Des Moines food critic Wini Moranville spills the tea in new memoir

For more than 25 years Des Moines author Wini Moranville has been bringing people together around the table through her work as a food and wine writer.

Perhaps best known in Iowa for her work as a restaurant critic for the Des Moines Register, Moranville also spent 10 years on the other side of the table — working as a server in some classic Des Moines restaurants.

In her new memoir, “Love is My Favorite Flavor: A Midwestern Dining Critic Tells All” (University of Iowa Press), Moranville reflects on how her time as a server laid the foundation for her career as an international food writer.

“As I started writing (the book) I realized I had so many other stories to tell,” Moranville said in a recent interview. “And what really came up again and again was … how much my work in restaurants informed how I approached and what I expected restaurants to do.”

“These wonderful experiences I had in my teens and early 20s were just a foundation for how to look at restaurants.”

Moranville weaves the stories of her past and present together, with a chapter on her professional life followed by a chapter on a foundational experience from her days as a server.

“Memory is so cyclical …. It just goes back and forth and back and forth. And that’s pretty much how I wrote the book.”

  Buy Photo

For example: The book opens with Moranville in Des Moines, four years into reviewing restaurants, on the day she first went to Thai Flavors, a restaurant she enthusiastically reviewed for the Des Moines Register.

And in the following chapter, she’s 14 years old, starting her first job at Baker’s cafeteria in the 1970s.

As she describes in her book, the professional atmosphere at Baker’s, as well as the required before-shift staff dinners, helped foster a dedication to quality that came through at even the smallest detail, such as how quickly a table could be cleared.

“The University of Iowa Press did a great job helping me to edit and structure (the book),” Moranville explained.

“Every time I came up with something — an experience — currently, I thought about ‘well, what made me look for a certain thing that I was looking for? What made me love this or what made me disappointed in this? Oh! It’s the way things informed me in my early life.’”

Whether she was working as a server or as a restaurant critic, Moranville was providing a service to her customers.

“When I was in my teens and early 20 waiting tables I felt I wanted to lead the people who sat at my tables to the best meal they could get …. And I felt exactly the same way about being a restaurant critic. My job was to connect people with food they would enjoy. And I wanted people to have a great time at the table. I wanted people to enjoy the best things a restaurant could do.”

“And the best part of that job was connecting people who loved certain kinds of food with food they would like. I loved that connection.”

For Moranville, the table is more than a place to eat a meal. It’s a moment full of possibilities, something she learned at the age of 19 while waiting tables at the coffee shop in the downtown Des Moines Yonkers.

“There was this crabby old lady who came in every single day and wanted her tea in a pot, the particular china pot that we had. And she wanted everything just so.”

“Then one day I saw her just sitting there enjoying her cup of tea and the sun was coming in through the windows and I thought ‘Oh my God, this is a moment where she gets a great break in the day. And I can help her have that really great moment.’”

In addition to her work for the Des Moines Register, Moranville has written for national publications such as Better Homes and Gardens, served as a James Beard Restaurant Award panelist, authored numerous cookbooks, and traveled the world to discover new wines, foods, and trends to share with readers.

Throughout her career, Moranville learned that a great dining experience isn’t just about the food — it’s also about the people.

“Just the other day I was with three other foodies going out to dinner. Somebody said: ‘Everybody talk about their favorite meal.’ Not one of them talked about, like, going to The French Laundry and spending $600. It was all about being in these kind of humble places and being cared for and having somebody just surprise you and delight you with something very simple and fresh and lovely. And the care they took.”

“The table’s a sacred place to me. It’s one place in the world where things might just go your way.”