Our family has been picking up East Sac’s One Speed pizzas and salads to go for dinners. I often thought of The Waterboy, chef Rick Mahan’s shuttered elegant Midtown restaurant.
Much to my delight in my in-box this week was news and details of their new Pop-Up Weekend Gourmet Dinners to go.
I’ve lived in Sacramento for almost 40 years, so I’ve been to Celestin’s Restaurant. It seems like a fact of life for any long-term diner in this town—if you’ve been around for more than two decades, you’ve eaten at Celestin’s.
You might have dined at the J Street location, where Patrick Celestin and his wife Phoebe held court starting in 1983. That same space became the first home of Kru Contemporary Japanese Cuisine, by the way. If my spatial geography is on point, I believe that same space is now the tiki bar extraordinaire, The Jungle Bird.
Think back to 2006. What do you think Sacramento saw itself as nearly a decade and a half ago? Where did you see Sacramento’s dining scene? Was farm-to-fork even on your radar?
In 2006, Heather Fargo sat as mayor, Kevin Martin led the kings in scoring and Patrick Mulvaney had a clear-eyed vision of what made the dining scene in Sacramento special. He recognized our rich agricultural legacy and year-round seasonal bounty, things we locals took for granted, as unique and something to be celebrated.
Jose Silva has a thing for burgers. “If we can put it on a bun, we’ll serve it,” says Silva, owner of Flaming Grill Café. Whether it’s sirloin, chuck, bison, ostrich, elk, alligator, carnitas or ahi tuna, you’ll find it on the menu at one of Silva’s three locations.
Chef and owner, Silva has spent the majority of his life, almost 35 years, in the kitchen. Starting out washing dishes at age 13, he steadily worked his way through a variety of Sacramento restaurants, finally giving up the game a dozen years ago. But like a professional athlete who just can’t hang up the cleats, Silva found himself back on the field when he stumbled upon an opportunity to buy up an awkward little food stand on El Camino Avenue. Less than one year into his sabbatical and he was back at the grill, the only difference this time was that it was his grill.
