When chef Hal Jasa is cooking, don’t expect to order off a menu. He says menus stifle his creativity and make for a boring dining experience, so he doesn’t use them.

“I’m such a right-brain thinker that I can come up with something one day, put it on the menu and want to change it the next day,” Jasa said. “I don’t want people coming to my restaurant and saying, ‘That’s my favorite dish.’ I want them to come and say, ‘What are we having tonight?'”

Jasa’s opinions about creating art through the medium of food led the 28-year-old to leave his job as executive chef at 25th Street Café midway through last year to start his own style of restaurant called Underground Inc. His business specializes in serving gourmet dinners in “underground” locations across Greater Des Moines, such as downtown rooftops, urban lofts and private gardens.

Customers make reservations online for Jasa’s biweekly dinners. The day before the event, he sends an e-mail announcing the time, location and suggested attire. Usually no more than 26 people are allowed at each gathering, which Jasa said is “just enough people to keep it intimate” and maintain the quality of the food.

When the guests arrive, they find a menu at their place setting telling them what will be served that night. Not knowing the menu ahead of time is “part of the excitement,” Jasa said.

In the past, menus have included dishes such as fired South African game hen and smoked paprika Niman Ranch New York strip steak. With anything he cooks, Jasa likes to add “twists.”

“I can’t do anything normal,” he said. “I don’t want to do the standard dishes like mahi-mahi with mango salsa. Everyone has had that. Why serve something that you know is a winner when you can serve something that is new and amazing?”

Jasa’s dinners range from five to seven courses and include wine pairings. In 2006, he charged $100 per person. He recently raised the price to $125 so he could bring in some finer wines.

Turnout for Underground’s first dinner in June on the rooftop of the Brown-Camp Lofts was small, with 10 customers. But subsequent events have sold out. We talked with Jasa last week while he was preparing to serve his biggest crowd yet through Underground, a 14-course New Year’s Eve dinner with seven wine pairings for about 70 people. Jasa saw the interest in the event as a sign that that people are warming up to his approach to dining out.

Not only are local people taking an interest in Underground, but foodies from all over are contacting Jasa. He attributes much of the recent buzz to Food & Wine magazine’s list of “100 Tastes to Try in ’07” in its January issue. Underground came in at No. 51 in the magazine’s roundup of new trends and flavors from across the world.

“Des Moines is conservative, but there are enough people out there who are risk takers,” Jasa said.

The risk factor with Underground isn’t the food as much as some of the other unknowns, Jasa said, such as who the other guests will be. And unlike traditional restaurants with private seating, everyone sits at one large table at Underground events.

Jasa enjoys seeing how his food brings different types of people together, ranging from farmers to executives.

“It’s fun to see the looks on everyone’s faces when they see who they’re sitting by,” Jasa said. “We’ve had a hip-hop artist sitting across from a guy in a suit. But before long, everyone warms up to each other and starts talking about the food.”

Jasa has a small staff of two servers and one cook to assist with the meals. Because his roving restaurant always changes locations – sometimes using places without electricity – he often prepares food using portable cooking equipment such as a camping stove, charcoal grill or electric skillet. At a recent Underground dinner in an unfinished penthouse in the Whiteline Lofts, Jasa compensated for no room lighting by illuminating the room with candles. He cooked a seven-course meal with only one electrical outlet. They had to be careful so that the flames from the candles didn’t set off the sprinkler system.

“When we figure our location, we try to see what we have to work with and what is feasible to maintain quality,” Jasa said. “You have to utilize what you have. You can make great food anywhere; you just have to figure out the logistics.”

Jasa chooses the locations for the dinners. For the New Year’s Eve event, Jasa chose the location carefully, knowing that he did not want to attempt cooking for such a large crowd using only his portable cooking devices. He booked Catchlight Studios in Des Moines, which has a working kitchen.

Jasa completed the menu for the meal three months ago. It feature interesting courses such as pan-seared diver scallops served with grilled peach preserves and a curried cauliflower puree. He calls it a “tasting menu” because the portions of each course will be small, so people don’t leave the dinner feeling they should be “rolled out the door.”

“It’s those first three to six bites of something that are always the best,” Jasa said. “So when you have a large number of courses in a meal, you serve every course as those first bites and then move on, leaving them wishing they had more.”

Jasa enlisted the help of 10 students from the Iowa Culinary Institute at Des Moines Area Community College to help with the cooking. In return, he pledged to donate 20 percent of the profits from the dinner to ICI, his alma mater. The money was put into a scholarship fund for students to study in the South of France.

“I want next year’s event to be bigger so we can help send more students over there,” Jasa said. “These are the chefs who are going to be donating their time to our city’s charitable events in the future and feeding us, and we want them to be as well-trained as they can be.”

Jasa became passionate about helping local students study cooking in France after spending three months immersed in French classical cuisine in Saint-Germain-Laval. His training at ICI and abroad taught him the fundamentals of cooking, he said.

“From basic French, you can go any route you want and add any flavors you want, from Asian to African,” Jasa said.

Rarely does Jasa repeat a dish from one Underground meal to another. “I’ll only repeat a menu item if I think it’s perfect,” he said, such as his tamarind-glazed rack of lamb with mint salsa and cumin-scented cabbage.

Because he prides himself on using the freshest ingredients available, he usually changes recipes from one event to the next.

“You have tomatoes that are ripe one Saturday and not the next, so why have them on the menu?” Jasa said.

The flexibility to cook what he wants is one of the best things about owning Underground, Jasa said. Another benefit is having more time at home with his wife, Amber Hathaway-Jasa, and their 7 1/2-year-old son, Leighton.

Sometimes Jasa misses the salary that he earned working as an executive chef, but any challenges that come with running Underground disappear when he is cooking.

“The time I’m cooking is no longer work,” he said. “The smiles and ‘thank-yous I get from customers are worth any sleepless nights.”

For more information about Underground, visit www.desmoinesunderground.com.