By Jim Duncan CVFDude@aol.com
Restaurant of the year — Alba
Occupying the north edge of East Village, Alba swaggers with edgy style. The venue is an architectural treasure, a Deco era Ford dealership dashingly redesigned by cutting edge architect Greg Wattier with orangewood tables, fishbowl windows, antique door ceiling tiles, curved walls, a door-less “private” room and oversized Tiki lounge of a bar. The latter’s faux lava walls focus on the best table in town — a six seat semicircular bar that bellys up to an immaculate open kitchen. This year, owner-chef Jason Simon recruited top new talent, including Scott Stroud, who had been a head chef at Dos Rios, and Greg Moore, who used to manage the bar at Centro. No place has better overall service.
Simon and three other chefs serve more than 100 seats efficiently with a sensible menu of barely 20 items, stylishly tweaked several times a year. On the raw level, last spring’s tartare hamachi duo, with paprika aioli, mango paste, micro greens and blood orange segments, was replaced in summer with a Kobe beef carpaccio, rolled and served gorgeously with a five pepper sauce, scallions and bulls blood beet sprouts. This month, that became a carpaccio of bay scallops with lemon and fresh mint.
Similarly tempura seafood fritters with mango morphed into chicken and chile fritters with tarragon aioli and pineapple. Excellent terrines changed during the year and included both duck and venison versions that accompanied signature home made crackers and mustards. Deviled eggs were served last spring with beets, pickled squash and blood oranges. Last week they came with chives, shallots and scallions. Other memorable appetizers included: braised pork belly on a frisee, radish and onion salad; warm goat cheese with prosciutto and chutney; and bruschetta with multiple chutneys plus a pear and chorizo ragu. Chorizo fries ranked with Centro’s duck fries as the best in town. Butternut squash soup developed into a super star. Most recently it was flavored with fennel and hand poured at my table over seared homemade cinnamon marshmallow — then topped with green apple slices. I matched that once with a warm salad of calamari, chorizo, spinach and pickled peppadew peppers in aged sherry vinaigrette. “Soup and salad” never had it better in Des Moines.
Simon’s entrees evolved, too. Huge seared scallops, accompanied last spring by a saffron-colored cauliflower puree with nuts, were served last week in a veal sauce with sun dried tomatoes, leeks, potato gnocchi and petals of Brussels sprouts. Gnocchi have become an Alba signature and recently included: potato gnocchi in crème fraiche, with large prawns and truffle oil; and sweet potato gnocchi in brown butter with bacon and kale. Currently Simon’s best starch is a venison and pear ragu on homemade parpadelle with peppadews.
Steaks are prepared bistro style. A ribeye came with a superb foie gras sauce earlier in the year. This month hanger steak was hard seared, sliced and served with mashed potatoes, tomatoes and kale. Braised and pulled veal breast was warmed in veal demiglace and served with leeks and tomato petals, plated with butternut squash and radicchio. Duck breast, cooked perfectly rare, was sliced and served on a heavenly shiitake risotto, with cranberries and fresh mint. Root vegetables were offered au gratin with kale, mushrooms, farro and Grana Padano. Short ribs were braised in Guinness and wine, pulled and served in their jus on kale and homemade spaetzels.
Desserts were all scratch made, even the ice creams and the syrups. They were more extravagant in size than style. The most innovative were layered panna cotta, mixed one time with fruit jelly and espresso cream, another time with root beer jelly and root beer syrup. Lava cake and claufoutis were more by the book.
Bottom line — Right now, Alba has an edge over other cafés in town.CV
Caption: Gnocchi has become a restaurant signature at Alba, 524 E 6th St., 244-0261. Tuesday through Saturday, 5 p.m. to close.
