The Village shopping center in Prairie Village has a new tale to tell — about American sturgeon caviar with fingerling chips, golden tilefish with crab fritter and English peas, braised beef cheeks with smoked gnocchi and fava beans.
The center’s new upscale, contemporary American restaurant, Story, is focusing on fresh seasonal ingredients that might be from a “certain garden, certain sea, certain farm,” that are favorites of Story’s owners, Carl and Susan Thorne-Thomsen.
An area chef-restaurateur stopping in at Story on friends and family night — during a preopener week to give the staff a dry run — found the wine list to be well-thought out. Carl Thorne-Thomsen said he worked on the list for a long while, selecting different, sometimes small wineries, with maybe a limited run.
“Wines that mean something to me, ones that I enjoy,” he said.
The operation, at 3931 W. 69th Terrace (formerly Natural Wear), has three menus — lunch, afternoon snack and dinner. It seats about 60 people in the sleek, white dining room, and has a large bar area and outdoor patio seating.
An uncle is famed photographer Ray K. Metzker, whose work is on exhibit at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art through June 5. The couple also incorporated a Metzker landscape piece in the glass wall dividers, one taken in the woods at the Wisconsin summer cottage of Carl Thorne-Thomsen’s grandparents.