally raved about but where we had a flat-​out terrible time.
At first I wanted to chalk it up to «They must have had an off night» — but it seemed not really like an off night to me. The whole experience was unacceptable.
We went there last Saturday for my birthday. It was earlyish for dinner, so only a couple of other parties were there. Even so, we felt from the beginning as if we were a nuisance and not wanted. Was it because we had a child with us? She is as well behaved and polite as any adult. I just didn’t get the unfriendly vibe. We’re always extremely polite, friendly and low-​key whenever we go out to eat, whether it’s a greasy spoon or Erna’s.
Finally I decided the unwelcome vibe might be because the staff were visiting with a couple of other people (I don’t know who they were but they seemed to come in from the outside — like, they weren’t working there). Service was slow, and when I tried to catch the server’s attention to let her know my salad had the wrong kind of dressing — a dressing I really can’t /​don’t want to eat — I never managed to get her to look my way. Eventually I decided to give up on the salad, because it was taking too much of my attention away from my family — and I just wanted to enjoy being with my family. Life’s too short.
Actually at one point, I was pretty annoyed, and I imagined walking my inedible salad over there and saying «EXCUSE ME I HATE TO INTERRUPT YOUR FUN CONVERSATION BUT I CAN’T EAT THIS» but I didn’t. It was at that point that I decided to let it go and just enjoy my family.
Well, she took the salad away, uneaten, when the pasta came. You might think she would see it was uneaten and ask if everything was okay, but no. She had better things to do than to make sure I was enjoying my birthday dinner. And anyway, I figured a nice homemade alfredo would be filling enough that I wouldn’t miss the salad.
Wrong. It was a very small portion of pasta, a bland-​but-​okay sauce (nothing special at all) and then — I swear to God — processed, pre-​cooked chicken chunks like from the deli case at the grocery store. That chicken was horrible, inedible. So I got a few bites of pasta and bland sauce for 20-​some dollars. Horrible. For 20-​some dollars there ought to be real chicken pieces from a real chicken, not processed chickenish cubes.
Oh and that 20-​some dollars included some salad I couldn’t eat, right?
Wrong. The bill came and it turns out, when she asked each of us «Would you like soup or salad with that?» as if that was an included choice, she should have been asking us «Would you like to ADD soup or salad TO that?» because it wasn’t included and our lousy salads were an extra $ 5 each. I felt ripped off, and even more so because I got the wrong dressing and couldn’t eat it. Blue cheese gives me a migraine.
My husband got some soggy little sandwich on falling-​apart low-​quality bread.
I can’t even remember what my daughter got. It was that forgettable.
Oh and husband and I each got a beer, and the three of us split a piece of the coconut cake. Again, I was expecting a real «Wow» factor based on what people were saying about this cake. It was «just fine» — nothing special. A nice fluffy cake, just fine, with some very sweet frosting. We liked it, but it didn’t make up for the rest of the meal.
And this — three meh entrees, three «stealthily upsold salads,» a couple of beers, a soft drink, and one piece of cake — was well over $ 100 before the tip. We tip no matter how lousy the service is, but it was lousy, and that meal was no $ 100+ meal, and the experience was no $ 100+ experience. It was just an unpleasant experience — on my birthday, no less — and you couldn’t pay me to go back there and give it another chance.
I’ve read in a few places that this place as «five-​star food with three-​star prices» — I’d call it «two-​star food and one-​star service at four-​star prices.»

I wanted to try something new and found this place on Unilocal.Decided to give it a try and was pleasantly surprise.
When I walked in, it was empty so I was skeptical. The manager and waitress were so friendly and welcoming. I tried the Fettuccine Alfredo, my mother had the Pork Chops and my brother tried the steak salad. To start, we all had a salad and tried the pumpkin bisque. Everything was great!
We ended it with the banana tarte and their famous Coconut Cake. The Coconut Cake has me wanting to return just to have more cake!
If you haven’t tried this place yet, please do. It’s a great little hidden treasure with delicious food and great service.