Cedar Rapids Restaurant Week delivers comfort food, unique fusions for 2026

CEDAR RAPIDS — Most years, it’s easy for me to pick out the things I want to try for Cedar Rapids Restaurant Week in a glance or two.

I look for new novelties, interesting twists on classics, fun fusions and time honored plates that chefs try to perfect in simple ways.

But this year’s lineup of 22 restaurants made it difficult with numerous thoughtful, well-crafted specials that run the gamut.

Here’s what caught my eye among the lineup — including some of my favorites not to be missed this year — so you know how to spend your dollars and calories.

For a full list of special menus and participating restaurants, visit cedarrapids.org.

1. Gnocchi carbonara by Goldfinch Tap + Eatery in Marion

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“It’s just a really good comfort food,” Goldfinch Tap + Eatery owner John Lillibridge said as he served the plate.

Comfort food is a buzzword these days, but it describes this perfectly.

Presentation is well-rounded in texture. The prosciutto just begs me to break it into crunch bits with a fork, to which I oblige with great pleasure. It tastes like a rich, well-fried bacon or ham stopping just short of the salty threshold that requires a sip of water.

Dense gnocchi provides a landing pad for the taste and texture of the crumbling prosciutto as al dente peas burst open with each bite, offering a time-tested dish with complex flavors.

The next thing I break is the salted egg yolk, which sits perfectly atop the dish for several minutes without moving — a sign of a really fresh egg. It provides another blanket of comfort on a cozy plate.

Rich butter and cream reflects off black pepper and the proscuitto’s salt.

The gnocchi sticks to my teeth as a feeling of peace assuages the anxieties of the day. It’s a comfort I can only describe as maternal.

Dishes like this are how we make riches out of simplicities like potatoes and peas. Don’t skip this, but do plan to sleep on it after your meal.

2. The Peanut Butter Crunch pastry by The Class Act

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Imagine if a scotcharoo got tired of the Midwest and moved to France.

With the weight of a sandwich, luscious layers of peanut butter, chocolate and crispy rice cereal filling cascade with crunches of croissant, each butter flake chiming in whenever it can manage to be heard over the peanut butter.

I peaked under the top layer of this sandwiched croissant, and this thing has a beast of a filling. The scotcharoo is instantly recognizable in taste and texture as a new fusion.

This brings international culinary craft and artistry to a down-home, regional treat often relegated to us commoners. You can take the scotcharoo out of Iowa, but you can’t get an American in Europe to stop thinking about peanut butter and cereal treats.

3. Limoncello panna cotta by Big Grove Brewery

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Big Grove Brewery Sous Chef Ryan Detlefsen wanted to take his dessert a step up from a basic creme brulee.

I’m a big fan of bright, bold citrus flavors. As he sat this on my table, I could already smell the lemon.

But its bark was sharper than its bite — very creamy with a pleasing, gelled mouthfeel in each spoonful. Each bite of what is essentially heavy cream and limoncello is demure with flecks of lemon peel.

The blueberry accent was the surprise star here, with a summery juice and ripeness uncharacteristic of February produce. I found myself chasing the blueberry juice for that extra “oomph” with each creamy bite.

In keeping with Punxsutawney Phil’s prediction, the cream heavy, citrus light dessert is a reminder that spring is coming, but it may not arrive as quickly or prominently as you’d like.

4. Burnt end crab cakes by Cliff’s Dive Bar

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I don’t use this word often, but the first bite of burnt ends is perfection. I have to look around — am I at a candy shop or a butcher’s counter?

Sweet and tender as fat and sugar meld and melt on my tongue, I hardly had to chew it.

Tangy crab cakes offer a French-inspired, citrus-tinged version of tartar sauce saturating pillowy crab cakes that bring you to the shoreline where “surf” and “turf” meet.

Taken together, the new wave crashes ashore where sweet, brine, citrus and char become one in a novel take on surf and turf.

Served with a nice arugula salad dressed with a light chili oil and citrus vinaigrette.

5. Korean fried chicken bao buns by The Class Act

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This dish is beautifully presented in a simple and clean but abundant way for what is usually a dainty food.

A hearty first bite with an immediate heat is only temporarily cooled by a bite of cucumber. Bao buns caress each bite.

The chicken’s sauce imparts a lot of flavor from Shaoxing wine — a Chinese rice wine that gives it some sour qualities — with just a subtle touch of sweetness. The texture of the fried chicken does most of the talking.

All of it comes with a small amount of kim chi mayonnaise in each bite. Pickled carrots, black sesame seeds and scallions add some nice textures, though I’m not sure they do anything big for the dominant flavor.

6. Birria stuffed chilaquiles by Rio Burritos

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Chilaquiles, often involving fried tortilla pieces, are a breakfast staple in Mexico. Here, Rio Burritos puts a twist on the classic by shaping masa (the same soft, corn-based dough used for tamales) and stuffing it with birria-seasoned shredded beef.

The hearty corn shell with fresh cilantro topping lets me sink my teeth into something fresh and new. Mild red sauce and tender beef offer a gentle body of seasoning — not overpowering.

The red sauce is deferential to the other ingredients it has been poured over, and a sprinkle of mozzarella cheese joins the mix. It’s flavorful and tender enough to cut with a fork.

Even if you’re not Mexican, this could easily qualify as comfort food.

7. Panatela by Groundswell Cafe

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Groundswell Cafe Manager Jack Ball, who is half Puerto Rican, wanted to do a quesito special for Restaurant Week — a sweet cheese and guava puff pastry from the Caribbean island. But the ingredients and prep work for that weren’t practical here.

He adapted to feature the panatela, his grandmother’s favorite snack. It’s simple: guava paste sandwiched by a crumbly butter sheet cake.

A warm, sweet guava center immediately puts me on island time as it meets my tongue, already salivating in anticipation.

Guava is one of those fruits we don’t see much of here, and this is a wonderful introduction to it. Across Puerto Rico and Latin America, it’s as common as apples and frequently used in pastries or candies.

This panatela is soft, gooey and viscous as it slowly melts on the tongue. Crumbly cake follows suit, saturated by my watering mouth before I can realize the cake it actually drier than usual. The guava paste offers hints of syrup and berries.

The perfect dusting of powder sugar punctuates the end.

8. The Dumpster Fire by CityWalk Eatery

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Almost every breakfast place has a version of this plate — a ship wreck, a truck wreck, a “depot.”

CityWalk Chef Ryan Baker took inspiration for the name from an ornament of a dumpster fire in his kitchen that assures him “Everything’s fine.”

Fried potatoes are topped with prosciutto, bacon, sausage, mushroom, roasted red pepper, scallion, egg and gouda-cheddar cheese mix.

It’s a pleasing palate of colors with a nice cheese pull. A salty symphony of meats and seasoned potatoes have fresh veggies in each bite, held together with the yolk of my over-medium egg. (The preparation style of the egg is up to the customer.)

Black truffle Parmesan and Lawry’s seasoning comes through strongly. All of it is familiar in an upscale package.

It’s served with a croissant, but you probably will be full before you get to it.

It takes all types to make the world go round, and the motley crew of ingredients here proves that.

9. Pork and lamb sausage by Black Sheep Social Club

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Crafting a special to represent your restaurant well during Cedar Rapids Restaurant Week can be a tricky act.

You can make it flashy and fun. Or, you can compose something nuanced and well-rounded in excellence -- something that demonstrates talent.

The latter, found in this dish, requires a certain amount of restraint and maturity.

This dish is beautifully composed with flavors that take a moment to sink in. But if you sit with them in stillness for a few seconds, you’ll find an appreciation for qualities that the loud dishes can’t offer.

Handmade sausage dish by Chef Daniel Lacayo is dressed with a bounty of Spanish and South American influences.

The pork and lamb in the sausage turn out to be a perfect marriage that’s flavorful without being spicy and moist without being greasy.

Seasoning is blended beautifully. Arugula adds earth, and a subtle but valuable Romesco sauce from Spain ties it all together on the plate of a man who grew up in its former colonies.

This wasn’t my number one pick during Restaurant Week, but it’s the only plate that I completely finished.

10. Czech Right & Berry Cinnamon Roll French toast by Czech Town Station

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This dish, a spinoff of the cinnamon roll French toast on the restaurant’s menu year-round, was inspired by the Czech Town Station owners’ children.

They wanted the world — a plate that could offer both cinnamon rolls and French toast washed in red, white and blue. Their father delivered with strawberry puree, strawberries and blueberries.

It’s inventive, offers wonderful creativity and photographs well. The icing was a decent quality.

But the cacophony of sugar makes it difficult to decipher the source of each one. It was kind of like one of those sodas I made as a kid, with a little bit of every single flavor at the fountain.

The French toast, by contrast, seemed like a savory treat by the time I got to the bread.

The owner strongly advises those ordering it to get something like bacon and eggs to help balance out the sugar. That’s wise advice.

Far be it from me, a childless food critic, to tell anyone how to parent. But some culinary dreams are just not practical.

Comments: Features reporter Elijah Decious can be reached at (319) 398-8340 or elijah.decious@thegazette.com.

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