The 61 Best Places in Sacramento

The emcee chef narrating the caloric damage while urging you to order seconds tells you everything about the vibe here. The Kitchen is a tasting-menu experience where you're encouraged to wander into the open kitchen and chat up the cooks, which is either liberating or mildly chaotic depending on your disposition. The monthly menu leans hard on Central Valley produce. A Michelin star and AAA Five Diamonds, for a party this loud, is a genuinely entertaining trick.

1. AAA Five Diamonds
2. Michelin Guide 1 Star

A tasting menu spot in a quiet Sacramento neighborhood where the chef roams the counter explaining exactly what you're eating and asking what you thought of it, which is either refreshing or unnerving depending on your relationship with honesty. The menu is Californian at its core, built on sourced ingredients, but veers into global territory with a light touch. Holds a Michelin star.

1. AAA Four Diamonds
2. Michelin Guide 1 Star
3. James Beard Awards 2022 · Semifinalist · Best Chef: California · Chris Barnum-Dann

1. AAA Three Diamonds
2. James Beard Awards 2024 · Nominee · Best Chef: California · Buu “Billy” Ngo
3. Los Angeles Times The 101 Best Restaurants in California

A prix-fixe restaurant on Folsom Boulevard where the pasta is made in-house and the wine list leans hard into Italy, with pairings overseen by the beverage director. The Cal-Italian kitchen follows the seasons and favors West Coast seafood. You choose three, four, or five courses, which is either pleasantly low-stakes or a surprisingly consequential decision depending on your appetite. A Michelin Selected restaurant.

1. AAA Four Diamonds
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

A strip-mall taqueria in Roseville with a salsa bar serious enough to slow you down before you even order. The nixtamalized tortillas are made in-house, warm and pliable, and the fillings run from shrimp with serrano and lime to a short rib barbacoa topped with avocado and black sesame. The Michelin Guide gave it a Bib Gourmand, and the Los Angeles Times put it on its California 101 list, both of which the parking lot does nothing to suggest.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
2. AAA Approved
3. Los Angeles Times The 101 Best Restaurants in California

The hook here is a tabletop grill: you cook your own steak, then order a freezer martini cold enough to make your teeth ache. The Butterscotch Den calls itself a "fine dive bar," and the label does the work, precision cocktails and live jazz alongside hot dogs and fondue. Esquire named its freezer martini among the top in America, and the crowd seems to know it, treating the whole room like a very good secret they've stopped keeping.

1. Esquire Freezer Martini · The Best Martinis in America
2. The 50 The 50 Discovery
3. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best U.S. Restaurant Bar – U.S. West

Ski-in/ski-out access mid-mountain at Northstar Resort means you can theoretically go straight from bed to chairlift without touching a parking lot. This Forbes Four Star resort leans into the alpine lodge fantasy hard: a great room instead of a lobby, fireplaces in every room, and balconies facing Martis Valley. The heated outdoor pool keeps going through winter, and a spa handles whatever the mountain did to your legs.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
2. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Los Angeles Times The 101 Best Restaurants in California
2. James Beard Awards 2026 · Semifinalist · Best Chef: California · Eric Alexander and Courtney McDonald

An antique-wood overhang adds a warm rustic note to what is otherwise a quietly polished fine dining room in downtown Sacramento. Floor-to-ceiling curtains, thick linens, and a thoughtful wine list signal the intention clearly. The menu runs globally influenced New American, and the bar earns its own visit. Regulars who know the staff by name fill seats alongside people who've clearly just discovered the place and are already making plans to return.

1. AAA Three Diamonds
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. AAA Four Diamonds

1. AAA Four Diamonds

1. AAA Four Diamonds

1. AAA Four Diamonds

Tucked into a residential stretch of 34th Street, Canon is a neighborhood restaurant where the small plates are built for a table that plans to order everything. The menu roams freely across global flavors, with the kitchen balancing smoky, rich, and bright in the same breath. Portions are generous for the format, vegan and gluten-free options are woven in without fanfare, and the Michelin Bib Gourmand keeps the room full most nights.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

1. AAA Three Diamonds
2. James Beard Awards 2022 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Restaurant

A strip-mall pho shop on Folsom that earns a Michelin Bib Gourmand without trying to look the part. The broths, chicken and beef, go into the pot long enough to taste like someone actually cared, and the pho arrives ready to build with tender meats or house-made pork wontons. The spring rolls filled with crispy pork sausage are worth ordering before you get to the main event. Bring cash and low expectations for the decor; the kitchen handles the rest.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

An 11-story glass tower rising out of Downtown Commons, the mixed-use development that's quietly been reimagining Sacramento's city center, the Kimpton Sawyer is the kind of hotel that makes you reconsider your assumptions about the state capital. Expect the warm, slightly irreverent Kimpton touch: rooms that don't feel like an airport Marriott, a pool scene that draws the after-work crowd, and a lobby worth lingering in.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. West
2. Spirited Awards 2023 · Regional Honoree · Best U.S. Bar Team – U.S. West

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

The spit-roasted meats are the whole point here, anchored by a prime rib that arrives with potato rösti and fermented horseradish. Camden Spit & Larder is a modern British restaurant on Capitol Mall, where the kitchen pairs California farm ingredients with a distinctly London sensibility. Floor-to-ceiling windows and a busy bar give the room more energy than the average downtown lunch spot tends to manage.

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

High ceilings and a curved shelf of stacked liquor bottles set the scene at Grange, the farm-focused American restaurant inside the Citizen Hotel. Wood tables, orange leather banquettes, and a lively bar crowd make it feel less like a hotel dining room and more like a place people actually choose. The menu leans rustic and seasonal, the kind of cooking Sacramento's agricultural sprawl makes it hard to argue with.

1. AAA Three Diamonds

The zinc bar fills up fast with regulars who never seem to need the menu, which tells you something about this gastropub on Alhambra. The cocktails lean classic with some tinkering, the staff keeps things easy, and the kitchen runs a seasonal American menu where even the tomato soup arrives with a little goat cheese flourish. House-made pastas are a reason to stay past the first drink.

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

The line outside most mornings tells you something about Sacramento's feelings on pancakes. Bacon & Butter is a scratch breakfast and brunch spot where the portions run large, the ingredients are noticeably fresh, and the menu hits every classic from French toast to overstuffed breakfast burritos. There's a bar doing mimosas and cocktails for the crowd that considers brunch a contact sport. The Michelin Guide has taken notice.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

A converted warehouse in Midtown where two sisters plate Thai street food that actually delivers on the "Thai spicy" warning if you ask for it. The menu roams from pad Thai wrapped in an egg crepe to Isaan sausage and clay-pot shrimp, with mango sticky rice and a Thai tea slushy to close. It's a casual, lively Thai restaurant that draws a crowd happy to sit with something funky and a little hot.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Naturally leavened crusts are the foundation at this neighborhood pizzeria and bakery, where toppings rotate with the season and the menu changes fast enough to keep regulars guessing. The pies lean ingredient-driven rather than maximalist, and the wine list skews natural with a serious grower Champagne section, which is not something you expect from a strip of 15th Street storefronts.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Live tanks of crab, lobster, and flounder line the back wall, which sets the tone for what this Cantonese dim sum house is doing differently from its strip-mall neighbors. Weekend mornings draw Chinese families through a wide rotation of steamed, baked, and fried dim sum, the dumplings carefully pleated and the barbecue pork buns doing their thing. Evenings shift toward the seafood tanks. The Michelin Guide has it selected.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Heavy wooden doors and dark metal chandeliers set the tone at this upscale regional Mexican restaurant on Capitol Mall, where the sprawling patio is prime real estate on a warm Sacramento evening. The menu leans on freshness, with bright ceviches, tacos on house tortillas, and lively salsas across the board. The tequila list runs deep, though the mango fresco margarita with its tajín rim has its own loyal following.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Winters has been quietly assembling the pieces of a wine-country destination, and this 78-room boutique hotel sits at the center of that project. The style is classic and unshowy, which is the right call for a small town trying not to oversell itself. A full-service spa and an Italian restaurant with wood-fired pizzas give you reasons to stay on property, while Yolo County tasting rooms are a short walk from the front door.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

A rooftop hot tub and a beer garden are not the usual inheritance of a roadside motel, but here we are. Basecamp Tahoe South is a revamped, eco-conscious boutique hotel a short walk from the lake, sitting just south of the California-Nevada state line. The two-story structure got a full makeover, and the crowd that filled parking lots with station wagons has been replaced by one that travels with a reusable water bottle.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. AAA Approved

1. AAA Approved

1. AAA Approved

1. AAA Approved

1. AAA Approved

1. AAA Approved

1. AAA Approved

1. AAA Approved

1. AAA Approved

1. AAA Approved

1. AAA Approved

Ski racks in the rooms and a beach pass in your pocket pretty much sums up the Station House Inn's range. It's a dog-friendly boutique hotel near the Lake Tahoe shore, done up in rustic-chic style, with fire pits, poolside cabanas, a heated outdoor pool, and a year-round hot tub. The on-site restaurant serves New Orleans-inspired fare, which is an unexpected choice for the Sierra Nevada, but somehow fits the laid-back vibe.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. AAA Approved

Two renovated mid-century motels fused into one boutique hotel with a mountain-lodge sensibility, the Coachman sits close enough to Lake Tahoe that you can smell the pine and close enough to the Nevada state line that you know exactly what your evening options are. The lobby bar pours Stumptown coffee by day and local beer by night, which covers most needs. Rooms lean toward camp-rustic chic, amenities are spare but well-chosen, and Heavenly's gondola is a short walk away.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. AAA Approved

1. Los Angeles Times The 101 Best Restaurants in California

1. Los Angeles Times The 101 Best Restaurants in California

1. James Beard Awards 2023 · Semifinalist · Best Chef: California · Craig Takehara

1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide