Restaurants in Pella

The kitchen bustled behind teenage Enosh Kelley as he stood over the sink, dutifully scrubbing pots and pans while dreaming of becoming a chef. From those humble origins, recounted in his Metromix profile, Enosh has grown into an internationally renowned culinary artist lauded by reporters from the Wall Street Journal and nominated as best Midwest chef by the James Beard Foundation. Pulling from his training at the Culinary Institute of America, Enosh folds local ingredients into a French-inspired menu, favoring classics such as hand-cut pomme frites, duck orange, and gâteau marjolaine.

Nestled in the heart of the historic Ingersoll Avenue district, Enosh's restaurant—Bistro Montage—is a fitting canvas for his fine French creations. Plates pair with glasses from a distilled wine list on white-clothed tables decorated with freshly cut flowers. Nearby, framed artwork speckles the brick-red walls, and long, flowing curtains dangle from the windows to keep the lighting dim and intimate while providing a convenient hiding place for guests on disappointing blind dates.

Throughout the year, shipments of live crawfish arrive at Fat Tuesday's doorstep. Newspapers spread across tables, customers pull up their sleeves, and baskets of boiled crawfish and corn arrive from the kitchen before the crack of snapping shells resounds through the restaurant.

In between their regular crawfish boils, the kitchen crew members whip up what they refer to as a "small but mighty" daily menu of Cajun specialties. Cooks layer poboys with fried alligator, oysters, and catfish, and pots of seafood gumbo and crawfish étouffée simmer on stovetops. Plates pair with Cajun craft beers beneath glimmering purple, yellow, and green streamers throughout the New Orleans–themed dining room. Testing their patrons’ stomach capacities, the chefs challenge them to the occasional poboy-eating contest. The contestants must polish off a 2-foot-long poboy within 40 minutes while simultaneously whistling the sous chef's favorite blues song.

Even with Chicago's skyline some 300 miles away up I-80, the taste of Felix and Oscar’s deep-dish pizzas seem to bring it into focus. Its chefs pile up to 15 toppings on their authentic Windy City–style pies, layering Hormel bacon, pepperoni, and Graziano’s italian sausage beside less traditional add-ons, such as sauerkraut or shrimp. They ladle housemade meat sauce atop regular or gluten-free pasta and supplement their comestibles with imported beers and California wines. For diners on the go, Felix and Oscar’s allows customers to place their orders ahead of time to reduce the time they have to wait in the seating area. The pie-smiths also keep galas well fed with their in-house party rooms or offsite catering.