Bubba: Southern comfort, downtown

There's comfort food, and then there's the kind of comfort food that makes you cancel your afternoon plans. Bubba, in the Western Gateway, does the second kind. The menu pulls from every corner of the South (Louisiana, Kentucky, the Carolinas) and gives it a Midwestern accent, and the room is just polished enough to feel like a night out without asking you to dress up.

Start here

Order the Southern Bread Basket. It's three buttermilk biscuits and three cornbread muffins with seasonal jam and whipped honey butter, and it sets the tone for everything that follows. If you want something savory to go with it, the deviled eggs come topped with pecan-smoked bacon, and the fried green tomatoes are a Southern classic done right.

What to order

The buttermilk fried chicken is the headliner: organic chicken, brined, breaded, and fried to order, with garlic-buttermilk mashed potatoes. Make it hot or honey hot if you like a kick. Shrimp and grits comes with Cajun-charred Gulf shrimp over white Cheddar grits and collard greens with smoked ham hock. Chicken-fried steak is smothered in peppered country gravy. On a cold night, the Cajun chicken and sausage gumbo or the jambalaya will warm you right up. At lunch, the Kentucky Hot Brown, an open-faced turkey and bacon sandwich smothered in cheese sauce, is hard to pass up.

Mondays are steak night

Every Monday from 4pm, Bubba does an 8 oz prime top sirloin with two sides for $19, dine-in only. You can dress it up with blackened shrimp, a crab cake, or crawfish cream. It's one of the better weeknight deals downtown.

Weekend brunch

Saturdays and Sundays from 10am to 2pm, the brunch menu adds things like baked cake donuts (the flavor changes weekly) and a breakfast burrito with tequila-marinated steak. Chicken and waffles is on the menu all day, every day, which is the right call.

Good to know

Bubba has a full bar with craft cocktails, local beers, and wine, plus a patio and a cocktail lounge if you just want a drink. They take reservations and host private events.

Go: 200 10th St, Suite 606, Des Moines (Western Gateway) · Sun 10am to 9pm, Mon to Thu 11am to 9pm, Fri 11am to 10pm, Sat 10am to 10pm · 515-257-4744