HoQ Restaurant — Restaurant in Des Moines

My first night ever on Iowa Territory was nothing but exceptional. It was the first time in 2 years that me and my girlfriend will be spending some time together. So to celebrate our reunion and her graduation from Iowa State University, her brother made reservations to this fancy restaurant, where they say they do Farm to Table with every item. Let's see if it lived up to that meaning.

From the outside, it looks very much like it was one of the office buildings that we passed it twice. But the inside looks so well clean, and well dressed up like a true fancy style restaurant. Before we all had our appetizers, we were served with a sample of the chef's onion rings and some Naan, which were amazing! For an appetizer, we had the pierogis and the cheese plate. The Pierogis were so soft and flavorful and had a touch of garlic to it! All of the cheese from the cheese plate were delightful to taste. My entree was the grass fed steak, cooked medium well, with their homemade tator tots, and cooked vegetables. Since I'm not an vegetable person, I just ate the steak and tots, which had a pan sauce which I believe was made after the steak was cooked. The steak was so tender that it melted in my mouth. The tator tots were cripy and soft and the pan sauce some how manage to accompliment them. But the fun isn't done as we finished off with their White Chocolate Raspberry Bread Pudding with homemade Vanilla Ice Cream. Overall i have had an AMAZING experience here and when I do go back to Iowa in the future, This place I will go back to get that steak once again. The staff is very friendly and recommended their favorite items! 10/10...

HoQ prides itself in sourcing nearly all it's ingredients from local farms, so the menu is constantly evolving.

Should be no surprise that the service is exceptional. David was very attentive and could have explained each menu item's details in his sleep. The service staff also brought out a sampler of meatballs & garlic naan while we contemplated our order.

We tried a 3-course menu that was offered last evening, which started off with a choice of either salad or soup (we ordered one of each, in order to try both). The salad was a strong lemon vinaigrette with beets & squash, which I thought was quite good. The highlight, however, was the butternut squash bisque. Borderline perfect, couldn't get enough of it.

Our entrees were Braised Beef & Salmon en Papillote. The beef itself had a relatively mellow flavor, accompanied by some squash & a pretty delicious spaetzle. The Salmon dish was excellent, and every ingredient used seemed to compliment itself very well...from the light cream sauce, to the buttery potatoes.

The shared dessert was a Grand Marnier Chocolate Cake with house-made whipped cream. The whipped cream probably could have been a bit more sweet to balance out the bitterness of the dark chocolate, but was a nice way to cap off a great meal.

HoQ is certainly a must-visit if you're interested at all in the Des Moines fine-dining scene. I hear their lunch options are also great, if you don't necessarily want to dive in to the deep end to splurge for dinner. Regardless, well...

My wife and I had an impromptu date night, and we wanted some place we hadn't been before. Luckily, we remember HoQ. It was a Friday night at 7pm. We had made a reservation, but there was no need it was not even half full on this evening.

We started with the Cod beignets and chickpea/carrot salad to start. Both were very tasty. I ended up having more of the chickpeas and carrots, in the kabob later. We also had the New York strip. Both were excellent. The steak was just a shade under the medium temperature that we asked for in the thickest part, but since we were taking 1/2 of it home, we just ate from the thinner ends.

The lamb kabobs were tasty, although a little off putting when you first see them. I mean they looked like something a bear might leave in the woods, if you know what I mean!

Another small quibble, was with the chickpea/carrot salad. The carrots were julienned, and hard to eat. You can't poke them with a fork, and were hard to scoop up. I'd suggest going with a different cut, perhaps sliced and quartered?

So, yeah, I've given it 5 stars and won't change due to these quibbles. It was super relaxed, very tasty, and a bit expensive for us (All the food mentioned, plus a beer and a mixed drink was $115).

We like the concept of "eating local", and places like this help us do exactly that. We will certainly be back as the menu changes with the seasons. We may even checkout the Mother's Day brunch...