Start from 65 curated places around Des Moines, IA, then choose the recommendations that fit your guests.
Restaurants & cafés
Centro
The downtown Italian anchor from Des Moines' best-known restaurant family — coal-fired pizza, hand-made cavatelli, and a dining room that's been the city's default celebration spot for two decades. Loud, big-hearted, and consistent in a way few rooms this busy manage.
Harbinger
A small Ingersoll room doing vegetable-forward small plates with Southeast Asian technique — the most ambitious cooking in the city, served without ceremony. The tasting menu is the move if you want the kitchen's full argument.
Trails & outdoors
Gray's Lake Park
The two-mile paved Kruidenier Trail loop around Gray's Lake is the city's communal lap — flat, lit at night, with the downtown skyline floating over the water from the north shore. The arched pedestrian bridge glows colored light after dark.
Principal Riverwalk
A 1.2-mile paved loop hugging both banks of the Des Moines River downtown, crossing on two architect-designed bridges — the red Iowa Women of Achievement Bridge is the postcard. It stitches together the Botanical Garden, the ballpark, and the East Village in one walk.
Things to do
Des Moines Art Center
A free art museum whose building is the first exhibit — wings by Saarinen, I.M. Pei, and Richard Meier wrapped around a courtyard — holding Hopper, O'Keeffe, Bacon, and a serious contemporary collection. It routinely shocks visitors expecting a modest regional museum.
Science Center of Iowa
Downtown's hands-on science museum with an IMAX dome and a planetarium — built for the under-12 crowd, with enough live demos and rotating exhibits to absorb a half day. The reliable answer to a rainy morning with kids.
Landmarks & sights
Iowa State Capitol
The only five-domed state capitol in the country, its central dome wrapped in 23-karat gold leaf above the East Village. The ornate law library inside, with its tiered balconies and spiral staircases, is the room locals bring out-of-towners to see.
Pappajohn Sculpture Park
More than two dozen large-scale works by Kusama, Plensa, and other heavyweight contemporary artists planted across a downtown lawn — a museum-grade collection you walk through for free at any hour. Plensa's giant white 'Nomade' letter-form figure is the piece locals linger at longest.