How Oak Park’s Ian and Jess Robertson plan to wow Des Moines diners with farm-to-table food

In the weeks leading up to the opening of the fine dining restaurant Oak Park, passersby could see chefs in their white jackets wandering through the garden, baskets in hand.

It was the end of the growing season, but kale, carrots and greens still flourished, even as the restaurant debuted in mid-October on Ingersoll Avenue at 39th Street in Des Moines.

Into early December, the kitchen staff still walked out the rear entrance and across the driveway to the garden, neatly tucked behind the restaurant, to seek out arugula, bok choy and little gem lettuce. The staff pickled some of the produce for winter menus and stored root vegetables.

The changes in the produce available through the seasons dictate the menu at Oak Park, offering a next-level take on farm-to-table dining, a term generally used to describe a restaurant that uses locally grown and produced food. A carrot or head of kale may have been pulled from the dirt in the morning, washed in the afternoon and used in the dish served that night.

The idea of farm-to-table dining isn’t new. Trendsetting chef Alice Waters started the movement at her Berkeley, California, restaurant Chez Panisse in 1971.

But for Des Moines, bringing the farm to the restaurant is new. The promise of what Oak Park executive chef Ian Robertson and executive pastry chef Jess Robertson can do with their bounty of produce has earned them a place among the Des Moines Register's People to Watch in 2024.

How garden-fresh produce will become a bigger factor at Oak Park

Already the Robertsons, who are a married couple, have taken that produce and made menu favorites such as a carrot Wellington vegetarian dish or paired bok choy with the bacon-glazed pork chop.

Owner Kathy Fehrman and her husband, Bill, along with director of operations Billy Dohrmann ensured a garden was part of the restaurant from the start, before a four-square house and a doctor’s office were torn down to build the Prairie-style building that houses Oak Park.

“Obviously, the garden is a big part of it,” Ian Robertson said on a December afternoon while sitting in the Oak Park dining room. Dohrmann keeps meticulous plans for the garden, sourcing seeds, planning where everything will be planted and estimating when it will be ready to eat.

While the garden was planted in early summer, the upcoming spring will see it really shine, with snap peas, green beans, radishes, carrots and tomatoes. Robertson plans to plant the three sisters — corn, beans and squash — together in a shared space so they can “grow harmoniously as Native Americans did.”

He also plans to lean into heirloom crops such as cucumbers and tomatoes. “Everybody has the basic cucumber, tomato, but not a lot of people have some of the rarer varieties of tomato, of cucumbers," Ian Robertson said. "We’ll feature some of those and design dishes around that product.”

Already the garden has expanded to include raspberry bushes around the outside, and rhubarb and strawberries will make an appearance on the menu come spring or fall. Garlic is already in the ground, as well as asparagus, which could take three years to sprout.

Oak Park works with Grade A Gardens in Earlham and Dogpatch Urban Gardens in Des Moines to grow additional produce for the restaurant, as well as raise chickens.

The farm-to-table movement comes full circle at Oak Park. While the garden informs the menu, the scraps from leftover foods head out to Pine Grove Family Farms in Bondurant, where they feed pigs that could end up being served for dinner at the restaurant.

“In the future, we plan on working closely on bringing in some of the whole pigs so that we can feature them on a menu,” Ian Robertson said. “These are the pigs we’ve fed Oak Park scraps. Now they will be served on the Oak Park table.”

As 2024 dawned, Jess Robertson said that one sow at the farm has seven piglets who are eating the Oak Park leftovers.

Oak Park's menu and focus reflect national trends

Everything that Oak Park does feels new to Des Moines, whether it’s the modern cuisine created with French techniques, the amuse bouche to start the meal, the clever desserts that range from $4 to $100, or the chef’s table, with a view of the action in the kitchen for $250 a plate with an optional $150 wine pairing. The restaurant offers elevated dining typically found in big cities but can still feel financially accessible.

Jessica Dunker, president and CEO of the Iowa Restaurant Association, said Oak Park hits on some of the restaurant trends for 2024 she’s seeing in Iowa and nationally. A study by the National Restaurant Association found that 63% of consumers say that they would rather spend money on an experience than a thing.

“They are really expanding on that,” she said of Oak Park.

“They’re also following the smaller menu trends that we see,” Dunker said, noting the local produce and farms recognized on the menu.

Another study, by Travel Iowa, found that 63% of people who have never visited Iowa expect to find farm-to-table dining here.

“They are looking for a farm fresh, local dining experience when they come to Iowa,” she said.

How conversations about restaurants sparked a romance

The Robertsons met in the kitchen. Jess started her first pastry chef position at Baru 66 in Windsor Heights, the former French restaurant from David Baruthio. Food turned into their love language.

“I started giving him a ride home from work, and then we'd end up in his driveway just talking about restaurants,” she said. “He had worked at The Fat Duck in London (a three Michelin star restaurant) with Heston Blumenthal. I was so fascinated with the stories that he would tell me about working there.”

Before they were even officially dating, Ian had a plane ticket to New York to do stages, an internship at a fine-dining restaurant. He was on a bus to Chicago to catch his flight when he decided to return to Iowa to be with Jess.

“I ended up staying here,” Ian said. “It was one of the craziest things I think I've ever done.”

Now they’ve been married for six years, have three kids and live blocks from Oak Park.

Oak Park opened too late to be considered for the 2024 James Beard Foundation awards, so the Robertsons' hopes for winning that recognition will have to wait until 2025. They've got big plans for diners in the meantime.

The new year promises more community-focused projects.

“For example, this year, I've been approached by so many people to join in the gingerbread contests around town,” Jess Robertson said.

The restaurant also plans to host wine dinners, as well as cocktail dinners that focus on bourbon, tequila or gin.

Greg Edwards, president and CEO for Catch Des Moines, the visitors and convention bureau for the city, said Oak Park has the potential to garner outside recognition.

“I think it’s another huge feather in our cap," he said. "The team is incredible from the kitchen to the front of house. I think it has great potential to be a world-renowned restaurant.”

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

Meet Ian and Jess Robertson

AGES: Ian, 36, and Jess, 36

LIVES: Ian grew up in Des Moines. Jess grew up in Sheldon.

EDUCATION: Ian graduated with a culinary arts degree from Grégoire-Ferrandi Paris. Jess graduated last year from Purdue University Global with a business degree and a focus on entrepreneurship. Last year, she also passed the introductory course of the court of master sommeliers.

CAREER: Ian did stages, or internships, at L'Epi Duipin, Paris; The Fat Duck, England; and Quincy, San Francisco. Other stints included Gateway Market, Des Moines; Tru, L20 and South Gate hospitality in Chicago; Baru 66, Windsor Heights; Prairie Canary, Grinnell; Joseph's Steakhouse, West Des Moines; 801 Restaurants, Des Moines, head chef; ABC Kitchen and ABC Cocina, New York City; Daisies, Chicago; Deer Path Inn, Lake Forest, Illinois; and The Grill on 21, Chicago, while with Roanoke Hospitality. He helped develop and open Oak Park.

Jess started off in bakeries as a cake decorator and doughnut fryer, then moved to restaurants in 2010 at Baru 66. She worked at 801 restaurant group as a pastry chef and sous chef, as a pastry chef at Eleven Madison Park in New York City, and as a pastry consultant at Deer Path Inn in Lake Forest, Illinois. She started her own chocolate business in 2021.

FAMILY: Ian and Jess live in Des Moines with their three children. A lot of extended family live in the area as well, including Jess' two sisters and dad.

About the Des Moines Register's 2024 People to Watch

It's a Des Moines Register tradition to close out each year and open the next by introducing readers to 15 People to Watch — individuals expected to make an impact on Iowa in the coming year.

This year's nominations from readers and our journalists totaled nearly 60 people and posed hard decisions for staff members charged with winnowing them to just 15.

The final 15 include people in business and the arts, those who train the world-class athletes of the future, chefs on the cutting edge, farmers teaching refugees how to run their own farms, and people fighting for representation through cosmetics and medicine. We hope that you are as inspired by reading about them as we were in profiling them.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: How married chefs elevate farm-to-table dining at Des Moines' Oak Park