Restaurants in Iowa

Serving up contemporary French dishes Tuesdays through Saturdays, Bistro Montage's Executive Chef Enosh Kelley, a Best Chef nominee for the Midwest in the 2009 James Beard Awards, oversees a frequently changing menu forged from the freshest seasonal ingredients. Start out with a classic tuna niçoise salad (up to $16), made with house-canned ahi tuna and topped with hard-boiled quail eggs, ensuring that hard-boiled quail biker gangs never roam the streets. Turophiles can dine on dairy goodness with a cheese plate available as an appetizer or as a dessert (both $15). Main courses include liver and onions ($20), sidekicked with caramelized onions, potato rosti, and fava beans, and the organic Peking duck breast ($26), paired with fig compote-stuffed turnips eager to be eaten into obscurity.

The chefs at Sam's Pizza spend 60 minutes with each Chicago-style pie. They stuff its double crust with mozzarella, fresh toppings, and good intentions before baking it to a golden brown. Toppings for the Chicago-style and thin-crust pies range from the traditional (sausage or mushrooms) to the novel (gyro meat or nacho chips). The chefs at Sam's Pizza also concoct their own marinara sauce, ladling it onto calzones and platefuls of spaghetti.:m]]The chefs at Sam's Pizza spend 60 minutes with each Chicago-style pie. They stuff its double crust with mozzarella, fresh toppings, and good intentions before baking it to a golden brown. Toppings for the Chicago-style and thin-crust pies range from the traditional (sausage or mushrooms) to the novel (gyro meat or nacho chips). The chefs at Sam's Pizza also concoct their own marinara sauce, ladling it onto calzones and platefuls of spaghetti.:m]]

An unwavering devotion to freshness permeates Tomacelli's kitchen, where pizza chefs adorn their daily made dough with house-made sauce, all-natural cheese, and more than 50 market-fresh toppings. Millions of possible build-your-own combinations complement 23 creations brainstormed by a husband-and-wife team, from a ham-and-pineapple-studded hawaiian pie to the seafood supreme's maritime medley of fresh ingredients. Not content to recline on the edible laurels of their circular masterworks, the Tomacelli's kitchen team rounds out the menu with piping-hot pasta dishes and fresh salads.

OK, not your uncle. "Bob's your uncle," a century-old British slang phrase, refers to anyone with a bright future, and if Executive Chef Sal Hnesh's previous endeavors are any indication, this restaurant can most certainly count "Bob" among its kin. Renowned for his pizza, Chef Hnesh, a 20-year veteran of the Iowa City culinary scene, hurls dough sky-high before peppering fresh ingredients across thin, medium-thick, pan, or stuffed-crust pies. The menu oscillates from gourmet pizza to homestyle comfort fare such as wisconsin tuna cakes and roast beef served on gravy-smothered sourdough. Gluten-free options are available, as are housemade desserts and freshly baked slices of apple pie.:m]]

Fox Run Golf Club prides itself as a course that challenges boundaries. From a design perspective, it represents the two different architectural models of golf courses, at points immersing golfers in a wooded, parkland setting and, elsewhere, challenging them to display deft control over an open, links-style layout. A semiprivate club, Fox Run also eliminates the barrier between public courses and members-only clubs, inviting daily fee players and members alike to enjoy manicured grounds worthy of an exclusive club or a course covered in Persian rugs. Measuring 6,200 yards from the back tees, the layout provides four tee options from which golfers can play. On the driving range, players can calibrate their swings while aiming at 11 targets equipped with Laser Link flagsticks, which ensure that distances are accurately measured and also to make sure pins don’t run away to pursue careers as javelins. Off the course, guests can relax in The Den at Fox Run, which serves up drinks and casual grill food.

Bowling balls tumble down Perfect Games’s 24 lanes, which are situated beneath a row of flat-screen TVs. In between frames, players lounge in comfy couches or make their way to the sports bar for a quick round of billiards. Black lights illuminate each lane's invisible-inked diary entries at Friday and Saturday cosmic-bowling sessions, and the laser arena’s two floors remain aglow at all times, as participants snake through labyrinthine corridors brightened with splashes of red, orange, and green paint.

Elsewhere, an arcade enthralls gamers with titles such as Time Crisis 3 and Guitar Hero, and a bounce house shelters leaping tykes aged 7 and younger. Kingpin Pizza reenergizes visitors with its extensive menu of paninis, pasta, salads, and made-from-scratch New York--style thin-crust pizzas cooked in a Roto-Flex oven whose rotating stone shelves can bake up to 100 pizzas every hour.