Meet the new restaurant opening in West Des Moines that promises a modernized steakhouse

A new restaurant on the dining horizon plans to modernize the steakhouse with bolder flavors, steak and seafood options at an oyster bar, and dishes cooked on an open-fire hearth.

Chef Dominic Iannerelli, who most recently served as executive chef and director of restaurants for Splash Seafood and Jethro’s BBQ and worked with the company for 23 years, left to open his own restaurant this spring. Prime & Providence promises to bring a modern twist to the steak and seafood genre when it opens at 595 S. 60th St. in West Des Moines in mid-April.

The restaurant, built from scratch from the ground up, is part of 595 Tower, a new five-story building, whose master developer is DRA Properties. Retail and the restaurant take up the lower level, with commercial real estate broker CBRE moving into the second floor and 10 owner-occupied condos filling floors three through five.

“Our goal with this development was to combine luxurious living with thoughtful retail spaces,” said Dennis Albaugh, who owns DRA Properties. “In doing so we have sought a dining concept with world-class local talent that we feel can turn heads not only regionally but nationally.”

Iannerelli teamed up with local attorney and businessman Cory F. Gourley and his investment group, FTG Investments LLC, to open Prime & Providence. “Bringing local culinary talent to the western suburbs is long overdue,” Gourley said in a news release.

Here’s what to know before it opens.

What’s on the menu at Prime & Providence

“There’s nothing super profound with it. It’s just a different way to think of a steakhouse dinner in my mind,” Iannerelli said as he talked about his vision for the menu.

A 15-foot open-fire hearth, perhaps the largest in Iowa, and 10-seat oyster bar say all diners need to know about the menu. Steak and seafood form the heart of the dishes Iannerelli and his team plan to serve.

The steaks: On the steaks side of the menu, expect to find something a little different, like Elite prime, American wagyu, and Japanese kobe grilled to order.

Gourley, who’s been friends with Iannerelli for years, talked about Wolfgang Puck’s Cut steakhouse at the Palazzo in Las Vegas and ordering different types of the same cut of steak there. “I could order four different types of filets. It wasn’t just one filet,” he said of the idea of having options for diners.

Iannerelli sources his American wagyu from southwestern Iowa and ages his meat in the Twin Cities. The restaurant has a wholesale license to purchase Kobe beef from Japan. “I want to make sure what we’re doing and what we're sourcing is exactly what we say it is,” he said about the decision to bring in their own Kobe instead of sourcing through another company.

He plans to offer Japanese beef tastings with wagyu from Hokkaidō and Kagoshima, along with Kobe. Diners can order it by the ounce and do a tasting with the different beefs, hopefully discovering a new favorite.

The seafood: At the oyster bar, diners can see East Coast and West Coast oysters and watch seafood towers, both hot and cold, constructed. Lobster tails, crab legs, shrimp, ceviche and more will find a home here.

“Once we get our feet under us from a culinary standpoint, we’ll do some more American omakase tastings and beef tastings,” Iannerelli said. “It’s kind of a way to have a chef’s table but not.”

The vegetables: For side dishes, his flavor combinations will evolve with the seasons. “In an à la carte place, the side dishes shouldn’t be an afterthought,” he said. “To me, they should be another expression. We’re gonna open up with a half dozen vegetables, half dozen starchy dishes.”

That’s where he concentrates on what he calls the “cheffier” part of the menu. While there will be, for example, a Caesar salad, he’ll get a bit more daring with the beets, the root vegetable salads, and some grilled salads. The wedge salad will be grilled, for example.

“This is not going to be a place where you get like steamed broccoli. It’s not what we want to do with it,” he said.

He also plans to source from local produce partners such as Grade A Gardens, Dog Patch Urban Gardens, and Rinehart’s Family Farms on dishes such as whole roasted cauliflower, broccoli rabe, and honeynut squash with whipped ricotta.

For example, asparagus will be on the menu when in season, but Iannerelli might grill it with a spritz of lemon and a cured egg yolk on top. Maybe he will sous vide the asparagus, or add a deconstructed béarnaise sauce on the side. “Just a little more elevated that way,” he said as he described the asparagus.

A whole head of cauliflower might be roasted on the outside, soft on the inside, highlighted with rose, pistachios and dukkah for a Middle Eastern flair in the summer, and bacon jam and peppers in the winter. “The idea is that the cauliflower will always be there, but the flavors will evolve. I see us changing the menu four or five times a year, depending on what we’re finding and what people gravitate toward.”

He also likes pairing the same vegetables prepared different ways. Honey-roasted carrots might come with a carrot puree, or sweet corn arrives served three ways — as a creamed corn crème br?lée, a corn French toast made with corn bread and syrup, and a straight up sweet corn.

In the winter, Iannerelli plans to concentrate on preserves and the larder “to continue to try to carry out flavors with local things as long as we can get it.”

The potatoes: Diners can expect 50/50 mashed potatoes, a deconstructed mille-feuille potato gratin, and rolled lasagna, a dish made famous by Don Angie in New York City.

The bar program: Behind the bar, diners can expect seasonal craft cocktails and a wine program heavily influenced by California reds. Batch cocktails and some wines under $10 a glass will be on the menu.

“This is a chef-driven steakhouse. This is not a chain steakhouse. It’s the the polar opposite of that. The flavors are very bold.”

Iannerelli talked about how Prime & Providence will be the opposite of the menu served at Oak Park, the other hot new restaurant that opened in 2023 with delicate dishes plated with finesse.

“That isn’t what this is. These are bold. This is bringing fatty cuts of steak, some side dishes that might be a little too rich, and there might be a little too much butter.”

What does it look like inside?

The 6,900-square-foot restaurant designed by The Idea Collective in Dayton, Ohio, will seat 190 when it opens in mid-April. The overarching theme here is modern with plenty of natural light from the floor-to-ceiling windows. Deep blues and light creams play off each other to give the space a lighter air, while different textures from the seating to the floors add character to the rooms. Above, the ceiling seems to disappear into the night.

The bar and lounge: To the right of the hostess stand, the bar and lounge area awaits with a combination of booths and high tops. Off white tables sans table clothes flanked by offset, light brown leather booths give the room an airier feel. Floor-to-ceiling windows look out to the south and east of the restaurant. The bar features a white quartz countertop with lighting underneath.

”People want to come in and feel like they’re at a fun, upscale bar,” Iannerelli said.

The lounge will also feature wine lockers for diners to rent and stash their favorite reds and whites. “It gives people ownership. As much as we love to go out and dine, it’s also always fun to make sure you have the wines you want,” Iannerelli said.

The patio: Wrapped around the south and east sides of the restaurant, a patio with floor-to-ceiling windows looking out from the restaurant. The patio may not be open when Prime & Providence debuts. “We’re waiting to see how it all comes together,” Iannerelli said. “We want to live in this space for a while.”

The private dining room: That eastern glass wall makes up the outer perimeter of a private dining room space that can be closed off by huge glass barn doors. When not in use, this will be part of the dining room. It does come with a high-def television.

The dining room: The dining room itself offers different seating experiences. A series of king tables line the center wall with elevated booths that look down on the rest of the room. The height also gives diners a direct view of the open kitchen and 15-foot hearth from Grills by Demant that includes a 36-inch regular hearth, a 36-inch Argentinian grill, and true steakhouse-style ovens. That grill will burn through 40 pounds of charcoal per day.

Down the center of the room, another two rows of booths, with a slide-through booth in the middle that can seat eight.

The oyster bar: To the right of the open kitchen sits a 10-seat oyster bar with a white quartz countertop that will serve as a chef’s table as well.

“We wanted a lot of natural light,” Iannerelli said on a tour of the space under construction. “The space obviously presents that for us. And then you just kind of play off the elements of the fire, of the oyster bar.”

The wine room: On the western side of the dining room is the wine room encased in glass that serves as another private dining room with cozy seating for 10 among the temperature-controlled wine bottles.

The lighting: The whole space operates on 14 different lighting systems to change the mood of the restaurant. Large chandeliers with bundles of big posts hang from the ceiling, adding to the modern feel of the space.

Where did the name Prime & Providence come from?

Prime: “Speaks to the quality of not only the base level of beef we will be sourcing, but also the level of experience we intend to provide,” Iannerelli said.

Providence: “Speaks to the level of passion, knowledge, and expertise the team has in the vision of the project,” he said. “It also has divine and spiritual undertones that speak to the level of care taken in completing a task.”

What hours will Prime & Providence be open?

The lounge plans to open at 3 p.m. daily for a cocktail hour, with dinner starting at 5 p.m. daily. The cocktail hour will have its own menu, along with items off the oyster bar.

Where is Prime & Providence?

Location: 595 S. 60th St. in West Des Moines

Contact: On Instragram at instagram.com/primeandprovidence or on Facebook at facebook.com/primeandprovidence

Susan Stapleton is the entertainment editor and dining reporter at The Des Moines Register. Follow her on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, or drop her a line at [email protected].

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Chef Dominic Iannerelli to open Prime & Providence in West Des Moines