Small-batch coffees brewed from beans harvested within the past 12 months are the rule at Chocolate Fish Coffee Roasters, where the bean is king. Founded in 2008 by husband and wife Andy and Edie Baker, Chocolate Fish Coffee takes its product to extremes.
A Downtown Sacramento restaurant institution and premier dining destination, Ella Dining Room & Bar serves New American, farm-to-fork cuisine for lunch, dinner and happy hour, featuring entrées of seafood, steaks and pastas, small plates, salads, fresh oysters and traditional caviar service. Ella also features an award-winning wine list as well as seasonal and classic hand-crafted cocktails at its renowned bar.
A passion for baking brought a sweet life to Marlene and Walter Goetzeler. As co-owners of Freeport Bakery for the past 28 years, the Goetzelers share a love of baking forged the first day they met. The story might have been written for Hollywood. Walter, raised by a prominent baking family in Bavaria, wandered into a San Diego bookshop run by Marlene. He was looking for a map.
This venerable Chinese food restaurant in the heart of downtown is a true testament to the American dream. The founder of the eponymous eatery immigrated to America from China in 1919 at age 16 with no money or identification and managed to open one of the city’s most iconic restaurants a mere 20 years later. Frank Fat’s is now the anchor Sacramento restaurant of the four establishments in the Fat Family Restaurant Group
Broadway and 13th Street is an unpretentious corner of the city where a simple sign beckons diners to a steakhouse mecca. The sign says “Iron.” Behind the doors is a restaurant devoted to hearty eating, with emphasis on red meat traditions such as a 16-ounce New York steak or eight-ounce filet mignon.
If Downtown Sacramento has a geographic heart, it would be Cesar Chavez Plaza, located across from the city’s historic city hall and site of a weekly farmers market. La Cosecha is a festive and welcoming place to linger, eat and drink indoors or outdoors on the plaza. The walk-up taco bar, operated by Ernesto Delgado—who also runs Mayahuel on K Street and Mesa Mercado in Carmichael—features a deep selection of tacos and more.
