Centro — Restaurant in Des Moines

I recently had my hair and makeup trial for my wedding, so I wanted to take advantage of how dressed up I was. I put on my favorite dress and my fiance and I drove to Centro for a romantic dinner. We were a bit worried about parking, but ended up with a spot right across the street at 6:36 pm on a Friday.

The restaurant was really easy to find, and once inside, it looked beautiful, with dim lighting and candles at each table. Perfect! When we got to the front desk, they informed us it was a 30-45 minute wait for inside seating, but they had patio seating available immediately. We aren't huge outdoor eaters, but it's better than waiting!

The patio was adorable. They had overhead fan so, even though it was hot outside, we stayed comfortable. Our waiter brought us some of the best bread I've ever had. Seasoned well, soft, the perfect amount of chewy. No butter or oil required.

For our appetizer, we ordered the crab cakes. They came out GORGEOUS, and they tasted better than they looked. They were packed with crab, and the sauce was a nice compliment. Needless to say, they were devoured. Side note, they are VERY filling.

For entrees, I had the steak salad and my fiance tried their Kill Bill tenderloin. We both remarked that you would have no idea that a restaurant that was this fancy would serve a sandwich called the Kill Bill, but I kind of liked that about the place. It was really nice, while being "real" at the same time.

Steak Salad - Fresh parmesian, big peices of steak, and just the right amount if dressing. It was huge and I didn't finish it, though I wanted to!

Kill Bill - My fiance LOVED the tenderloin, and especially loved the fries. The fries were crispy brown and definitely didn't taste like the frozen variety you get at some restaurants. They were very good! His food came our beautiful as well.

We passed on dessert, having not been able to finish our entrees. Our waiter was great. He let his personality shine through just enough without being over the top or overbearing, which can be a hard balance to find. I was most impressed by how my water glass NEVER went empty (and I drink a LOT of water when I'm out). The service was great and the food was amazing. Perfect place for a romantic evening.

When we return, we plan on ordering just appetizers so we can try out their...

Overall my experience wasn't terrible, but when I measure Centro up as a fine-dining establishment where the main entrees are in the $20+ range I found it to be lacking and probably not someplace I'll be going back to.

Seating When my wife and I ate there it was relatively early (5:30 PM) on a Saturday night so it wasn't too busy yet - I think this helped considerably because, as the Google Maps Photos and other reviewers have commented, if the place was packed then you'd have people sitting 2 feet to either side of you. I know it's not a very large venue, but I feel that trying to squeeze as many seats into the space as possible is not the solution.

Food/Drinks I had the Spicy Sausage Rigatoni and my wife had the Chicken and Prosciutto - The food tasted good, had good presentation and we both had enough leftover to take home for a healthy leftovers portion. We each had a drink - I ordered a Bellini, which I would not order again, and my wife ordered a Pomegranate martini which she liked. I found the drink-selection process to be cumbersome because they brought us a tablet with an interface that didn't really work very well and on the whole was not an improvement over simply printing out a drink menu with what alcohols were available and what their specialty drinks might be (back to the old adage that Less is More).

We were surprised/disappointed that there was no desert - or at least none that was offered to us.

Service As I mentioned, it was early on a Saturday evening, and the crowd of wait-staff that were standing around just watching us as we talked, ordered, and drank/ate was a bit unnerving. Our waiter himself was okay, I wouldn't say that he was great. He seemed polite and professional but considering the place was not busy at all he didn't spend any more time at our table than he had to.

A small issue I had, and maybe a little trivial, was that I was very much disappointed that our waiter did not grate fresh Parmesan cheese on our meals for us. After having that service at chain restaurants like Olive Garden and Bravo, I was very surprised that Centro skimps in that regard.

One other thing - we thought it was a little peculiar that he didn't offer to send the remainder of the complimentary bread...

Overall I was disappointed. I understand everybody is different and prone to liking what they're used to and everybody has different taste buds and so on and so forth. I'm not saying this is a bad place to eat , I'm just talkin for myself in my own preferences and taste buds. so with that being said, there wasn't enough room for everything on the table they seated us at and it was plenty dark and kind of hard to see. I ordered the pork chop meal and me and my husband split a salad. The salad had a lot hard pieces from the core of the head of lettuce which is not pleasant to eat and it had an overwhelming amount of, I think, was blue cheese chunks which overrode the salad itself, but the dressing was okay, I had the pork chop meal which came with potatoes and asparagus.I personally didn't care for the seasoning on the pork chop, it really wasn't anything that special. I was expecting something more tasty. The potatoes we're kind of hard and the seasoning was nothing special and were kind of bland. And for the asparagus, I just don't like asparagus it's hard to eat, has no flavor and taste like grass. so I didn't care for the meal overall so much. I tasted my husband's food that he ordered .He ordered the chicken with penne pasta and it was nothing extraordinary either just basic stuff. And since it was our anniversary they said we got a complimentary dessert. I was thinking we both would get a dessert but we had to share. Which was fine it just seemed kind of tacky on Centro's part. It was like they were saying we really don't want to do this but it looks bad if we don't so you guys can just split a piece. So that was my overall experience at Centro. But like I said that's just me some people may love the taste of whatever they ordered and love what I did not so I'm not saying it's a bad place to eat, I just didn't care...