Sacramento Central Farmer's Market is one of the largest in the state and frequented by kitchen staff and home cooks alike.Visit Sacremento
While growing up in 1980s Sacramento, Calif., Gina Genshlea was raised on her Italian grandfather’s culinary traditions of foraging for mushrooms and chestnuts in the late summer and curing salamis in the fall. There was a small family farm; they grew vegetables.
“My grandfather raised and slaughtered everything we ate,” she says. This way of living and eating fit right into the central California valley area, which remains one of the country’s prime agricultural zones and is home to a vibrant farmer’s market culture.
So when she decided to open up Revolution Wines, an urban winery in midtown Sacramento in 2005, the idea seemed natural. It was perhaps a bit of a gamble at the time, given that internationally recognized wine regions of Napa and Sonoma valleys are just an hour’s drive away. “My husband convinced me to do this as a way to keep my grandfather’s tradition alive.”
The decision paid off. Customers would linger during and after tastings, asking if there were snacks to order. Within a few years, their volume of direct and subscription sales allowed them to expand into a restaurant in 2012. They’ve been in operation as a restaurant, winery and production facility ever since, slinging glasses of deliciously bright and slightly creamy chenin blanc alongside risotto, burgers and cheese boards.
Along with a steady string of restaurateurs, bakers and other food producers over the past decade, Genshlea’s bid to open a business that celebrated fresh, ultra-local produce in a format new to the city marked a sea change in this suburban state’s dining and wine culture. It’s one that punches well above its weight in terms of diversity and quality – and the rest of North America is starting to take notice.
Last December, The New York Times noted that cheaper rent than neighbouring San Francisco, proximity to prime food producers and a diverse population had set the stage for a spate of Sacramento-born chefs and cooks to return home to stake businesses of their own. Earlier this year, Eater agreed, including it in its annual roundup of the best global dining cities and insisting that “a pit stop isn’t nearly enough to taste it all.”
I got that impression during the couple of days I recently stayed there on a pit stop to wine country in the Napa and Sonoma valleys with my husband. I figured my time in the suburban capital would mostly comprise museums, farmers’ markets and thrifting. The city’s midtown and Crocker Art Museum offered plenty of that, but what I didn’t expect were the incredible breakfast sandwiches, deliciously fussy coffee and excellent Mexican takeout.
I grabbed fiery jalapeño omelettes on fresh bread at Old Soul first thing in the morning.Lyda Studios/Supplied
I ordered smoky and gloriously messy birria tacos from Chando’s; grabbed fiery jalapeño omelettes on fresh bread at Old Soul first thing the next morning and creamy black espressos Temple Coffee Roasters before starting our day. These weren’t the kind of appointment meals one makes while travelling to tick off some kind of bucket list; great food was easy to find at every price point, wherever we happened to already be going.
When Sacramento Bee food writer Benjy Egel returned to the city in 2015 after a four-year college stay in Texas, he noticed that the everyday nature of dining in his hometown had changed. “I celebrated my 21st birthday that year: I remember going to a new-school Mexican spot and having a blackberry margarita that was really good, heading to a bar that had incredible local craft beer and ending up at Rick’s Dessert Diner,” he says, describing a beloved 1950s-style diner that serves up cake and perfectly flakey slices of mixed berry pie. “I was seeing Sacramento in a way I hadn’t before.”
But the elements of a great dining city, he notes, had always been there, and continue to thrive. There’s the proximity to prime farmland. The fact that the University of California, Davis campus houses nationally recognized programs in viticulture, food research and agriculture. Crucially, he says, it’s also one of the most racially diverse cities in the country. “For a long time, Sacramento’s had substantial Afghan, Vietnamese and Mexican populations represented in the culinary scene.”
This influence gets expressed in a range of ways, from a thoroughly diverse range of strip-mall spots that offer excellent takeout, such as the rice noodle rolls at Yue Huang, which stand out with its at-once crispy and quivering texture, and the contemporary omakase at Kru. There is Michelin-starred Localis, where chef and owner Christpher Barnum-Dann’s American-style fine dining finds expression in the kind of artful plating you might see on FX’s The Bear.
One of our last meals, at Michelin-noted Grange, featured a pork chop I still think about.Douglas Merriam/Visit Sacremento
One of our last meals, at Michelin-noted Grange, featured a pork chop I still think about: cooked to a juicy and slightly cheeky pink, served on honeyed creamed corn with a nest of pickly sweet pole beans for crunch. It was simple and delicious – and when paired with a tiny glass of tokaji for dessert, it became an extended play on a meal that played entirely sweet flavours without ever hitting a cloying note.
And there is also wine. When hosting food tours through her company, SacTown Bites, Heather Fortes loves to surprise visitors by pointing them in the direction of local wineries. “We have tours along the Sacramento River that are a completely different world from Napa – not as expensive, not as frequently family owned,” she says. Since a significant amount of the county’s grape production gets shipped to the bigger wine countries next door, she says, “winemakers here are really bold with experimenting with grapes you may not have heard of.”
Fortes makes a point of driving visitors just 25 minutes south of town to Silt Wine Company for sips of balanced, Spanish-style teroldego; an hour east in the Sierra Foothills, Andis Wines produces crisp and very dry Portuguese arinto.
Fortes brings food tour groups to Silt Wine Company year-round for sips of balanced, Spanish style tempranillo and teroldego.Supplied
At one point, while driving from a bodega-themed farmers’ market to Joan Didion’s childhood home in the posh Poverty Ridge neighbourhood, I remarked to my husband just how easy it was to get anywhere in less than 30 minutes. Something unthinkable in Toronto. It makes the prospect of going back more enticing; I’ve already got a list of where I’d like to try next.
If you go: Air Canada operates direct flights from Vancouver and Toronto to Sacramento daily. Napa and Sonoma valleys are a 90-minute drive away. A number of shuttle services also offer direct bus service from Sacramento International Airport to wine country. Stay at The Citizen Hotel.
Must-see wineries and markets
Andis Wines
Fifteen years ago, founders Janis Akuna and Andy Friedlander planted 30-year-old vines in the Sierra Foothills a half-hour outside Sacramento to start their wine-making careers. Their varietals today range from highly specialized Portuguese arinto to old vine zinfandels. andiswines.com
Acheson Winery
Only 30 per cent of wine bottles actually end up in the recycling system in the U.S., but this midtown Sacramento operation is intent on doing things differently. Founded by two industry friends, Acheson only packages its barberas, chardonnays and albarinos in kegs, growlers and flip-top bottles that customers can – and do – get refilled. achesonwinecompany.com
Silt Wine Company
You’ll have to e-mail them for a tasting-room invite, but the extra step is worth it. Fortes brings food tour groups to this Clarksburg winery year-round for sips of balanced, Spanish style tempranillo and teroldego.
Bodega Days
Across the street from our hotel was Cesar Chavez Plaza, a leafy park with a Thursday-morning market that features produce, freshly baked bread and empanadas locals like to snack on fountainside while on lunch break.
Midtown Farmers Market
Every Saturday, year-round, this market rolls out 200 vendors over the span of five blocks. Cheese, wine, locally roasted coffee, dumplings, pupusas, halo halo; you will not leave this market unfed.
Sacramento Central Farmers’ Market
Shaded in the overpass of an interstate freeway, this produce-packed Sunday market is one of the largest in the state and frequented by kitchen staff and home cooks alike. A couple of blocks away, you’ll find a secondary market specializing in East and South Asian fruits and vegetables.
The writer was a guest of The Citizen Hotel, Sacramento Tourism and Air Canada. Hosts did not review or approve the story before publication.
One in a regular series of stories. To read more, visit our Inspired Dining section.