dsmWeekly - August 14, 2024

If you're a Des Moines foodie, dsm Restaurant Week is basically your Olympics. (Photo: Duane Tinkey)

FOOD & DINING

Five dishes to try during dsm Restaurant Week
Summer vacations may be winding down, but don’t pack up and pack in just yet. We’ve mapped out a tour of flavors you can find close to home during dsm Restaurant Week. Of all the specials at this year’s 36 participating restaurants, here are five dishes we’re especially eager to try:

Emberred Cabbage, Mulberry Street Tavern. This vegetarian second course includes a coconut curry reduction, fish sauce caramel, pickled peppers and fresh herbs. It sounds adventurous and extravagant all at once.
PBLT Sandwich, Big Grove Brewery. A level up from the classic Iowan pork tenderloin, this handheld entree uses crispy pork belly as a base, with heirloom tomatoes, arugula, and rosemary aioli on onion sourdough bread.
Wagyu Carne Asada, Bar Nico. Wagyu beef got its start in Japan, but chefs in Des Moines have helped it branch out. This take on a Latin classic starts with Wagyu flank dressed up in adobo and guacachile sauces, plus corn relish. We love when cultures collide.
Mahi Mahi, Harbinger. This dish doesn’t sound so unusual until you get to the ingredients. The fish is marinated in ground cherries and citrus, and served with fire-roasted red peppers.
Deconstructed S’mores, BeerStyles Taproom. House-made graham crackers topped with a triple chocolate brownie, meringue, milk chocolate ganache, and chunks of smoked dark and white chocolate. Need we even say more?

All three dozen participating restaurants throughout the Des Moines metro are offering prix-fixe dinners ($40-$80) and lunch specials ($15-$25) to show off their most delicious dishes. Peek at some of the menus posted at dsmRestaurantWeek.com or check with individual restaurants to see exact menu items and pricing.

The first dsm Restaurant Week started in 2008 to celebrate Des Moines’ growing restaurant and dining scene, and to encourage folks to try some new places. Since then, dining options have diversified. Des Moines now claims several James Beard Award nominations for our local chefs, the city’s sommeliers bring worldly wine knowledge right to our tables, and restaurants across town are experimenting with more flavors and pop-up concepts than ever.

In addition to all those flavors, dsm Restaurant Week also celebrates the fact that many of the city’s restaurants are locally owned. We hope the owners, chefs, managers, servers, bartenders, bussers, dishwashers and everyone else in the industry feel the community’s appreciation and support throughout the week. After all, it's their hard work, talent and creativity that propel our dining scene forward and give us so much to enjoy.

How wonderful life is now that this Broadway show is in town. (Photo: Matthew Murphy)

BEST BET

Missing Paris after the Olympics? Try 'Moulin Rouge!'

Can you believe they wrote a musical about a scandalous Parisian dance hall? Well, yes, you probably can-can. The national tour of “Moulin Rouge!” kicks up its heels Tuesday through Sept. 1 at the Des Moines Civic Center, with all the gitchie-gitchie, ya-ya, razzle-dazzle that won 10 Tony Awards in 2020, including the prize for Best Musical. Like Baz Luhrmann’s gleefully over-the-top movie from 2001, the stage show tells the tale of a young bohemian composer who falls for a cabaret singer at the turn of the 20th century and learns a thing or two about l’amour.

The Week Ahead

“For Once In My Life” (7 p.m. Friday): Vocalist Napoleon Douglas sings from the catalogs of Stevie Wonder and Luther Vandross, accompanied by local funk band The Dirty Lowdown, at Noce.

Cat Meet & Greet at Black Cat Ice Cream (4 p.m. Saturday): Make some new feline friends while eating ice cream at this spot in the Drake neighborhood.

Teehee’s On Tour (8 p.m. Saturday): The stand-up comedians of Teehee’s Comedy Club are on the move, starting with a BYOB show at Moberg Gallery. In addition to the laughs, guests can enjoy snacks, prizes and photo ops with contemporary art.

Mid-Century Modern Condo Tour (Noon and 2 p.m. Sunday): Six condos in the swanky 1957 Sanford House on Grand Avenue open their doors for a tour and presentation on the building’s history. Tickets include a complimentary drink from Hello, Marjorie and benefit the Iowa Architectural Foundation.

Back 2 School Bash (2 p.m. Sunday): Head over to the John R. Grubb Community YMCA to support local students by playing carnival games and jumping on bounce houses. Plus, the first 1,000 students will take home free backpacks filled with new school supplies.

The new artistic director of Iowa’s only Black theater group is bringing his international experience back home to Des Moines. (Photo: Duane Tinkey)

ARTS & CULTURE

Meet Napoleon Douglas

By Mathany Ahmed

By the time Napoleon Douglas takes the stage at Noce Jazz Club on a warm spring night, he’s exhausted from a 12-hour day leading youth singing workshops. But his energy still fills the room as he flits from table to table, greeting old friends and club regulars. He helps tend the bar before stepping into the spotlight.

“When my chin is on the ground, I pick myself up, dust myself off and start all over again,” he croons to the audience. (He’ll croon again this Friday. See the “Week Ahead,” above.)

His voice carries the evidence of classical training, in the classroom and on Broadway, but has an innate charm that can’t be taught. He dances freely, laughs at his own forgetfulness and prays out loud that the liquor in his glass won’t affect his voice.

As comfortable as he seems in front of an audience, it’s hard to believe he didn’t always see himself destined for the limelight. “I’ve always performed, but for my whole life, I ran away from it,” he said. “It seems like I’ve always fallen into it, and that God’s always made a space for me to do it.”

Douglas has stepped into the spaces he says were created for him all over the globe. Now the performer with rare talent is entering a new era, back in his hometown of Des Moines.

He started performing as a child, first in holiday plays at Corinthian Baptist Church, then in the show choir at Roosevelt High School and later Drake University. He flirted with other interests — played football, ran track, helped lead a host of student organizations and dreamed of becoming a doctor or social worker. “I changed my major 12 times,” he said. “Music was the only consistent thing.”

After college, he took a wild chance on an open audition in Memphis, where he landed the role of Seaweed Stubbs in “Hairspray,” his first big role. Over the next decade, theater took him from Denver to New York, Los Angeles and Hong Kong. He found all kinds of work either onstage or right next to it, like the yearlong stint as the food and beverage director at dinner-theater spot and the six months he spent teaching Shakespeare.

His latest role: the artistic director of the Pyramid Theatre Co. back here in his hometown. He guides the group’s vision and helps choose which shows to produce to further the company’s mission to stage both classics and new works by African American playwrights.

In his first year in the new role, he used his influence and what he called his “big old Broadway ideas” to make theater more accessible. The company put on shows at Des Moines Area Community College that involved nontraditional students and helped churches produce a few holiday plays. This summer, Pyramid debuted “The Black Feminist Guide to the Human Body” by Lisa B. Thompson, which recently picked up four Cloris Award nominations. (Douglas himself earned a nod for choreographing “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical” at the Des Moines Playhouse.)

He also hopes to organize special community events like a gospel cabaret, he said. “You know, for the people who want to go have a glass of wine and listen to Kirk Franklin on a Saturday night.”

Ultimately, Douglas dreams of building a stronger local arts community, to pay forward the support he received when he was just starting to perform. Without a church that taught him, a music teacher who paid for his voice lessons and a stage to welcome him home, Douglas said he never would have found the joy that performing has brought him.

“Art heals,” he said. “Art teaches you how to be a good person. Theater puts me in other people’s shoes, and that’s allowed me to walk in the world a lot more humbly.”