Trostels Greenbriar Restaurant & Bar

The food here is always excellent, and the service is top notch. This is a linen tablecloth, «special occasion» type restaurant that specializes in steak, seafood and unique appetizers.
The décor is a little dated, and quite formal, but it is very clean and quiet. The patio is nice to sit at when it’s warm, but I would not eat out there during rush hour, it can be a little noisy from street traffic. If you are eating alone from out of town, or just on a date for casual dinner, consider eating in the bar. The atmosphere is way more relaxed and fun, the bartenders are really great, and they have several high-​backed booths that are nice to sit in.
We’ve had several banquets in the back room and the service /​food quality was amazing. This is definitely a great place to go for a special occasion.
Some of my favorite meals include the filet with «gun-​powder» crust, the scallops, stuffed mushroom appetizer, and the Ahi tuna steak. You really can’t go wrong with any of the recommendations from the staff.

Dropped $ 100 on supper and it was not worth it. Food was ok but that was it. Ambience was meh and feels old and in need of updating. Staff was friendly but something was off about her. Gave us a weird vibe and just made us uncomfortable. It is a local institution and people continue o come back time and time again but we won’t be back. We can’t afford to spend this much and have it be a meh experience.

We ordered two appetizers, lobster ragoons (their version of the crab Rangoon) and escargots (snails in garlic butter topped with buff pastry. I could’ve gone without the lobster ragoons. Very mediocre and for $ 10 not worth it. I could go to a Chinese joint and get double of those for less the price. The escargot was beautifully cooked. The puff pastry not so much it was very greasy and over buttered.
For entrees we for rack of lamb with fingerling potatoes and fried Brussels sprouts. Lamb was delicious and very tender. Comparable to a very tender steak. There was not much of the potatoes or Brussels sprouts on the dish.
Spouses entrée was beef tenderloin with lobster ravioli. Tenderloin was cooked to perfection. Lacking a type of sauce. There was only one ravioli on the dish with not much lobster in it.
Soup and salad that came with the dishes are pretty standard. I like their choice of greens. More dark earthy greens and not your typical ice burg lettuce that is very cheap that most restaurants dish out.
Dessert we got the raspberry and blueberry tart. My favorite part of dinner. I don’t typically like desserts but this one was very light and a great way to finish the meal.
Overall food was good. Overpriced for the serving size. Service was great, our waitress was very attentive and polite. My reasoning for not giving them 5 stars is because we left still hungry and actually went to a different restaurant for more food.

My favorite place for a steak in Des Moines. Ribeye with gunpowder season wing served with. Fries and a wedge salad in an iconic dinner club location is the best place to take my wife out for date night

We ate there the other night and it was just like any other time we have been there. UNBELIEVABLE. We asked for something special and they delivered in an unbelievable way. What a time!!! We all had something different and fantastic. Great folks, but hey, you are in Iowa. I love living in the middle of nowhere. People who care and serve a product that is local or as fresh as possible. Try the pickle appetizer and gunpowder ribeye. WOW.

Old style restaurant, good pork loin and great wine choices. A bit on the pricey side for what you get but well worth trying anyway.

This place is an absolute must to go for an amazing steak in Iowa. Hands down the best prime rib you will find in the area. Always cooked to perfection, melts in your mouth and flavorfully devine.
We started coming here a few years ago after receiving a gift card and have been coming back since. Our tradition is dining here on valentine’s day because of the dim lighted romantic dining feel but also because of the 4 ladies that go around the restaurant serading the diners, it’s a wonderful touch.
We have noticed some pricing changes over the years, specifically with the steaks, they are fairly priced against competitors, however, you now have to pay a la carte prices for any side you want which seems to be the trend with higher end steak places.
We tend to dine here as a special occasion place, but they do have a lot of menu items with a range of prices and we talk about trying those menu items for non occasion type events and just haven’t because the prime rib is so dang amazing, it’s hard to come here and not have it.

Had the Cajun prime rib with a side of brussels. The Brussels were off the hook. The prime rib cut like butter. I have no clue how it is so tender. I also tried the seared tuna. It was awesome too. The staff was friendly and attentive. I’ll be back.

You won’t be disappointed with Trostels Greenbriar. The menu has a dish for any craving and the food is out of this world. I went this past Saturday around 7 pm. The atmosphere was nice — not too crowded and the wait staff were very friendly. We ordered the mini tacos appetizer off the specials menu, two pasta and chicken dishes, a bottle of wine and two desserts to go. Everything was fantastic. Beyond the yummy food, the thing that sets this restaurant above the rest was the friendly and efficient wait staff. I would recommend this place to people who are willing to spend a little extra money to make date night special.

I was very pleased with our experience. I enjoyed the «gunpowder crusted» steak. I don’t know why they call it that but it was a generous portion, quite tender, and delicious. I iedered medium and it was closer to rare… that didn’t affect my experience but keep in mind when ordering. My lady haf campanelle pasta and was very pleased.
This reminds me of supper clubs of bygone days in a refreshing way. Dim lights, great service, and few distractions.

Food is fantastic with unique flavors, economical pricing and great service! They have a meeting room I use frequently for business meetings.

This place is not my cup of tea. The lighting in the bar area is very bad, and the sound level gets so loud that it’s hard for my 90 year old grandfather to hear everyone at the table. Also the wait staff was not great. When I asked the waitress if we could order she replied, «Um I’m not ready at the moment» and walked back to the kitchen. When she came back with out appitetzer of fried calamari, it was overcooked. My entrée for the night was a chicken salad that had fruit in it. The grilled chicken was really bland and tasteless. The rest of the salad was not great either. I would not recommend this place.

I thought this restaurant was great. We went with a business group and had read that the reviews on Unilocal (though there weren’t that many) were less than flattering. With that said, I though the Thai Beef Rolls and Mushroom appetizers were great and my Ribeye (medium rare) was fantastic! I would definitely go back to this place, with the only negative being that it was kind of pricey.

Great dinner with my mom for a Saturday evening dinner. Was lovely and delicious. We sat in the lounge area. Amazing service. Loved it. Will be back again. And the spice rub is fabs!

Poor service in the bar as usual. One of the reasons we live next door and do not come here. They somehow forgot the bread with our four course meal… grrrrr. Food can be questionable and unreliable but surprisingly good once in a while. Drinks are usually questionable and not worth your time. I came here for the first time in the spring of 1997 and have watched its downfall :(.

Was in Des Moines for the second time in almost as many months to try and woo a vendor. He’s a good olé boy and doesn’t understand the word ‘vegetarian’ as Iowa has THE best steaks in the whole country. I don’t doubt that, but I’m not interested in testing that out.
At any rate we come here and try this hot mess of a place out. Hot is an exaggeration and really shouldn’t be used anywhere near this train wreck.
The first sign that this was a problem was not Unilocaling first. Bad Nic P. I saw this after we walked in on time for our reservation and were made to wait for 15 minutes. I can be pretty patient, that wasn’t the problem. About five minutes after we walk in a couple walks in and finds out they have to wait for their table too. They head to the bar while we wait, and wait, and wait…
Soon we see this couple walk past us and get a table in this packed restaurant (I have no idea how that happened, they must have been having a buy one get one free night). What? My perspective client sees this happen and not being a shrinking violet confronts the hostess. She says ‘Oh, sorry, they asked for a booth and it opened up so we gave it to them and they also had the same reservation time (but arrived well AFTER us).’ Huh? Okay, well, WE would have taken a booth. They completely ignore us and our demand that we get seated immediately. Another five minutes FINALLY get a seat in this rundown, antiquated wanna be supper club. Ha. Not worth the wait.
None of this next part will surprise you. Slow waitress who talks in this obnoxiously high tone of voice as though everything she’s telling you is forced and she really doesn’t even want to be talking to you. Ask for a vegetarian menu and surprised to get one. I also ask for a call drink along with my client. We get those, but it took right between so glad you remembered and almost too late, forget it.
My client orders steak, I can’t speak to the quality, but he wasn’t impressed. It looked gross to me as it had a Bearnaise sauce smothering it. I order a wedge salad with no bacon or blue cheese, it was okay. I also ordered some kind of gnocchi. I would tell you what it was, but it’s not on their online menu and I’ve forgotten, blessedly. It was sitting in so much grease and was so slimy soft that I thought I would gag. It had ricotta cheese that I couldn’t taste. We actually tried to guess what it was, we had to have the menu. On the veg menu it also had an entrée of vegetables. It was a small bowl of julienned veggies that was also smothered in oil and priced as a full priced entrée. Please see pictures of this grotesque ripoff. Had chocolate crème brûlée. It was the most interesting thing I had as I’ve never tasted anything with that kind of texture before and certainly not in a crème brûlée. It had the consistency of heated pudding as it tried to slide off the spoon. Pretty sure crème brûlée has a much stickier texture, but maybe were trying something different. Failed.
Listen, the reviews this place has are there for a reason: the food is TERRIBLE. The service is so god awful that if they had inspectors for that the place would probably have been shut down years ago. You’d have been luckier playing the lotto than trying to find a nice place for a good meal here. AVOID. AVOID. AVOID. Zero good points.

It’s ok. The fact that at 6pm Saturday the place was only half full should say something. It was really pricey for what we got. There’s so many more good places, I won’t go back. I do have to sat the waitress was great.

My boyfriend and I were looking forward to a very nice evening, celebrating his father’s retirement. We were set up in the party room, which was great because there were no other distractions and could definitely hear each other with out the noise of the main dinning room. The menu was «planned» for us. We had the choice of a steak, chicken, pasta, or shrimp dish. I had eaten a late lunch so I decided to eat a little lighter, and chose the shrimp. We all received a salad with our meal, and sadly it was watery and the edges of the lettuce were less than stellar. Oh well, I ate it and looked forward to my Char-​grilled and season to perfection shrimp on a bed of wild rice. This entrée was priced at $ 20.
When the entrée came out, not only did my mouth drop, but those around me as well. What was placed in front of me was less than a cup of wild rice with 4 small shrimp. The person sitting next to me ordered the pasta with a SIDE of shrimp. Her plate was overflowing with pasta, and she had just as many shrimp as I did as a SIDE. She paid 5 $ extra for the same exact shrimp that I got. Her dish, in total, cost 23 $. Look, I never make a scene when I go out to eat, but this was absolutely ridiculous — 5 $ per shrimp? When the person next to me paid 5 $ TOTAL for a side of shrimp? When I voiced my concern, the manager did come out and told me that the person who ordered the pasta was enjoying a much more expensive dish than mine, and therefore that is why she received more food. Hmmm… First of all, there was only a 3 $ difference. Secondly, she ADDED a side of shrimp. The manager did offer to bring more shrimp out to me, and promised not to charge me another 20 $. I was completely satisfied with this arrangement, as were the other people at my table. I simply needed more shrimp to justify the 20 $ price tag.
The waiter (who was super nice) came out looked sheepish and literally said, «I was told to tell you this is compliments from the kitchen just for you… but I really don’t want to give this to you.» He place ONE additional shrimp with about a tablespoon of wild rice in front of me. Seriously? I really thought this was a joke of some sort. I was wrong. Not only did the manager not bring out my additional ONE shrimp, but she didn’t have the balls to come back and make sure her customer was satisfied. Obviously, this is because what she just pulled was unprofessional, uncalled for, and extremely rude.
I confronted the manager as we left, and she was shocked to think that her generous offer of ONE additional shrimp was frowned upon. I politely told her that we both knew her attempt of offering more shrimp was laughable. Again, she was shocked. Look, you never ever know who you are serving at your restaurant. The offering of ONE more shrimp has been a laughable story around my office… and not in a good way. This kind of stuff spreads like wildfire. My suggestion to this restaurant, and manager Suzanne, treat your customers right. Period.

Trostels Greenbriar’s staff were very professional and attentive. The atmosphere there does have a somewhat «Happy Birthday Grandma!» feel. I wasn’t especially excited by the Brie which had a bizarre before and after taste of refrigerator bitters. I hate that taste and consider myself a cheese enthusiast. I did however enjoy my prime rib it was tender, juicy and flavorful. Order your steak medium if you want medium rare. I guess every chef has there own interpretation of what medium rare is. Medium rare to me means a warm pink center, not freshly slaughtered and sliced. I would go back for another prime rib dinner and let’s not forget the bacon wrapped shrimp;) Does bacon really make everything taste better? YES IT DOES.

Definitely not worth the price. While there is plenty of food thrown at you, it is a very «fine dining 1970s style» — both from what comes out of the kitchen and the décor. It’s nothing fancy. A steak/​potatoes kind of place … but nothing jumps off the plate and has me hoping to come back.
The staff is great, like being served by your aunt or uncle — but in general the quality just isn’t up to par with the price. The regulars are older couples… who usually make it out to dinner before 5:30 and everyone seems to be a bit more dressed up than other places in Des Moines. Low lighting makes it hard to comment on cleanliness, but I probably wouldn’t want to know.