Fire and Nice

Art Deco-inspired arches infuse the dining areas with dramatic flair.

Chef Deneb Williams and sommelier Elizabeth-Rose Mandalou weren’t looking to expand their culinary footprint. The husband-wife duo was quite content running Allora, their Michelin-recognized Italian eatery in East Sacramento.

But when they heard that Esquire Tower owner Angelo Tsakopoulos was looking for a top-flight restaurant team to take over the prominent ground-floor space in his downtown high-rise, the potential and legacy of the 6,200-square-foot site—which formerly housed Esquire Grill—were hard to miss.

“This building is incredible,” says Williams. “[Esquire Grill] was an iconic restaurant for Sacramento for 20 years, owned by one of the most prolific restaurateurs in our city’s history, Randy Paragary.”

Aiona’s husband-and-wife owners, chef Deneb Williams and sommelier Elizabeth-Rose Mandalou

In developing the identity of their new venture, Aiona, the couple’s love for the Mediterranean region and expertise in Italian cuisine formed the starting point. Building on that, Aiona’s heritage reflects Mandalou’s own Greek heritage, which Tsakopoulos shares. Factor in executive chef Lee Hinton (who previously served as executive sous chef at Allora) and his affinity for Lebanese, Egyptian and North African flavors, and you can see how the plot to develop a globally inspired theme thickens.

The heart of Aiona, which opened in late April, is captured in two concepts: seasonality and live fire. An illuminated mural in the dining room—anchored on one side by Demeter, the goddess of the harvest, and on the other side by Aion, the eponymous Greek god of perpetual, cyclical time (Williams and Mandalou added an “a” at the end so that their new restaurant’s name would be bookended with the vowel, like Allora)—expresses the primacy of the seasons and connects Greek mythology to Sacramento’s abundance as America’s Farm-to-Fork Capital. The visual homage to elemental forces appears in other wall-mounted art depicting kiln-fired vases and urns, courtesy of local artist and friend Emily Briggs Jones, whose large-scale nudes would be familiar to Allora’s patrons.

A large illuminated mural by artist Mike Willcox featuring Demeter (the Greek goddess of the harvest) and Aion (the Greek god of unbounded time) anchors the dining room.

The classical motifs coexist surprisingly well with the restaurant’s more modern features, which were developed in concert with another friend, designer Emily McCuiston. Art Deco-inspired arches add drama to the bar area and large private dining room, and the mid-century-modern terrazzo and tambour wood complement the restaurant’s coral and teal palette, providing a yin-yang balance, much like how the open kitchen with live fire adds warmth and the lounge’s deep teal evokes the cool stillness of water.

Meanwhile, Aiona’s eclectic menu balances comfort with creativity and elegance, from the velvety hummus beautifully presented with a vast well of chili oil to the luxurious and substantial zabuton—a thick-cut, richly marbled steak that is slow-cooked over three days at exactly 131 degrees, then grilled over flame and served with labneh, chermoula and crisp fried onions.

The Mibrasa open grill and charcoal oven has Aiona cooking with fire—literally and figuratively.

Williams, whose experience includes a nine-year tenure as executive chef of The Firehouse Restaurant, refutes that anything is tweezer-level fussy, but points out that “the technique for cooking vegetables and protein on this live fire creates flavor that you really can’t get anywhere else.” Live fire, for Williams, is a serious business. He speaks almost reverentially about a visit he and Hinton made last fall to the Mibrasa factory in Palamós, Spain, the birthplace of Aiona’s hand-built, heirloom-quality hearth grill and charcoal oven that is used to prepare half of Aiona’s offerings. Tables near the open kitchen give you a ringside seat to how the living element of fire transforms ingredients to more glorious and sometimes unexpected instantiations of themselves.

Consider the origins of Aiona’s gnocchi. One of the techniques the chefs learned during the factory visit was to finish cooking the boiled gnocchi in a wire basket directly on the coals, then slightly above them. It was something that would have never occurred to him, says Williams, rhapsodizing about the way the gnocchi picked up the smoke and the flavor. Aiona serves the gnocchi with an escalivada, consisting of charred red bell pepper, onion strips and an eggplant purée, which is further punctuated with salty, crispy pancetta cubes and lightened with arugula.

Aiona’s globally inspired menu includes dishes like grilled branzino with Portuguese-Spanish pil-pil sauce (center) and, clockwise from top, seasonal gnocchi; carpaccio with fried feta and a salt-cured egg; lamb and beef souvlaki skewers; mussels with chorizo and white wine; hummus served with house-made pita and topped with chili oil; and focaccia in a cast iron skillet.

This dish is one of Williams’ favorites, in close competition with the branzino plate, a simply grilled Mediterranean sea bass with salty crispy skin and delicate, succulent white flesh accompanied by Portuguese-Spanish pil-pil sauce, which Williams likens to “demi-glace on a steak” and is derived by extracting collagen from fish heads, skin, tails and spines, and emulsifying it with olive oil. The result: pure luxurious essence of fish, establishing the entrée as a standout in the pantheon of live-fire dishes.

Almost 3,000 bottles ranging from an accessible $40 to mid-four digits present as options in wine selection. “I can’t cook or bake to save my life, but I can be studious, I can learn, I can teach, and I can interact with guests in a way that’s fun for me,” says Mandalou, the first female Advanced Sommelier in Sacramento who previously served as a sommelier at nearby Ella Dining Room and Bar. In addition to wines from Greece, Italy and Sonoma, she loves those from the southern hemisphere, including South African selections like the Chama chenin blanc from Vulpes Wines in Swartland. “I think they’re incredibly food-friendly—they’re really delicious and underappreciated,” she says.

Chocolate crema catalana with white chocolate and orange panna cotta, cinnamon toast tuile and crushed brown butter crepe flakes

On cocktails, Mandalou collaborates with bar lead Brett Walker. The lineup features both expertly executed classics (like the perfect dirty martini, assertive without being aggressively briny) and libations with unexpected twists, such as adding tahini or mastiha—a liqueur flavored with herbaceous pine-like resin. (Word is that Walker is able to coax diners into trying drinks beyond the usual repertoire, including the playfully named “Ouzo Charming” cocktail, which packs a punch with its tart lemon and licorice-forward notes. This bold concoction, tempered only by a cloud of honey lemon foam, should be sipped and savored.)

Beyond the well-curated drinks, décor and menu, however, what Williams and Mandalou want diners to experience is hospitality. A willingness to please may go hand-in-hand with Aiona’s location just a few blocks from the Capitol—the varied tastes of power brokers from up and down the state fill up seats on weekdays. But for the couple, all their diners are VIPs. “It’s really not even about food and wine. It’s about how you feel in the space, what you’re looking at, how comfortable you are and how you’re welcomed,” says Williams. “Great, friendly, engaging service is the most important thing. We are a yes-taurant.”

Aiona. 1213 K St. 916-790-3473. aionasacramento.com