ROCK SOLID

A massive boulder lit a creative spark for this Loomis home design.

When it comes to any creative pursuit, limitations are a surefire way to spur ingenuity. Just ask Mela Breen, principal designer at Grass Valley-based Atmosphere Design Build, who was tasked with siting a new home on a topographically challenging lot in Loomis.

The quarter-acre property, which sat undeveloped for three decades, came with numerous challenges: utility easements on two sides, a steep drop-off in one corner, a large tree, and a giant boulder in the middle of it all. All told, the constraints meant only about 10 percent of the lot could be used as buildable space.

Still, owner Ellen Wolfe was convinced that the property, which overlooks Folsom Lake and abuts a wide-open swath of parkland, was perfect for her needs. “The idea of having a lot that backed up to state park property is something that was intriguing to me,” says Wolfe. “It’s also in a little neighborhood and has a very community feel to it, so it was a nice blend of what I wanted for myself.”

The constraints meant Breen had to get creative. Obtaining a variance for one of the easements gave her some much-needed wiggle room, but maintaining a small footprint was essential. Situating the tallest part of the house adjacent to the tree consolidated the massing and helped preserve views for nearby homes. And building a separate garage structure offered greater flexibility than an attached one.

Breen decided against integrating the boulder into the home’s interior because, she says, “it wouldn’t work in terms of temperature control and water intrusion.” At the same time, “we wanted to experience the boulder. It’s almost like a beautiful sculpture.” By constructing the home mere inches from the massive lichen-covered rock, “you can have a tactile experience with it as you move into the house.”

Inside, the home is all about “this tension between constraint and expansion,” explains Breen. For example, the designer needed to create the feeling of a private sanctuary in a home that is situated within a neighborhood. The solution? Strategically placed windows that draw the eye to nearby open spaces so that there is, as she says, “a continual relationship between the inside and the outside.”

“What I probably like most about the house is that I have all these incredible views,” says Wolfe. “At every window, I have something amazing to look at.”

The home’s interior—with its high ceilings, maple floors and cabinets, and rooms awash in natural light—is the calm, retreat-like space that Wolfe desired. “The materials all go together so well, and the space is comfortable and warm,” says the homeowner.

The building also possesses “a level of craft that is more than skin deep,” according to Breen. “Its beauty is about what’s happening behind the walls more than the finishes.” The highly efficient home boasts airtight construction in part due to the use of European windows and doors; a balanced heat-recovery ventilation system to ensure the constant flow of fresh, filtered air; hot water supplied by a solar thermal system; and a roof-mounted photovoltaic system and backup battery for a resilient energy supply.

“It’s a high-performance home where all the systems are designed specifically for the building,” says Breen, whose firm specializes in a holistic, energy-conscious approach to design and construction. “It’s custom in every sense of the word: for the client, the site and the microclimate.”

TOP: A woodburning stove was on the homeowner’s must-have list. “What I love about the living space is that it can be experienced multiple ways: facing inward toward the stove or outward toward the windows,” says designer Mela Breen.

MIDDLE: In the half bath, Pratt + Larson tile “picks up on the muted, earthy colors” around the property, says Breen. The wood for the walnut slab countertop and casing was sourced from her father.

BOTTOM: The bathroom’s handmade denim-colored ceramic tile by Portland-based Pratt + Larson “has great luminous complexity to it,” says Breen.

So Much Music

Sacramento’s reputation as a music lovers’ destination is taking off, pumping dollars into the city’s economy, creating opportunities for local musicians and generating plenty of excitement for residents.

Aftershock, GoldenSky, Sol Blume and more

BY SENA CHRISTIAN

Tony Christ, a Sacramento native, says he’s always been a fan of his hometown—even when he left to live for a while in Los Angeles and Las Vegas, producing events in the entertainment and nightclub spaces.

But his appreciation wasn’t shared by all. When he and his business partner, Robbie Metcalf, started Hall of Fame, an entertainment company centered on music and collaboration, in 2008, “the landscape of the Sacramento creative community was a lot di erent. There wasn’t the Sacramento pride that I would say you see now,” Christ says.

HOF started simply, with a music blog showcasing local talent. “We were posting almost every day, something new from Sacramento that was coming out,” Metcalf says. “I was surprised there was that much music coming up and that much to share, but we were really on top of that.” Then they grew their social media network as another way to get the word out and share music videos by local artists.

From 2015 to 2017, they put on #HOFDAY, an annual music festival in Old Sacramento featuring local rappers and bands. Between 2018 and 2020, HOF produced more than 250 pop-up events, warehouse parties and other activations. They highlighted local acts like Hobo Johnson & The LoveMakers, whose song “Peach Scone” for the NPR Tiny Desk Contest in 2018 went viral and propelled Johnson to a major label.

“Our business really focused on bringing those people into one space and creating events around people that were from here,” Christ says. “What really di erentiated us from other businesses was that our events, our festivals, our warehouse parties were 2,000, 5,000, 10,000 people with Sacramento talent as the focal point, and that didn’t really happen during that time.”

The partners are now part of the ownership group of Tiger, a restaurant and lounge near Golden 1 Center at DOCO. As part of their bigger visions of reinvigorating K Street, they have placed music as key. Their lounge, Tiger After Dark, features live music four nights a week.

Sacramento has emerged in recent years as a music destination through this emphasis on local talent as well as through major music festivals that usher in hordes of fans and dollars. Mike Testa, president and CEO of Visit Sacramento, says his organization is less focused on specifically branding the city as a music destination, but rather more broadly as a “fun and exciting place.”

Testa saw clear evidence of this strategy working at this past October’s Aftershock, a four-day festival in Discovery Park, which brought 160,000 attendees to see headliners Slipknot, Kiss, My Chemical Romance, Muse and about 90 other artists on four stages. Its inaugural year in 2012 was a one-day event with a capacity of 11,700 people. Aftershock has become, Testa says, the largest hard-rock festival in the United States, generating roughly $30 million for the local economy. Visit Sacramento produces the event with Danny Wimmer Presents.

“That’s why we do the work we do,” Testa says of last year’s success. “Personally, it’s incredibly gratifying when I see this market change from a sleepy Gold Rush capital of 1849 to this vibrant music scene . . . drawing people from across the world.” only 100 people coming to this small corner of J Street. Ault has photos of himself pouring beer for customers. The concert series started as a way for downtown workers to leave their o ces and begin their weekends, stopping for music, a beverage or two and dinner nearby. “It really has become a gathering point for the community, as well as a platform for a lot of artists through the years that have played here,” Ault says.

Concerts in the Park is now California’s largest, longest-running, free outdoor-music festival, he says, with nearly 6,000 fans gathering for each week’s show. “We’ve got families now that have come back to us and have said, ‘You know, I used to come here when I was in high school, in college with my parents and now we’re bringing [our] kids and families back,’” he says.

Nationally touring artists have played the stage, including Cake, Deftones and Nappy Roots. Each spring, DSP does a big unveiling of the lineup for the upcoming season. Ault’s organization has been aiming for more diversity and inclusion with its lineup, making the event more representative of Sacramento’s diverse community and cultural vitality. Christ, of HOF, says that with Concerts in the Park, “Over the years, the landscape in Sacramento has changed and the people in power are understanding the way the tides are changing.” These event producers, he says, are getting closer to the ground floor of the creative community with the help of groups like HOF.

Building “Iconic” Music Festivals—

Since 1991, Sacramento has held Concerts in the Park in Cesar Chavez Park downtown. It has become an “iconic” music festival, says Michael Ault, executive director of Sacramento Downtown Partnership, which produces the 12-week summer series. In those early years, there’d be

Metcalf, who has been a DJ at Concerts in the Park since 2017, says organizers are receptive to their ideas, especially around the importance of including local acts as openers for major talent, so relationships and bonds can be created backstage, trickling down to help Sacramento’s scene. “They’re looking to us, 10, 15 years younger, and like, ‘Hey, what’s poppin’, what’s hot, what should we do?’”

As with Concerts in the Park, if an event is produced right, people show up. Last spring, Sol Blume, an R&B, soul and hip-hop festival, returned to Sacramento for its third year (after a brief hiatus), growing from a oneday festival at Cesar Chavez Park to a two-day event at Discovery Park. Media reports estimated roughly 40,000 people attended. Headliners included Jorja Smith, Jazmine Sullivan, Jhené Aiko and Summer Walker. Sol Blume is scheduled to return this spring.

In October 2022, the weekend after Aftershock, Visit Sacramento partnered again with Danny Wimmer Presents to produce the inaugural GoldenSky Festival, intended to become the country music equivalent of Aftershock. Tim McGraw and Sam Hunt headlined the two-day event, which also featured local chefs to give people a taste of the city’s food scene.

“Our goal is to grow that to a similar level as Aftershock,” Testa says. “It’d be pretty exciting for our city to say we’ve got the largest hard-rock festival in the country and largest country festival in the country.”

The goal of Visit Sacramento is to boost local business and economic activity through visitation: Music has shown to be an e ective way to do this. Most attendees of Aftershock, at about 65 percent, don’t live in the Sacramento region, Testa says. They fly into Sacramento International Airport, rent cars, stay in hotels throughout Sacramento, Placer and Yolo counties, eat at restaurants and buy souvenirs.

“It’s pulling from 20-plus countries across the world,”

Testa says of Aftershock, in addition to every state in the United States. “It is truly a destination. If hard rock or heavy metal is your genre and you look at that lineup, it’s worth getting on an airplane for.”

For a long time, from a tourism standpoint, Sacramento focused on conventions, which are still the area’s largest tourism driver. But the region’s national reputation has changed over the past decade, with music shifting its profi le away from bland state government city to an attractive spot for promoters working on conferences, sporting events like the Ironman triathlon, food tours and other programming. All of this constitutes a win for Sacramento, Testa says. When Testa—a music lover himself—looks back to that fi rst year of Aftershock when Stone Temple Pilots headlined, he remembers it as “incredibly fun.” That energy has only increased, he says. Fast-forward to Metallica playing two nights in 2021, and then GoldenSky’s festivities. “It was this incredibly fun vibe that was out there,” he says. “We just see people having a good time. As somebody who produces events, that’s why you do it: The fun of watching people enjoy the things that you and your team have built is incredibly rewarding.”

How the City of Sacramento Can Help—Megan Van Voorhis, the new director of the city of Sacramento’s Convention and Cultural Services Department, says she is a big proponent of both large music festivals and the smaller, independent venues that keep the music ecosystem going year-round, like Harlow’s, Cafe Colonial, Torch Club and The Russ Room (above Solomon’s), along with Memorial Auditorium, which recently went through a $16.2 million renovation.

Van Voorhis sees the city’s job as removing barriers for participation in this ecosystem and helping to bolster the creative economy. A big part involves figuring out policy tools for “harmonious living,” where independent venues and entertainment districts are protected while nearby residents are not negatively impacted. Additionally, it means helping to provide infrastructure investments to grow the local music scene.

Last year, the city launched a music census to collect data on current conditions and the lived experience of people in the music community, Van Voorhis says, and to further refine investments and policy changes. Results were released to the public in January.

HOF’s Christ and Metcalf say they’ve been invited to city meetings around updating permitting processes and removing the red tape surrounding producing music events. “It took us a while to figure out, and we do feel like there’s a lot of people that want to produce events and are capable of doing it successfully,” Christ says. “But, as of right now, Sacramento isn’t the easiest place to do that. So I’m really happy to see that they’re working to do those things.”

Through these efforts, producers will see the dynamic of the city changing, just as Christ says he and Metcalf have over the past 15 years. When they look at their own contributions to this shift, they point to Tiger. Christ calls this a beacon: a consistent hub where fans can hear new tracks by local artists, see live shows and collaborate.

“It’s been amazing to see this shift over the last three or four years of the local music community really coming together and supporting each other, taking pride in each other and reposting each other’s music,” Metcalf says. “There’s just a really cool energy behind it. Us even being a small part of that has been humbling and exciting, and something we’re very proud of, for sure.”

MARCH

4

Drink Up—Savor

tastings of craft beer, mead, cider, hard kombucha and more from dozens of the nation’s best brewers and providers at the 13th Annual Capitol Beer Fest on Capitol Mall. Complement your froth with fodder from local food trucks and live music from Nor Cal cover band Daze on the Green. All proceeds from the 21-and-older event benefit Runnin’ for Rhett youth fitness programs. capitolbeerfest.com

MARCH

Green Means

Go—Hey, exercise enthusiasts, you’re in luck! Shamrock’n Weekend is back, offering festive 5K and 10K races—plus a half-mile Leprechaun Dash for kids—on Saturday and a half-marathon on Sunday. Or do the Doubleheader and run both days! Racers start and end in Sutter Health Park, cruise over Tower Bridge into downtown and back, and wrap up with food, beer and St. Paddy’s Day cheer. shamrocknhalf.com

Good Hair Day—

The setting is 1960s segregated Baltimore, the music is soul-infused doo-wop and dance pop, and the hair is bouffantbig. But the themes in “Hairspray”—challenging racial discrimination and fat shaming, and embracing acceptance— are hardly retro, making this rollicking musical culturally on point. See the national tour of the Tony-winning Broadway hit at SAFE Credit Union PAC. broadwaysacramen to.com

MARCH 18

Party On—St. Patrick’s Day is on a Friday this year, but why not celebrate all weekend? There’s no better place to get your Irish on than Old Sacramento Waterfront St. Patrick’s Day Festival and Parade

Be sure to take in the parade—the city’s biggest and best—and cheer on Irish dancers, pipe-anddrum bands and community groups galore as they march on Old Sac’s cobblestone streets. old sacramento.com

MARCH 28

The Roaring ’20s

Sacramento’s Eastern Star Hall, built in 1928 as a meeting place for Masonic women, has been reborn as Hyatt House boutique hotel. Up on the third floor, the newly opened STAR LOUNGE pays homage to the building’s history with salvaged chandeliers, an old wood pulpit repurposed as a host stand and hundred-year-old windows overlooking Fort Sutter. But the offerings are definitely 2023, including seasonal craft cocktails and menu items like short rib tacos and a double smash burger. 2719 K St.; (916) 894-6500; historicstarlounge.com

Star Status

Michelin comes calling for Localis’ Chris Barnum-Dann.

BY MARYBETH BIZJAK

Back in January, the news that Noma in Copenhagen would close at the end of 2024 shook the fi ne-dining world. If Noma, considered the world’s best restaurant, couldn’t make it, what restaurant could?

Since at least the start of the pandemic, we’ve been hearing about the unsustainability of the high-end restaurant model. The too-thin profit margins. The di culty in fi nding—and keeping—sta . The crazy hours. The even-crazier chefs, who make working in professional kitchens a misery. The situation reached its illogical conclusion with the release last year of the comedy-horror fi lm “The Menu,” in which a terrifying celebrity chef at a Noma-like restaurant literally burns the whole thing down.

So it’s been interesting to watch Sacramento’s fi ne-dining scene take o as others pull back. This past December, Localis received a coveted Michelin star, only the second local restaurant (after The Kitchen) to do so. By then, Localis had already racked up an impressive list of awards: One of Eater’s “38 essential restaurants.” An award of excellence from Wine Spectator. One of the 50 best restaurants in the world, according to Wine Enthusiast.

That Michelin star was both vindication and sweet reward for Localis’ owner, chef Chris Barnum-Dann, who opened Localis in 2015 in a former pizzeria at the corner of 21st and S streets. The building—with its janky plastic-sheeting windows and canvas roof—didn’t jibe with his dreams of o ering exquisite chef’s tasting menus. So in 2016, Barnum-Dann split with his business partner and began changing Localis to fit the idea in his mind’s eye.

With a hybrid menu that allowed diners to choose from a multicourse progression and a la carte o erings, Barnum-Dann was already well on his way to achieving his dream when COVID -19 struck in 2020. It was a bad time for everyone in the industry, but particularly bad for BarnumDann, who has dealt with depression and “serious mental issues” for most of his life. But after a couple of weeks of despair, he decided to dig in and make it work. He never thought of closing the restaurant, he says: “There’s no quit in me. Zero.”

He began o ering his tasting menu to go, coming up with innovative ways to prepare and package his food so that it could travel to customers’ homes. He also changed the way he looked at life. Religion played a role in his transformation. “I made a massive life change,” he explains. “I chose happiness.”

When Localis reopened in August 2021, Barnum-Dann leaned into the tastingmenu model; no more a la carte. Today, the 12-course tasting menu costs $197 and changes monthly. It always includes, as an amuse-bouche, a salty, crunchy bite of fried potato with white miso butter topped with a fried quail egg and shavings of preserved duck yolk. It also always features some version of fi re-roasted octopus, the dish that made Localis famous. Another standard: a dish called Painter’s Palette, a piece of house-made matzo topped with dabs of seasonal “paints” such as duck liver mousse and turnip puree. His dishes have whimsical names like I’ll Just Have the

Caesar With Chicken (quail with broccoli Caesar) and Stoners Delight (an elevated take on a macadamia nut brownie).

Barnum-Dann made other changes after the pandemic, like hiring a pastry chef, instituting a $330 wine pairing and remodeling the dining room. He also remodeled his relationship with his employees. Conceding he was sometimes a “not-great boss,” he now o ers full-time workers a package of benefits that includes a minimum salary of $55,000 and a month of paid leave. He calls it “creating an atmosphere of love.”

WHEN LOCALIS REOPENED IN AUGUST 2021, CHRIS BARNUMDANN LEANED INTO THE TASTING-MENU MODEL; NO MORE A LA CARTE. TODAY, THE 12-COURSE TASTING MENU COSTS $197 AND CHANGES MONTHLY.

As we talked in Localis’ dining room, I brought up “The Menu.” It turns out BarnumDann took a bunch of his employees to see the fi lm. He threw his head back and roared with laughter. Cupping his hands around his mouth, he yelled across the room at sta ers working in the open kitchen: “I love you all!” In on the joke, they mimicked the fi lm’s brigade of cowed kitchen workers, shouting back in unison, “We love you, too, Chef!”

Even as Noma gets ready to close down, Barnum-Dann is looking to the future of fi ne dining in Sacramento. “Our flavor s were good enough to take us” to one Michelin star, he says. Now, he plans to focus on his next goal: a second star.

Barnum-Dann goes over recipes for the week

One for the Books

Patrick Mulvaney could write a book on the magic that happens when people gather around a table to share a meal—and in a sense, he has. Since the doors of his eponymous midtown restaurant, Mulvaney’s B&L, opened two decades ago, servers have handed used books to diners along with the check at the end of a meal, inviting them to sign a page if they wish.

The practice (he stole the idea from Town Hall restaurant in San Francisco) was Mulvaney’s way of soliciting private reviews from customers. “When we first opened, we were worried about whether anyone was going to like us. We knew that this was going to be a way to get automatic feedback,” he explains.

It worked. “About six weeks in, I was looking through one of the books at the end of the night and there was a note that read, ‘To Mulvaney’s, upon celebrating a 10-year anniversary with my one true love at the place we first met.’” It was the affirmation he’d hoped for.

Today, the restaurant has a collection of at least 100 books—mostly tattered hardback novels, many with food-related titles like “Fork It Over” and “Bitter Sugar”—scrawled with annotated passages, hastily drawn sketches, loving dedications, a few salty jokes and countless heartfelt thanks from customers.

The notes often read like love letters—to the chef, to the staff and, on occasion, to the food itself. “I would make love to the tomatoes and mozzarella,” reads one note. Another page displays a lipsticked kiss from a very satisfied diner. Several years ago, author Malcolm Gladwell wrote succinctly, “Thank you very much for a lovely pork chop,” according to Mulvaney.

Got Seoul

THE RESTAURANT HAS A COLLECTION OF AT LEAST 100 BOOKS SCRAWLED WITH MESSAGES, SKETCHES, DEDICATIONS , JOKES AND THANKS FROM CUSTOMERS.

Many of the messages are from people marking a special occasion—a birthday, anniversary, graduation, beating cancer. The fact that his restaurant is a destination for celebrations is not lost on Mulvaney. “We know that breaking bread changes conversations and becomes the string in the rock candy around which your memories can gather,” he says. “We are happy to provide that space.”

Mulvaney still pores over the messages with regularity. “About once a month, I skim through them. Turns out we’ve done some cool stuff in Sacramento over the last 20 years.” And he has the notes to prove it.

—CATHERINE WARMERDAM

The latest venture from Sacramento restaurateur Minnie Nguyen, owner of Station 16 and Firehouse Crawfish, is a playful take on Korean cuisine. Located on L Street in the space formerly occupied by de Vere’s Irish Pub, Seoul St is a restaurant and bar with a “fun atmosphere where people can grab a drink and some small bites and enjoy hanging out together and having a long conversation without being rushed,” says general manager Amanda Aldrich.

Nguyen remade the traditional pub interior into an industrial-sleek eatery where the bar remains the center of attention. “We wanted to pay homage to de Vere’s by keeping the front bar the main stage of the establishment,” explains Aldrich.

Signature cocktails—mostly clever riffs on the classics, like the Back to Seoul mule made with Jinro soju and yuzu juice—dominate the drinks menu. A small selection of Korean beers, including Cass and OB, are available by the bottle.

As for eats, Seoul St serves up Korean street food, often with a stateside twist. Think loaded bulgogi fries, galbi tacos and buffalo kimchi wings. Chimaek, the classic Korean combo of beer and fried chicken served with cubes of cool, crunchy daikon, is a happy hour must-have. Seoul St’s galbi bao, a boneless short rib tucked into a pillowy steamed bun, is “what you’d get if a White Castle burger and a taco had a baby,” quips Aldrich.

Most plates at Seoul St are made for sharing, which Aldrich says is by design. “We’re all about guests communing together and having a good time, sharing food and conversation.” 1521 L St., Sacramento; (916) 292-9744; seoulsteats.com—CATHERINE WARMERDAM