7 Best Restaurants in Sacramento, Sacramento and the Gold Country

The husband chef at this East Sacramento restaurant recognized for its singular concept and chic, deep-green aesthetic creates nimbly plated Italian-tinged cuisine his sommelier wife and co-owner pairs with international wines from mostly Italian grapes (the California Nebbiolo selection alone is epic). Seafood is a specialty on the three- to five-course prix-fixe tasting menu, which always includes exceedingly fresh and tender oysters, alluring pasta dishes, and often voluptuous entrées.

Farmhouse meets semi-industrial open-kitchen chic at this light-filled restaurant whose executive chef found success in the Midwest and the Napa Valley before returning to Sacramento, where his culinary career began. Carefully chosen produce and proteins go into shareable small plates and larger platters that might include crispy octopus, vegetables à la plancha (seared on a metal plate), or smoked roasted lamb.

This swank restaurant and bar near the Capitol is artfully designed and thoroughly modern. The California–French, farm-to-table cuisine changes seasonally, but typical dishes include oysters on the half shell, steak tartare, and wood-fired bone marrow and entrées like wood-fired beef tenderloin and poached or pan-roasted fish.

A cheery, sometimes boisterous vibe prevails at this ode to Black cuisine and culture that former NBA star and past Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson and his wife, Michelle, founded in a high-ceilinged, quasi-industrial space 3½ miles southeast of the Capitol. Expect heapin' helpings of soul food's greatest hits—gumbo, shrimp and grits, oxtails, and fried chicken, catfish, and pork chops among them—that you can pair with sides that include hush puppies, black-eyed peas, candied yams, and collard greens (with turkey necks).

Exquisite plating and compelling, at times piquant, flavor combinations are the trademarks of this restaurant whose chef-sommelier owner, Chris Barnum-Dann, won the debut (2021) season of the culinary-competition TV show The Globe. The open-kitchen choreography of Barnum-Dann and his team deftly preparing one intricate dish after another (12 courses, prix-fixe) lends the proceedings a balletic air.

Rural French cooking with locally sourced, seasonal, high-quality, often organic ingredients is the hallmark of this upscale, white-tablecloth, corner storefront restaurant that's as appealing for a casual meal with friends as it is for a drawn-out romantic dinner for two. Among the mains, try the steak, duck breast, or seasonal seafood, and save room for one of the palate-cleansing desserts.