The expanded, remodeled Virginia Inn offers more to love

Even if we rarely set foot in them, there are some restaurants we love just for being there. I was introduced to the Virginia Inn about 15 years ago, when my search for fellow French speakers led me to the restaurant's Monday French night (sadly, now defunct), a weekly gathering of the city's lonely Francophiles. I found it again years later in the summer, on a sunny day, when its sidewalk patio beckoned with an afternoon drink and a perfect lazy perch for people-watching.

More recently, when my boyfriend and I needed a post-pub nosh, it was there again, its tiny kitchen producing the perfect late-night plate of meat and cheese to buffer the previous hours of cavorting.

The food has always been contentedly ordinary, the tap selections always glorious. The V.I. is ever classy, never pretentious; it is historic, modern and timeless all at once. And it's been there faithfully, roosting on the corner above Pike Place Market, somehow tourist-free, since 1903.

Current owners Jim Fotheringham and Patrice Demombynes, who bought it nearly 25 years ago, announced last November that it was time to give the old cafe the TLC it needed to make sure it would be with us another hundred years. They seized the opportunity to annex the space next door (a former graphic-design office), giving us an expanded V.I. that's only different from the old in that now there's just more to love.

They knocked down the southern wall and moved the entire bar -- with its antique wood, glass cabinetry and brass foot rails, which have relieved the weary feet of Seattleites of all walks, from gold prospectors to light-rail planners -- across the room. That made space for nearly 30 more much-needed seats, plus a dozen or so more spots on the patio.

The woodworkers who built the original booths and benches were on board again to create the new ones, attaining a seamless sameness across the divide. The design of the original tile floor was replicated with a new set, but you wouldn't know it by looking (bonus points if you find the flaws in the pattern that give it away).

The kitchen has been remodeled to handle not only more volume, but more complexity as well. To the long-standing list of appetizers and standards, like the smoked salmon plate, fantastic Dungeness crab cakes and chicken and andouille gumbo, they've added an expanded selection of entrées, including a grilled wild salmon, wild mushroom pasta and an oyster stew attributed to someone named "Mar," which intriguingly combines oysters, artichokes, ham, shallots and spinach.

Chef Harrison Ripley, with years at the Green Lake Grill and Maple Leaf Grill under his belt, seems to bring to the menu just the right blend of Northwest ingredients, nods to the cafe's French tradition (Fotheringham is married to a Frenchwoman and Demombynes is half French), subtle refinement and neighborhood humility.

To make sure not to alienate their regulars, many of whom live in the low-income senior housing apartments occupying the former Inn upstairs, Fotheringham and Demombynes even paid their staff through the closing and remodel to make sure the same familiar faces were still there when they reopened.

If you're meeting the V.I. for the first time, you're in store for a long and reliable friendship. And if you're getting reacquainted, you'll find that a visit there is like running into a teenager you admired as a child. Her sweet features are still recognizable, but they've mellowed with maturity -- and her gaze is focused on a bright future.

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