Throughout its 87-year history, the restaurant has been a study in changes – changes in times, changes in food, changes in people, changes in name.

After chef Jeremy Morrow left last year to open his own restaurant, Forty Three Restaurant & Bar has been feeding off a change in atmosphere and a change in menu, thanks to the creative influences of Executive Chef Matt Bingham and Sous Chef Josh Burmeister, whom owner Jeff Hunter refers to as the restaurant’s “twin stars.”

But with those changes, which included a makeover to the restaurant in 2005, Hunter and his staff have maintained an emphasis on operating Forty Three, like its predecessors, as a downtown destination.

Hunter’s goal throughout his 26-year career at Hotel Fort Des Moines has been to make the hotel and its restaurant the nicest in the city. The restaurant opened in 1919 as the Ivory Room and later took on new identities as The Gotham Club, the Embassy Club, the Bohemian Club, Truffles and Landmark. Now, Hunter says, “I’m getting closer.”

“It now does what I want it to,” he says. “I want a downtown hotel that attracts local people as much as it does the business traveler.”

Hunter says making the restaurant less formal has broadened its customer base. But he also touts Forty Three’s interesting menu – the current menu is the first created solely by Bingham and Burmeister – friendly, professional service, pleasant atmosphere and “consistency of the product.” All but one member of the kitchen staff has been with the restaurant since it opened in 2002.

“We’ve tried to keep the style similar to what it was before, so people wouldn’t think it was a whole new concept,” Burmeister says. “But we’ve put our own twist on it, stuff we’ve done in the past and flavors we like to accommodate.”

Bingham said he and Burmeister have brought more classical cuisine back into the restaurant’s menu, but with some Italian influences – such as the spinach and goat cheese ravioli with basil pesto and saffron broth – and French influences, primarily found in rich cream sauces served with several meat entrees.

Forty Three’s signature entrees include coconut-crusted mahi-mahi with garlic mashed potatoes, asparagus, fruit salsa and spiced rum sauce, as well as the apple-stuffed pork chop with herb roasted fingerling potatoes, green beans and cider reduction. The signature dessert, chocolate lava cake, consists of a flourless chocolate torte with a warm “molten lava” center.

The restaurant has also adopted the increasingly popular small-plates format, often referred to as tapas, with selections ranging from grilled chicken and peanut spring rolls served with sweet chili sauce and soy reduction, to duck confit bruschetta with carmelized onion, grilled figs and blackberry port infusion.

“We’re pretty proud of the overall menu as a whole,” Bingham said.

And of course, the restaurant’s menu extends to the restaurant bar. Bar Manager Todd Petrowsky’s “pie martinis” – fresh fruit purees infused with Licor 43 and vanilla vodka served in a martini glass rimmed with brown sugar and graham cracker crumbs – have become a signature selection. The popularity of his original key lime pie martini encouraged him to extend the line with raspberry, peach, blueberry and French silk pie martinis.

But Petrowsky continues to maintain Forty Three’s extensive wine selection, with 220 wine varieties that are hand-selected as part of a menu that is updated regularly.

“People come in here and they haven’t heard of a lot of our wines,” he said. “And that’s kind of what we’re going for. We don’t want them to find something here that they’d find in the grocery store.”