CITY GUIDES | MIDWEST
Inside Bar La Tosca, Ames’ Coffee-to-Cocktails Hangout
$$$$$ | MAP | WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM
By Jamie Dutton | Feb. 23, 2026
This is the rare restaurant that has two names, because it does two jobs. In the daytime it’s Stomping Grounds Café. Later it’s Bar La Tosca. The building does not change. The menu just shifts through the day as you do, all the way doing exactly what you need when you need it.
It’s in Ames’ Campustown, close to Iowa State, in the part of town where a place has to be good to make it. In the kitchen is chef Brett DeBlieck, who built a menu on small plates, pastas, entrées, and drinks that matter.
The food never seems to miss: mushroom toast comes with herbed goat cheese, local mushrooms, and toasted Italian bread. Beef-and-pork meatballs come with marinara and garlic toast, which is an order designed to disappear. Cioppino is on the menu too: smoked salmon and shellfish in a spicy broth with potato and olive oil.
Lots of places manage to do one thing well. At Stomping Grounds Café and Bar La Tosca, they’re doing it all, and nailing it.
These Are Iowa’s Michelin-Worthy Restaurants
If the Michelin Guide shows up in Des Moines, Ames, and across the Hawkeye State tomorrow, here are the restaurants that the inspectors would show some love.
