Centro voted No. 1 on Top 100 Restaurants list

Three of Centro's core staff, from left: executive chef Bill Overdyk, bartender Katie Goodwin and owner George Formaro. (Credit: Eric Rowley/Metromix)

Centro
1011 Locust St.; 248-1780
centrodesmoines.com

A good restaurant doesn’t just consistently turn out quality food. It becomes part of the fabric of a city, an emotional landmark.

In Des Moines, one restaurant resonates with the community like no other. Of the more than 1,700 people who submitted top 10 restaurant lists, 577 placed Centro somewhere in their top 10.

Centro is the place where busy mom Kristi Myers, 33, and her husband escape to celebrate each other’s birthdays over sea scallops. It’s where new-to-town medical students like Alyssa Rammer, 25, take their fathers when they visit. It’s where a young professional like Nicole Peckumn, 31, can dine next to a Senator (John Kerry, in this case) and then brag to friends in bigger cities who have only seen him on C-SPAN. (All three voted Centro the top restaurant in central Iowa.)

A night at Centro is a meal, yes, but it’s also an experience. Executive Chef Bill Overdyk, 32, pays homage to his grandmother in the way he executes “New Italian” dishes using Iowa-grown ingredients, and the staff of 80 will keep your glass full. Split a pizza from the wood burning oven and spend a little, or splurge on the Steak Centro. Either way you’re going to eat well and you’re going to be taken care of. 

When Centro opened in 2003, downtown Des Moines was a much different place. Before the restaurant came to occupy the street level, the Temple for the Performing Arts was at risk of demolition. Office buildings like ING were just steel skeletons, and our shiny geometric library didn’t exist. The downtown we enjoy today grew around this restaurant on the corner, with its European sidewalk patio and glowing windows that perfectly frame a bustling bar crowd. The scene at Centro six years later is proof there’s life here after happy hour. 

Peer closer through the glass and you might be surprised who’s in the dining room. (Ray Liotta and Tommy Chong were owner George Formaro’s favorites of 2009, but in the past 24 months the restaurant has hosted both Hollywood types and those who require a Secret Service sweep.)

Feeding the famous is fun, but Centro focuses on the people who keep it open, like graduate student Kristin Clague, who hoards South Union bread, then carries her big brown Centro bag like it’s a Louis Vuitton.

“(The Centro leftover bag) is like a status symbol,” said Clague, 23, who also voted Centro No. 1. “Passersby look at your to-go bag, and you get to say, 'Yep, that’s right, I went to Centro. Jealous?’ and keep on walking with your head high, knowing you’re going to have a great free lunch the next day.”

The restaurant plans to reward a community that stepped out of their comfort zone and tried its Portobello fries. Centro and other properties managed by Orchestrate Management & Associates are in talks to form a charitable foundation aimed at supporting local growers. “We will be able to go out and make big donations to organizations that help feed the community,” Chris Diebel, Orchestrate’s director of marketing said.

Sounds to us like a doggie bag the whole city will enjoy.