A great steak dinner can win plenty of attention, but in this Iowa dining room, the real scene-stealer waits beneath the sneeze guard.
The restaurant pairs its hearty supper-club menu with a generously stocked salad bar that feels less like a routine starter and more like part of the evening’s main event.
Then the room starts working its charm, with dim lighting, vintage mirrors, and enough Prohibition-era personality to make an ordinary dinner feel slightly mysterious.
When did building your own salad plate become this much fun?
A Supper Club That Still Does Things The Old Way
Some restaurants keep the past alive with a few vintage decorations. Chicago Speakeasy goes further and makes the whole dinner feel like a proper occasion.
The Des Moines favorite has been drawing loyal diners for decades with a supper club style that feels increasingly rare, especially in a world where too many meals are built around speed, screens, and regrettable lighting.
Here, the rhythm is slower in the best way. You settle into the dining room, make your way to the salad bar, and start remembering that a full meal can still feel like an evening instead of a transaction.
The menu leans into hearty classics, with steaks, prime rib, steak de burgo, stuffed pork chops, pasta dishes, and other plates built for people who actually came hungry. Nothing about it feels flimsy or trend-chasing.
The room does plenty of work too. Antique mirrors, dim lighting, booth seating, and the salad bar at the center of the experience give the space a Prohibition-era personality without making it feel like a costume party.
What I like most is that Chicago Speakeasy seems completely comfortable being itself. It knows the salad bar matters, it knows the steaks matter, and it knows some dinners are better when nobody is rushing you toward the door.
Full address: 1520 Euclid Ave, Des Moines, IA 50313.
The Salad Bar That Actually Lives Up To The Talk
Old-school salad bars have a reputation problem. Most people picture wilted lettuce, cloudy dressing bottles, and a sneeze guard that has seen better days.
The one at Chicago Speakeasy is a different situation entirely.
The bar runs wide and well-stocked, with a variety of toppings, side pasta options, and dressings that give it more range than a typical starter setup.
One item that gets mentioned repeatedly is the Oreo mousse, a dessert option tucked into the salad bar that catches first-timers off guard in the best possible way.
It is creamy, cold, and sweet enough to work as a standalone treat after the main course.
Many lunch and dinner orders include access to the famous salad bar, which makes it genuinely useful rather than just a formality.
If you are the type who builds a full plate before the entree arrives, this setup rewards that habit without asking you to think twice about it.
Prime Rib Is The Anchor Of The Menu
The prime rib at Chicago Speakeasy has a crust that holds its seasoning well, and the interior stays tender enough to cut without much effort.
It is listed as a house specialty on the menu, with lunch and dinner options that make it one of the clearest signatures of the restaurant.
The cut arrives with a good weight to it, and the seasoning does not overpower the natural flavor of the beef. When it is cooked right, the meat has that slight resistance on the outside that gives way to a softer, juicier center.
It is the kind of prime rib that makes sense as the main event rather than a side story.
A few notes worth keeping in mind: cooking temperature matters a lot here, and ordering to your actual preference rather than defaulting to medium is worth the extra second of thought.
The prime rib is the dish most people point to when recommending this restaurant to someone who has never been, and that track record says plenty about its consistency on a good night in Des Moines.
Steak De Burgo Deserves More Attention Than It Gets
Steak de burgo is an Iowa original, and Chicago Speakeasy treats it with the seriousness it deserves.
The dish features a beef tenderloin cooked and finished with a garlic and herb butter sauce that soaks into the meat rather than just pooling around it.
The tenderness on a well-executed steak de burgo is notable because the cut is lean enough that it can go wrong quickly if the heat is off. When it lands correctly, the texture is soft without being mushy, and the butter sauce adds richness without making the plate feel heavy.
The garlic note is present but not aggressive, which keeps the dish balanced across the whole portion.
Iowa has a long connection to this dish, and finding a version that holds up to memory is harder than it sounds.
The one here earns its place on the menu by not cutting corners on the sauce or the cut itself.
If you are ordering steak for the first time at this restaurant and you want something a little different from the standard ribeye or prime rib, steak de burgo is worth the consideration.
The Stuffed Pork Chop Needs Time But Rewards Patience
The stuffed pork chop is not a dish you order when you are in a hurry.
At roughly 40 minutes of cook time, it is the kind of entree that signals a slow, committed dinner rather than a quick weeknight stop. That time investment is part of what makes it work.
A pork chop that gets rushed out of a kitchen is usually dry at the edges and underdone near the bone. The extended cook time here suggests the kitchen is letting the heat work through the meat properly, which is the only way to get a stuffed chop right.
The filling adds moisture and seasoning from the inside, so the final result should hold together without falling apart on the plate.
If you are planning to order it, let your server know early so the timing does not throw off the rest of the table. It is also worth noting that this is a dish that pairs well with a trip to the salad bar while you wait, since the bar gives you something to do with your hands while the kitchen takes its time.
Good things take a little longer sometimes.
The Room Has A Personality That Earns Its Dim Lighting
A lot of restaurants try to create atmosphere through lighting and end up with a room that just feels dark.
Chicago Speakeasy manages the balance better than most, partly because the Prohibition-era design actually has enough visual texture to justify the low light.
Antique mirrors cover sections of the wall, which does two things at once: it makes the room feel larger than it is, and it adds a layer of visual interest that keeps the eye moving.
The booth layout runs down a hallway-style corridor that wraps around the salad bar, creating a more enclosed, intimate feel than an open dining floor would.
One practical note worth passing along: the mirrors and dim lighting can make it tricky to navigate steps inside the room, so if you are visiting for the first time, take a beat to get your bearings once you are seated. The atmosphere earns its quirks, but it is helpful to know what to expect before you arrive.
The room has a specific mood that not every restaurant pulls off, and this one leans into it without apology.
Pasta Dishes Hold Their Own On A Steak-Heavy Menu
A steak house that also does pasta well is a rarer thing than it should be.
The fettuccine Alfredo at Chicago Speakeasy has come up as a genuinely strong option for people at the table who want something other than beef, and the kitchen does not appear to treat it as an afterthought.
The Alfredo runs creamy and rich, with a sauce that clings to the noodles rather than pooling at the bottom of the bowl. Adding grilled chicken, sautéed shrimp, or steamed broccoli to the dish is a reasonable upgrade if you want to build it out a little more.
The pasta dishes also come with access to the salad bar on certain dinner orders, which gives the meal a starter and a main without needing to order separately.
The menu at Chicago Speakeasy is wide enough that non-steak eaters have real options, which matters when a group of people with different preferences is trying to agree on a restaurant.
Grilled shrimp served over seasoned rice is another option that gives seafood lovers something simple and satisfying without leaning on steak.
Practical Details For Planning Your Visit
Chicago Speakeasy serves lunch Monday through Friday from 11 AM to 4 PM. Dinner runs Monday through Thursday from 4 PM to 9 PM, with Friday and Saturday dinner hours extending to 10 PM.
The restaurant is closed on Sunday.
Saturday hours are dinner-only, so a weekend lunch visit is not on the table.
The parking lot is free and generally manageable for the size of the restaurant, though busy Friday and Saturday nights can make it feel tight. Calling ahead to get on the list before you arrive is a smart move on weekend evenings, since the dining room fills up quickly once the doors open.
The restaurant’s phone number is (515) 243-3141, and the website at chicagospeakeasyrestaurant.com can provide updated information on hours and specials.
One small practical note that a first-time visitor might appreciate: the room is dim enough that reading the check can be a minor challenge, so bringing a pen is not a bad idea since the house pen situation has been unreliable on occasion.
Small detail, easy fix, and it keeps the end of the meal running smoothly in Des Moines.
How The Service Tends To Run
Service at Chicago Speakeasy tends to run efficiently on quieter nights and can stretch thin when the room is packed.
The restaurant seats a good number of people across its booth-lined corridor and high-top section in the front room, which means a busy Friday evening puts real demands on the floor staff.
On nights when service is clicking, plates arrive at a reasonable pace, soft drinks get refilled without prompting, and the kitchen keeps the timing between courses from feeling awkward.
The salad bar helps here because it gives the table something to work through while the kitchen handles longer-cooking entrees like the stuffed pork chop.
The booth layout, while atmospheric, does create a fairly enclosed seating environment in the back section of the restaurant. Tables sit close enough together that a loud neighboring table is hard to ignore.
If you prefer a little more breathing room, the high-top seating in the front room offers better spacing and a slightly livelier feel.
Either way, the service rhythm tends to reflect the overall energy of the room, so arriving earlier in the evening generally produces a smoother experience overall.
Why This Restaurant Still Fits The Article Title Perfectly
The salad bar is the detail that ties everything together at Chicago Speakeasy. It is not a token gesture or a leftover habit from a different era.
It is a functioning, well-stocked centerpiece that the kitchen actually maintains with enough variety to make it worth returning to more than once during a meal.
Iowa still has a handful of supper clubs that run a real salad bar, but finding one that does it alongside a menu strong enough to hold its own is a narrower category.
The combination of prime rib, steak de burgo, pasta options, and that Oreo mousse sitting at the end of the bar creates a meal structure that feels complete in a way that a standard a la carte dinner rarely does.
The Prohibition-era atmosphere, the dim lighting, the antique mirrors, and the booth corridor all reinforce the same idea: this is a restaurant that was built around a specific kind of evening, and it has not drifted far from that original intention.
The salad bar is the most tangible proof of that, and it is exactly the kind of old-school detail that makes the drive to 1520 Euclid Ave worth making.