New restaurateur Bruce Taher just might be tackling the dining-out world one suburb at a time.

His Taher Inc., which manages 400-plus food service operations in schools, nursing homes, summer camps, businesses and other institutions, waded into the restaurant business earlier this year by opening the appealing Wayzata Eatery. Now he’s taking on the familiar steak-and seafood genre, moving into the former Shelly’s Woodroast in St. Louis Park and christening it the AlaskaEatery& Glacier Bar.

ALASKA EATERY & GLACIER BAR

6501 Wayzata Blvd.,

St. Louis Park, 952-345-0505,

www.alaskaeatery.com

Open 11 a.m. to l0 p.m daily.

The mock-rustic North Woodssetting remains mostly unchanged,and with its gigantic fireplace, heavytimbers and stuffed, wall-mountedbig game, it could certainly pass foran overgrown cabin on the outskirtsof Sitka – OK, one that also happensto include a brightly lit commercialkitchen and a big bar.

The dinner menu’s main attractions are straight-up lists of fish (halibut, salmon, swordfish, tuna) and chops (beef, lamb, pork), grilled over crackling woods and paired with a bevy of compound butters. With the exception of a monster 32-ounce porterhouse, which clocks in at $80, prices hover in the $28 range.

Crab cakes, clam chowder, Caesar salad and other companion dishes ($8 to $19) fall in the steakhouse milieu; others are more adventurous (bison carpaccio, shrimp with Cheddar polenta). Specialty entrees ($10 to $31) include a lamb-scallop-chicken paella and lobster in a number of combinations – ravioli, macaroni and cheese, a burger, a club sandwich. Baked Alaska, natch, tops thedessert roster. Twenty wines by theglass land in the $6 to $12.50 range.

RICK NELSON

Startribune.com/taste – Thursday, November 1, 2007 – Section T