Get Des Moines restaurant recommendations from Bubba's owner Chris Diebel

The Des Moines metro is home to a lot of restaurants and bars, but there are tons of hidden gems that should be uncovered. To help guide readers to these potential discoveries, the Des Moines Register enlisted some of the city’s food players to share their recommendations for a feature dubbed Dining Confidential. Have someone we should feature, drop our entertainment editor Susan Stapleton a line at sstapleton@gannett.com.

Christopher Diebel is the founding partner of Bubba, a Southern comfort food restaurant in downtown Des Moines. Diebel also provides public relations and project management services through his consulting firm, Chris Diebel Public Strategies. Here he shares some of his favorite places to dine in Des Moines.

The Des Moines Register: Do you have any favorite places to eat breakfast in Des Moines?

Chris Diebel: Admittedly, I am not an early bird. When I do breakfast, I like to go to the Drake Diner.

I fluctuate between a couple different things, but they do have a delicious potato cake that they serve with sour cream and applesauce. It's a fun, shareable app.

We typically go a few times a month on a morning double date with our friends Justin and Maggie. And Maggie also loves to get a table pancake to share.

We'll get our own entree and then she'll get the table pancake as a little dessert bite. Typically, it's just been the straight up, regular buttermilk pancake. We have gotten some of the flavored ones at other places. But at the Drake Diner, it's just pretty straight-forward.

I've been going there since I was 12 years old, when my father moved us here from Texas. My dad is a minister and we moved here for his church, which at the time was First Christian Church right across the street at 25th and University. You gotta get there before most of the churches let out.

Where to find a good lunch in Des Moines

DMR: Do you have places you'd like to have for lunch?

Diebel: Definitely. So I have a couple of close friends that our tradition is to go to Skip’s. We order a half order of chicken nachos to share. And then we'll each get our own entrée salad. That's a favorite tradition. I love Skip’s.

DMR: You've talked about how you go there for dinner too, and you have a completely different order.

Diebel: At dinner, I love their chicken piccata. And I love their steak sandwich because it is a whole steak on a piece of bread with a pile of onion rings on it. It's a fork and knife moment, especially in the wintertime. It's such a cozy spot. You go get a martini and tuck into a corner by a fireplace in each of the rooms.

I’m never mad at a gyro basket from Ted's Coney Island. I love getting the whole basket because you get onion rings and fries, a side of the tzatziki.

I love a Tasty Tacos moment. Anytime high school friends are back, that's always a tradition. So that’s definitely something that I love to do. And when my sister is back from Texas, she wants to go to Tasty Tacos. I’m very excited that they've made their salsa available at grocery stores. That's definitely in my fridge.

My friends will get one of the original tacos and one of the enchiladas but just give me all those tacos. You have to nap after that. I think that the perfect order at Tasty Tacos is capped off by Diet Mtn Dew because oh, why not do all that damage?

There is not a lot open on Mondays, so I typically do Bubba or I'll go to Americana for lunch. When they're open for lunch, I love Clyde's and their classic burger and their open-face tuna melts. I love those dishes.

At Americana, I like their blackened chicken Philly. But I tend to rotate through their daily specials a lot. I just keep the chicken Philly as a fallback, but what I like about them is they do a really nice side salad. It has avocado in it.

Fun places to dine for dinner

DMR: How about dinner?

Diebel: Dinner in the wintertime, Jesse's Embers. I love going in there and getting a martini and a steak.

DMR: When you get a martini. What kind of martini do you normally get?

Diebel: That depends on where I am. If I'm at a place where I think they know how to make a Vesper I will order a Vesper.

A lot of old school supper club joints don't necessarily get into those. So I do like a classic dry martini with a twist, but if I'm feeling salty, then I'll go dirty.

I love to sit in the Noah's bar. I get the green pepper rings, the house salad with the creamy Parm, and split a pizza, but I always want to sit in that bar. You know, it just it gets dark and cozy. It’s also one of the first places we ever went when we moved here so I've been going there since 1993.

We do Clyde's Fine Diner a lot for dinner. Again, that burger is great but Chris Hoffman has got such a wonderful rotating list of fun specials.

I just think Aposto is magical year-round, but especially in the winter when you just want to be cozy and an old Victorian house. It's a lovely spot and you can branch out with their seasonal menus or you can go to the rock-steady cavatelli. Every meal there feels special.

I try hard to get outside of my comfort zone when it comes to wine there because they have such a focus on Italian wines. I always like having a little lesson and I trust that staff to pick the perfect pairing and in fact, one of the last times I was there, I liked the wine so much I shot a picture of the label and I had Gateway Market order a case for me.

Different brunch restaurants to try in Des Moines

DMR: What about brunch? Do you have any favorite places to go?

Diebel: I brunch every single week. We have a rotating roster of brunch spots. But here's the thing, if you have more than a four top, there's only certain places you can go, otherwise you're gonna be waiting forever or you may never get in.

A perfect example is the University Library Café. I love to go to the Library. But if you've got more than four people, don't bother.

I mentioned the Drake Diner already, which we do a lot. But if you've got larger groups, you need to be in rooms that have bigger spots.

Obviously Bubba does a big brunch business with chicken and waffles and all of those things. So we end up at Bubba a lot.

Centro has always been a favorite. We start with a breakfast pizza as an app to share. They do something called a party cut where they'll cut it in squares. When you've got a big group of six, eight, 10 people, doing a party cut breakfast pizza is a fun way to start.

And of course they have a bloody Mary bar there. So we do those often.

A lot of my friends have kids. If we have littles with us, we will often do Jethro's BBQ 'n Bacon Bacon because it's very kid friendly. You don't feel bad about it. And they have Mason jar cocktails. I love a John Daly in a Mason jar.

Chris Diebel’s favorite places to dine

Americana, 1312 Locust St., Des Moines; 515-283-1312 or americanadsm.com

Aposto, 644 18th St., Des Moines; 515-244-1353 or apostodm.com

Bubba, 200 10th St., Des Moines; 515-257-4744 or bubbadsm.com

Centro, 1003 Locust St., Des Moines; 515-248-1780 or centrodesmoines.com

Clyde’s Fine Diner, 111 E. Grand Ave. Suite 111, Des Moines; 515-243-3686 or clydesfinediner.com

Drake Diner, 1111 25th St., Des Moines; 515-277-1111 or drakediner.com

Jesse's Embers, 3301 Ingersoll Ave., Des Moines; 515-255-6011 or theoriginaljessesembers.com

Jethro’s BBQ 'n Bacon Bacon, 1480 22nd St., West Des Moines; 515-868-0888 or westdesmoines.jethrosdesmoines.com

Noah’s Ark, 2400 Ingersoll Ave., Des Moines; 515-288-2246 or noahsarkdesmoines.com

Skip’s, 4000 Fleur Drive, Des Moines; 515-287-1820 or skipsdesmoines.com

Tasty Tacos, 5847 S.E. 14th St., Des Moines; 515-285-1946 or tastytacos.com

Ted's Coney Island, 3020 Ingersoll Ave., Des Moines; 515-243-8947

University Library Café, 3506 University Ave., Des Moines; 515-255-0433 or thelibrarydm.com

Susan Stapleton is the entertainment editor at The Des Moines Register. Follow her on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, or drop her a line at sstapleton@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Bubba owner reveals his favorite Des Moines restaurants to eat at