In Sacramento, dinner spots surrounding the Sacramento Kings’ Golden 1 Center stadium teem with patrons during big games and concerts, while Midtown’s bustling and historic neighborhoods are usually lively regardless. Wherever the businesses are located, they fuel the region’s agricultural heritage with a spectrum of diverse flavors and price points, ranging from high-end to casual.
Feature photo: Courtesy of Camden Spit and Larder
Downtown
806 L St, Sacramento
916.442.7092
Frank Fat’s is community anchor with award-winning food and service. Patrons here include everyone from politicians to tourists and everyone else doing business downtown. Shareable dishes like the epic honey walnuts prawns and must-try banana cream pie have made this a mainstay in Sacramento’s dining scene since 1939.
555 Capitol Mall #100, Sacramento
916.619.8897
Here you’ll find English spit-charred meats and roasted vegetables highlighting Sacramento’s fresh produce. Camden’s bar crafts seasonal and year-round cocktail classics, along with impressive wine lists. The interior’s deep colors, patterned fabrics and floors and custom metallic ceiling create a luxe ambiance, as does the shaded outdoor patio.
926 J St, Sacramento
916.492.4450
Adjacent to Citizen Hotel’s polished mosaic entryway and the Cesar Chavez Plaza urban green space, this award-winning restaurant is a short walk from any major attraction downtown. Dinner features fresh local produce and high quality proteins, as well as delicious light plates and a visit-worthy breakfast and brunch.
2226 10th St, Sacramento
916.469.9448
Binchoyaki is not your standard ramen house or sushi joint. Its Japanese barbecue, with most small-plate dishes cooked sumiyaki style—sumi (or bincho) is Japanese charcoal, and yaki means grill. Hot-hot binchotan charcoal lends a particular, and delicious, flavor to meat, poultry, seafood and vegetables. Also on the menu: ramen, tempura and bento boxes, plenty of drinks, and everything is served izakaya-style: friendly, informal and welcoming.
1112 Second St, Sacramento
916.442.4772
One of Sacramento’s finest and most elegant restaurants, The Firehouse has been a special-occasion staple since it opened in 1960. It’s housed in the 1853 red-brick firehouse for Engine Company No. 3 in the Old Sacramento Waterfront, with a stately white-tablecloth main dining room, classic bar and a lush brick courtyard (a popular wedding venue). Its menu features beautiful presentations of specialty-cut meats, best-available seafood and locally sourced fruits and vegetables. Additionally, The Firehouse is known for its award-winning 64-page wine list and its cellar that stores more than 16,000 bottles, including rare ones in a vault.
1122 Seventh St, Sacramento
916.898.1100
Located inside the Hyatt Centric Hotel, The 7th Street Standard honors its building’s past with playbills and photos from its days as a jazz hotspot. A sophisticated big-city space, the restaurant serves modern California dishes created from locally sourced ingredients, with a little bit of classic French and South Indian in the mix, thanks to chef Ravin Patel. If they’re on the menu, the pan-seared salmon or ancho chili petit lamb T-bones are a must-order.
1322 V St, Sacramento
916.706.3741
A huge smoker sends forth sausages, brisket, ribs and more at this downtown brewery, where the menu includes a broad selection of sides (burnt-end beans, mac and cheese, Texas chili, broccoli and quinoa salads, collard greens), plus burgers and sandwiches and plenty of beer (IPAs, lagers, stouts, saisons and so forth). The Urban Roots folks are behind several other Sacramento restaurants, including Bawk! (where the fried chicken melts in your mouth) and Cerveceria at The Shack taqueria.
Midtown
1215 19th St, Sacramento
916.441.6022
Dinner and dessert served out of this refurbished firehouse built in 1893 change daily, with the chef and owner being key figures in the local farm-to-fork movement. Mulvaney’s adjacent weather protected outdoor patio and next door banquet space accommodate private group events, and the separate bar dining space features rotating California wine, craft beer and specialty drink offerings.
1801 Capitol Ave, Sacramento
916.441.0303
“Puro orgullo Mexicano”— pride in high end, regional Mexican plates — fuels Zocalo’s brand of hospitality. Its 1925 Spanish revival façade, originally designed for Arnold Brother’s 1920s car manufacturers, is the most attention-grabbing on an already-stylish street which offers a direct outlook of the Capitol rotunda. Start with ceviche and guacamole platos chicos before moving to dinner’s pork simmered pozole, eight different tacos, regional enchiladas, seasoned and smoked pork carnitas, followed by churros for dessert.
1401 28th St, Sacramento
916.457.5737
The alluring patio at Paragary’s Midtown, tranquil with waterfalls and olive trees, provides a serene backdrop for a dinner that could include, among a list of bistro dishes, some longtime house specialties: mushroom salad with lemon and Jarlsberg; hand-cut rosemary pappardelle with Mary’s chicken, leeks, pancetta and artichokes; or fennel sausage and goat cheese pizza. The cocktail menu includes the Paragary’s ’83, a citrus-forward delight paying homage to the year the restaurant was opened by the late Randy Paragary, one of Sacramento’s most respected dining icons.
2031 S St, Sacramento
916.737.7699
One of two Michelin-starred restaurants in Sacramento, Localis takes local and seasonal ingredients to an award-winning level and operates with the mantra “trust us to feed you well.” Chef/owner Chris Barnum-Dann turns out a prix-fixe 12-course tasting menu, unannounced in advance (to enable use of best available ingredients), beautifully presented, and the diners’ only decisions involve drinks. It’s a convivial, warm experience — nothing stuffy about it — especially at the Chef’s Counter, where diners learn about ingredients and sourcing and can watch the magic unfold.
2000 Capitol Ave, Sacramento
916.498.9891
Recognized as one of Sacramento’s best restaurants since 1996, The Waterboy, owned by celebrated chef Rick Mahan, serves dishes inspired by cuisines of southern France and northern Italy in a window-lined airy space beneath midtown’s towering trees. The menu changes frequently, thanks to the restaurant’s reliance on locally sourced ingredients. Some standouts include the Waterboy Caesar salad, pan-seared sea scallops, bouillabaisse (packed with fish and shellfish), and the pappardelle with caramelized onion, mortadella and porcini jus.
East Sac
5215 Folsom Blvd, Sacramento
916.538.6434
Allora’s appreciation for details speaks is reflected through its seamless Italian seafood and pasta, wax-sealed menus and house-engraved cocktail ice. The prix fixe dinner menu offers three, four or five course meals of Sacramento’s most visually provocative insalata, antipasti, pasta, risotto and more, which are bolstered by over 250 wine selections dominantly from Italy.
4818 Folsom Blvd, Sacramento
916.706.1748
With chewy thin-crust pizza made from organic flour, sauce with DiNapoli tomatoes and other toppings grown and produced in the Sacramento Valley, OneSpeed is several steps above a typical pizza joint. The garden pizza, for example, has Delta asparagus, green garlic confit, preserved tomatoes, mozzarella, burrata and lemon. In addition to pizzas, diners will find frito misto (with Gulf shrimp), housemade strozzapreti and rigatoni, a darn good burger and Tyrolean spaetzle.
3135 Folsom Blvd, Sacramento
916.551.1559
Chef Billy Ngo, James Beard Award finalist (UPDATE JUNE 10), shows his stuff at Kru with inventive sushi and elevated Japanese dishes. Nigiri specials are updated daily to present the freshest ingredients — for example, young yellowtail, wild mature yellowtail, bluefin, barracuda, sturgeon or amberjack. Diners can reserve a spot for omakase service on Wednesdays with one 6 p.m. seating. It’s a three-hour feast of chef-curated locally sourced dishes, a nigiri flight of premium fish, plus plenty of education and interaction, and it’s best enjoyed with Kru’s beverage pairing.
1719 34th St, Sacramento
916.469.2433
At this East Sac establishment, where globally inspired sharable dishes bring discerning diners for seasonal farm-to-table cuisine, owner Clay Nutting and Michelin-starred chef Brad Cecchi bring their passion for farmers, ranchers, vintners and artisans to the table. Menu options might include smoked whole chicken, spring pea salad, blistered Nantes carrots (so sweet!), perhaps a whole fried fish. A finely tuned wine list and a lineup of fun cocktails round out the offerings.
Who’s writing these?
Meet our always-hungry team of foodies who compiled this list.
Please let us know if we’ve missed your favorite eat@localgetaways.com.
