I live in Sacramento. Not from Sac but been here for 10 years now and it’s home.
Have also lived in Seattle, SF Bay Area, Houston, and Baltimore/DC each for years.
Am very familiar with Vancouver, Portland, LA, Orange County, San Diego, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Denver, New Orleans, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and Miami with many visits and extended stays in each, mostly for work.
Sacramento has a very respectable food scene. I wasn’t thrilled to move here in 2012, and I would have snickered at Sacramento alongside you, but now I’ve found significant respect for a lot of what’s going on here.
If the SF Bay Area and the CA Central Valley had a baby, it would be Sacramento. It’s got the definite blue collar gritty authenticity of the Central Valley as you would expect from the agricultural heartland of California. It’s also got the haute taste, high education, forward thinking, and also beauty and wealth you would expect from the Bay Area. It’s appropriate that it’s the state capital and it has some panache as a result.
From a food perspective, my favorite grocery anywhere is Corti Brothers in Sacramento, and it’s entirely because of Darrell Corti. If you don’t know about him, look him up.
I’ve eaten more than my share of ice cream in this life and if anyone thinks there’s better ice cream than Gunther’s in Sacramento, I don’t believe you.
There are lots of other gems I’m discovering all the time, and with South closing, I’m sad to say one is being lost, but hopefully another will be gained soon when N’Gina opens her next project. I’ll miss her corn bread, biscuits, and fried chicken.
Sacramento has earned my respect.
