We visited La Via for a quiet Saturday night dinner.... Quiet because it was freezing cold outside and we were just planning on getting there, eating and getting home again... brrrrr.
Luckily we were seated at the back of the restaurant away from the cold, but as there were outdoor heaters at the front, it wouldn’t have really mattered anyway.
La Via has a great sounding pizza menu and a short menu of Italian main meals to choose from. All sounded really delicious so it was difficult for us to choose.
La Via is licensed, so we ordered a glass of wine each, with Pinot Grigio for me. L's was an Australian red wine blend, Sons of Eden GSM, which apparently stands for Grenache, shiraz and mourvedre. You learn something new every day!
Our shared entree was the speck mac and cheese arancini with black truffle aioli. I didn’t really pay that much attention and thought we were just ordering normal arancini with risotto centres, so I was surprised when tiny bits of macaroni exploded from the centre. L thought it was a bit bogan to have mac and cheese, however I really liked it. The truffled aioli was tasty however when put together with the mac and cheese made for a little bit of a gluggy combination in your mouth.
Onto our mains, L ordered the snapper, ocean trout, prawn, moreton bay bug and squid lasagne, with sugo, goats cheese and parmesan béchamel. It was presented in its oven baked dish and was not as you would expect a usual lasagne, ie layered and square, obviously due to the massive chunks of seafood floating around. The dish was definitely generous with the amount of seafood presented, although it was not cooked equally, L had one piece of bug that was overcooked whereas another piece was perfectly cooked. He really enjoyed the cheesyness of the béchamel and overall really liked his meal.
I ordered a pear, gorgonzola and prosciutto pizza, which had a white base (ie no tomato sauce). Overall I liked the pizza, although I wanted just a little more proscuitto (yum yum) and I was expecting the pear to be sweeter, instead it was crunchy and slightly tart.
The pizza base was fantastic, thin and slightly chewy. I definitely think that La Via could be a contender for one of the best pizzas in Brisbane (although this particular pizza was not better than most of the pizzas I have had at Beccofino).
Will we be back? Definitely. We didn’t know that La Via existed until we walked past it one day and now that we know its there at South Bank we will definitely go back.
Love,
C
hmm i havent had italian in a long while but this entry has definitely got that craving starting!
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