My wife and I took a couple days out of our busy work schedules to get away to Des Moines for a long weekend and the Iowa State Fair. We stayed with a friend of ours out in the northwest suburb of Johnston and we were trying to figure out a fun place with good food, good drinks and a good craft beer selection on a Sunday evening. Our friend was no help. "I don't go out and eat all that much," she explained. "The only time I try new places is when you guys come to town!" I did some searches on line and found a number of places were closed. But of those that were open that evening, a Mediterranean restaurant by the name of Eatery A kept coming up. I knew I had either been to Eatery A or had heard of the place, but I couldn't quite figure it out. I made the executive decision to head to Eatery A for dinner that evening.
Now, what our friend said about her not knowing much about restaurants isn't quite true because she turned us on to one of our favorite breakfast/brunch places in Des Moines - Motley School Tavern. (Click here to see the Road Tips write-up on Motley School Tavern.) And there is a connection between MST (what the locals refer to the place as) and Eatery A. And that's where I had heard of Eatery A before.
Jason Simon is the longtime owner of the upscale American restaurant Alba located in the East Village of Des Moines. When he opened in 2008, a young sous chef by the name of Nic Gonwa was working with him in the kitchen. It wasn't long before Alba was one of the more popular culinary destinations in the greater Des Moines area.
In 2013, Simon started to seek out locations for a no-frills/straight-forward Mediterranean-style restaurant that Gonwa and he had been talking about doing. On Ingersoll Ave. along a stretch of the street known for restaurants and bars there was a former Blockbuster video rental store location. Due to bankruptcy by the parent company, Blockbuster shut down over 900 stores in 2010 including the one along Ingersoll Ave. In 2011 into late 2012, the building was used as the Iowa headquarters for the re-election of Barack Obama. After the election was over, the building sat vacant until early 2014 when Simon took over the location for his new restaurant.
Simon installed Gonwa as the head chef of the new venture - Eatery A - which opened in late summer of 2014. Gonwa's take on Mediterranean cuisine along with wood-fired pizzas made Eatery A a popular destination right from the start. In 2015, Nic Gonwa was nominated as a James Beard Award recipient as a Rising Star Chef.
In 2018, Simon and Gonwa had come up with a new concept for a restaurant, sort of an adult "after-school" place that had comfort food and a laid-back vibe. After taking over the Chef's Kitchen location in the Beaverdale neighborhood at the end of 2018, Simon and Gonwa opened Motley School Tavern in early 2019. They named the restaurant after the "motley" bunch of characters Gonwa and Simon had come across in their restaurant careers.
Gonwa moved over to Motley School Tavern and Simon had to reach out in the chef ranks around the area to replace Gonwa as chef at Eatery A. He found such a person in Andy Sayre, a veteran of restaurants such as (the now-closed) Baru 66, Echo Valley Country Club, and the acclaimed Mirabelle at Beaver Creek outside of Vail, CO. A native of Jefferson, IA, Sayre was a graduate of the culinary arts program at Des Moines Area Community College. Sayre continued Eatery A's unique stylings on Mediterranean cuisine under Simon's leadership and with help from Gonwa.
I had made reservations for us through Open Table at 7 p.m. I underestimated the time it took to get from our friends place in Johnston into Des Moines to get to Eatery A and we showed up about 25 minutes early. Ingersoll Ave. was torn up in front of Eatery A, but we were able to get into the parking lot through a temporary opening. (see map) Even for a Sunday night, the restaurant was packed and we were lucky to get the last parking spot in the lot.
We walked inside and went to the host stand at the very front just inside the door. I explained to him that we had reservations for three at 7 p.m., but we were early. As he took a look as to where he could put us, I looked over to my right at the three-sided bar with the large wood-fired oven behind the bar area.
The bar was actually pretty cool. It featured reclaimed barn wood and the corners were curved. The bar top was thick block wood and very elegant looking. I would have been happy just to belly up to the bar to have dinner.
There was a dining area in the back of the restaurant area. It also featured reclaimed barn board walls with a series of tables and booths. Upscale Edison light fixtures hung from the ceiling giving the room a warm glow.
Out front looking through the large windows, there was the patio area. It was elevated from the street so there wasn't the constant noise from vehicles going by. It was a beautiful evening and the patio was packed. The host said that he couldn't sit us out there, but he had a booth next to the bar that was available. We were more than fine with that.
After we were seated, our server for the evening came over to greet us. Her name was Destiny and everyone at our table went, "Ohhhh! What a great name!" She thanked us for that and dropped off menus for us to go through.
Destiny asked if we wanted to start off with something to drink and my wife ordered a Tito's dirty martini. I got an Easy Eddy hazy IPA from Big Grove Brewery, and our friend got an old fashioned. "I don't know why I ordered a bourbon drink," she said. "It just sounded good!" Eatery A also has an extensive collection of wines from Italy, Spain, Argentina and California.
The dinner menu featured pasta dishes such as cavatelli with a duck ragu, bucatini with meat balls, and fettuccine with shredded cheese and black pepper. They had items such as a hanger steak, a duck breast with seared polenta, and skewers of seafood, beef or chicken. Salads, soups, and appetizers such as calamari, bacon-wrapped dates, and beef kibbeh - basically raw beef carpaccio - were also available. A charcuterie selection of meats and cheese was also on the menu for an appetizer. And their wood-fired pizzas featured all the regular toppings, but they also had gyro meat, Italian capicola, Genoa salami, and Moroccan beef kofta available as toppings.
We started out getting some house-made hummus. It came with warm pieces of sumac flatbread and featured chickpeas and chermoula blended together with tahina yogurt drizzled on top with fresh parsley flakes. The hummus was excellent - some of the best I've had and I haven't been eating hummus all that much until, well, just within the last couple of years. But my wife - who has been eating hummus much longer than that - also said that the hummus was some of the best she ever had.
We also got three of the oven-baked sides to go along with our meal as either an appetizer or as a side as they came out first. I ordered the roasted mushrooms - button mushrooms topped with fine bread crumbs and a mixture of herbs. They were sensational in flavor. My wife ordered up the warm olives with chopped artichoke hearts. They were served with marinated tomatoes and thyme with a hint of orange added in. They were also fabulous in taste. And our friend ordered the Brussels sprouts. They were drizzled with a pomegranate syrup and fine breadcrumbs, then roasted in the oven. All three of the side/appetizer dishes were outstanding.
For our main course that evening, our guest ended up getting the chicken shawarma. It was grilled with marinated cucumbers and served with hummus, yogurt and flat bread. It was finished with some cilantro leaves. Our friend declared it to be "wonderful". "The chicken is crispy on the outside, and tender and juicy on the inside. This is awesome!"
My wife went with the sirloin tips skewer. It featured four chunks of beef cooked to a medium rare to medium and served with a peach and almond tabbouleh salad, herbed lebnah yogurt, all topped with a roasted tomato vinaigrette. The presentation in the bowl was spectacular. "I hope it tastes as good as it looks," she said admiring the food before she ate it. Spoiler alert: She said it was as good as it looked.
As soon as we started to look at the menu, my wife saw something that jumped out at her. "Oh, look, honey," she exclaimed. "They have grilled octopus!" I thought momentarily about the lasagna with the beef and pork bolognese, but I kept going back to the octopus. It was a no brainer. It was Spanish octopus with ground chorizo, Yukon gold potatoes, and a parsley/anchovy bagnetto verde sauce. The octopus was cooked perfectly and I shared a bite with my wife and our friend. My wife remarked that some octopus she had with me in the past had been too rubbery. Our friend said that she never cared for octopus for the same reason. "I never liked the texture of octopus," she said. "But this is actually very good!" And it certainly was.
We had shared the hummus, the sides and bites of each of our dinners with one another that evening, sort of a Mediterranean-style family-style experience. Destiny came out with a dessert menu and I sort of groaned as I was already pretty full. They had affogoto - espresso with vanilla gelato, but for some reason I didn't get that. My wife eyed the Meyer lemon cheesecake made with a red wine and blueberry glaze and powdered chocolate. She ordered that with three forks. It was also remarkably delicious. But I was stuffed after all of that.
We really didn't know what to expect when we went into Eatery A, but it turned out to be one of the more memorable dining experiences we'd had in a long time. Weeks after our visit there, my wife and I were still talking about how good it was. The food was fabulous, the decor and ambiance with remarkable, and Destiny's service was top-notch. Our friend - who had also never been to Eatery A before - said, "You know, I could just come back here, sit at the bar, get a drink and order up the hummus and pita bread and I'd be set!" There's a number of interesting items on the menu at Eatery A that I would have no problem heading back there in the future to try something else.
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