Farm-to-Fork
Hopped Up
Alaro Craft Brewery and gastropub expands the long history of Midtown microbreweries with a farm-to-fork emphasis.
In the old Rubicon brewery location on Capitol Avenue, owners Ray and Annette Ballestero built an elevated beer experience with Spanish-style tapas and small bites, along with classic pub offerings such as burgers, sandwiches, soups and salads.
At Alaro, the Ballesteros decided to “highlight classic beer styles.” While beer doesn’t always have a culture that connects with dining, the couple developed cohesive pairings between beer and food.
Alaro opened in June 2018 and became a favorite for its causal atmosphere, excellent food and award-winning beers.
Hyper Local
Revolution Winery & Kitchen embodies vine to bottle and farm to fork. The menu celebrates local fruit, breads, produce and wine grapes, all from within 100 miles of Midtown.
Chef-owner Gina Genshlea was raised on a sustainable farm in South Sacramento. She says her family “grew everything” they ate.
Childhood was filled with chestnuts, pecans, walnuts, olives, stone fruits, chickens, cows, pigs, goats, house-cured prosciutto and coppa, plus grapes and wine production.
With winemakers Colleen Clothier and Samuel Wharton, Revolution pulls the best local wine grapes. The crew crushes, ferments, ages and sells its wines in the heart of town.
The company uses some off-site storage, but most wine is produced and bottled on S Street.
Animal Farm
In golden light surrounded by fields of plump rice and recently harvested corn, beans and wheat, wildlife pecks on dinner.
This is Pleasant Grove Farms, 3,000 acres in the wetlands north of Sacramento. Owners Ed and Wynette Sills drive me around the parcels that comprise the farm.
The test of a healthy farm is the presence of wildlife. While this might seem counterintuitive, farmers who practice organic and regenerative agriculture try to create spaces where crops and other living beings thrive in harmony.
Chicken Run
Despite its deep farm-to-fork roots, Sacramento is not an easy place to find locally raised and processed poultry.
When scanning the meat section at area stores, local poultry seems almost invisible.
There are large California operators—Mary’s Chicken and Diestel Ranch—but few local producers. Searching for local birds, I found Sinclair Family Farm in Newcastle.
Situated in the Sierra foothills, Sinclair boasts a range of humanly treated meat products. Karin Sinclair told me her farm provides much more than poultry. She raises and sells meat from cows, sheep, pigs, rabbits, ducks and goats, plus chickens and turkeys.
Say Cheese
Sacramento is a locavore’s blessing. Within 40 miles of the city, farmers produce diverse fruits and vegetables, bountiful olive groves and vineyards. Ranchers raise world-class beef, lamb, poultry and pork.
But one important food category is elusive: a local cheesemaker.
When I searched for a nearby dairy that produces its own cheese, I found just two: Jollity Farm Goat Dairy in El Dorado County’s Garden Valley and Spenker Family Farm in Lodi. Both make goat cheese from animals raised on their farms.
Cultural Feast
Kristyn Leach is a farmer and seed producer with a mission. She wants to spread seeds from her Korean heritage and share stories from the Asian Diaspora, enriching our connections to locally grown, culturally significant food.
The journey carried Leach from farm fields around Winters, Sunol and Sebastopol to South Korea. She grew Korean-based crops for San Francisco restaurateur brothers Dennis, Daniel and David Lee, whose modern Korean cooking captivated the Bay Area before the pandemic.
“They really helped me get started,” Leach says of the Lees. “We worked directly with each other, and we started growing exclusively for them.”