“Locally sourced meats, cheeses, eggs, and vegetables contribute to the monthly changing menu. The priority is to serve healthy, respectfully cultivated foods, carefully and creatively prepared, for taste and beauty. My goal is for customers and staff to enjoy all aspects of the dining experience.”

Wild rice salad with fresh local summer vegetables, creamy miso dressing, and nasturtium sprouts; local sweet corn and hominy soup with cumin broth; fresh asparagus pasta with saffron cream sauce and lemon basil sprouts.

The mission of the Greater Des Moines Botanical Gardens is to advance and promote gardening in Iowa, and what better way than to have an elegant plant-forward restaurant serving the Botanical Gardens visitors their lunches? The dining room is chic and modern, with all-white surfaces and simple modern tabletops, and Chef Lisa LaValle changes the menu twelve times a year, on the first of the month, to reflect the best of the seasons.

“Lisa Lavalle opened the spectacular Trellis garden café, in the Des Moines Botanical Garden, the best designed café in many years. My favorite place for soup is Trellis. Lisa Lavalle specializes in vegetable stocks of complexity, and her café offers two soup lunch specials.” –Jim Duncan, Cityview