Neumann Monson Architects complements relaxed food service with exposed structural timber at St. Kilda Surf & Turf, a restaurant serving Australian-inspired fare in Des Moines’s East Village neighborhood. The restaurant occupies one corner of the ground level of the first mass timber building in the U.S. to feature a dowel laminated timber (DLT) structure, which uses a friction-fit system with no glue, nails, or fasteners.

The neutral and natural palette of spruce columns and beams and white oak furniture is punctuated by a steel-clad wall and the dark tile of the bar at the restaurant’s center. Customers can enjoy a brunch of avocado toast and flat whites that is as on-trend as the building structure they sit in.