Author: Hillary Louise Johnson
Pit Mastermind
Renowned chef and pitmaster Matt Horn expands his culinary empire with a new meat mecca in Elk Grove. With Michelin-rated, melt-in-your-mouth brisket and ribs, the down-home Horn Barbecue delivers unfancy feasts that are worth ’cueing up for.
Best of the City 2025:
Best Inclusive Trail Angel
Co-author of Moon Travel Guide’s new Northern California Hiking guidebook, this attorney-turned-writer, and inclusive-hiking champion, is one of the dozens of local people, places and things that have made us balloon with hometown pride this year. Here is just one of our picks for Best of the City 2025.
The Picasso of Positivity
He is the most prolific public artist in Sacramento, with hundreds of works—from large-scale commissioned murals to decidedly uncommissioned guerrilla pieces—beautifying the urban landscape. Now, J.M. Knudsen is expanding his vision for a more creative city. As one of his influences, Pablo Picasso, said: “Action is the foundational key to all success.” But for all Knudsen’s ambitious goals, the core of his message for us all remains deceptively simple: “YOU ARE GREAT.”
Where She Was From
Life for E.A. Hanks, who grew up in the Fabulous Forties as the daughter of Tom Hanks, may have looked like it was coming up roses. Too often, though, the reality was anything but, as the self-described “Sacramento girl” details in her poignant new book, The 10: A Memoir of Family and the Open Road, which follows a childhood shaped by her mother’s mental illness and a writer’s search for the truth, thorns and all.
The Art of Appropriation
A new museum retrospective spotlights the late Sacramento painter and professor Wayne Thiebaud as a master student of art history. From da Vinci to Picasso, great artists have always studied and copied their predecessors on the way to creating their own singular masterpieces. As this exhibit shows, Thiebaud is still teaching. The lesson: Imitation truly is the sincerest form of flattery.
Coming into Bloom
More than a decade after the idea was first planted, the Hanami Line might just be poised to give us all a sneak peek of its annual cherry blossom showcase. Sacramento, get ready to be pretty in pink.
The Maestro of Mardi Gras
Meet Wes Samms, the bedazzled master of ceremonies behind the City of Trees Parade—one of Sacramento’s biggest, loudest and most joyful civic celebrations.
Mid-Century Minimalism
A floor-to-roof renovation transformed a modest mid-century ranch house in Auburn into a modernist jewel box. For a design-savvy couple determined to keep clutter at bay while working at home and nurturing a growing family, less is infinitely more.
Back to the Future
A new Retrowave cantina in midtown dials the ’70s and ’80s up to 11. Artoo, we have a good feeling about this.
Take Me to the River
For nature lovers in Sacramento, Ashley Shult Langdon’s new guidebook Mildly Scenic is the local companion you likely never knew you needed to discover the full range of beaches, byways and other natural wonders of the lower American River. Take a walk on the “mild” side as Langdon offers an enlightening entrée into a stunning, meandering world hidden in plain sight in the middle of our city—and maybe even find yourself along the way.
The Art of Gratitude
When his wife embarked on an arduous cancer journey, Dave Webb—a Davis-based multimedia artist—walked alongside her, processing his emotions through film, images, words and music. A new exhibition at the Pence Gallery, the grateful chair, chronicles the couple’s shared experience of going to the brink and coming back.
Right on ’Cue
Texas collides with California as the team behind LowBrau and Beast & Bounty gets cooking at Slow & Low Smokehouse, plating up succulent ribs, juicy tri-tip and standout brisket. In this showdown of meaty flavors in Elk Grove, diners don’t need to choose a side in the great barbecue debates—just the many scrumptious side dishes.
Paradise Found
Marrying old-world charm with new-world optimism, V’s Paradise in Old Sacramento is a love letter to our city’s rich immigrant history. A classic American steakhouse with a dash of Asian-inspired umami and a sprinkle of Armenian spices, it’s a destination restaurant where the menu is brimming with unexpected flavor twists.
Going Going Gonzo
He has directed over 400 music videos for the likes of the Goo Goo Dolls and Kat Von D, is learning seven languages—including American Sign Language—and started performing stand-up comedy during the pandemic. Oh, and he just landed his first solo show at the Crocker Art Museum, featuring his wildly colorful, surrealistic photography. (In case you’re wondering, yes, that is the artist in his actual living room at his West Sacramento Victorian.) Meet retrofuturist Raúl Gonzo—the ultimate one-man band of creative expression.
Feats of Clay
From the tables of Michelin-recognized restaurants like Canon to workshops at its new, larger studio, Echeri Ceramics is having a moment. Meet the in-demand duo who put a little Sacramento soul into every cup, bowl and plate they make.
UC Davis Turns to the (Deliciously) Dark Side
Something’s brewing at the University of California at Davis. Already a global leader in wine and beer studies, the school is setting out to conquer yet another of our collective liquid loves. In May, UCD launched America’s very first academic facility dedicated entirely to the research of coffee. And with a multibillion dollar industry awaiting, the sky’s the limit.
Rock Star
Legendary rock climber Beth Rodden has navigated sudden success, endured a high-profile divorce and survived a traumatic kidnapping. As she releases her candid new memoir, the Davis native talks about learning the ropes as a kid at the Rocknasium, the perils and pitfalls of fame, and finding grace in the cracks of mountains and life alike.
Eggheads That Go Over Easy
After 30 years, you can finally put all your UC Davis Eggheads in one basket
Sowing the Seeds of Change (One Theater Seat at a Time)
In 1986, a state worker named James Wheatley founded a Black theater company in Sacramento as a side gig. Nearly 40 years later, Celebration Arts has trained countless Black actors, dancers and singers, providing the education and experience that the mainstream theater community hadn’t afforded them. Today, alums populate stages and sets ranging from B Street to Hollywood, and one of them, James Ellison, is carrying the torch at Celebration Arts and embarking on an ambitious journey. With new funding, a larger space, and a growing audience for diverse storytelling, the seeds that Wheatley has so carefully nurtured for generations are now coming into full bloom.
Giving Their Five Cents
From the Peanuts gallery: Two local artists have created the Art Advice Booth, which offers guidance to aspiring creators around town.
Dinner and a Showstopper
All the culinary world’s a stage at the ambitious new omakase restaurant Okesutora. After honing his skills at the celebrated sushi chain Nobu, chef Hieu Phan returns to his native Sacramento to deliver sea-worthy flavors with a dash of storytelling and a splash of spectacle in midtown.
The Unofficial Ted Lasso Cookbook
Our favorite fish-and-chips-out-of-water “football” coach—Ted Lasso—might’ve left his team for good, but thanks to a new cookbook by two local food bloggers, we can relive some of the tastiest TV moments (yes, even those biscuits!) from the glorious eponymous series that made us all believers. We dare you not to ... binge.
Michelin Mash-Up
Two local Michelin-rated chefs join forces to open an authentic yet innovative Mexican cantina in Folsom. Could Michelin come calling again?
Horses of a Different Color
When is a horse not a horse? When it’s a bronze abstract by acclaimed sculptor and UC Davis alum Deborah Butterfield, whose work the Manetti Shrem Museum is celebrating this fall with a larger-than-life retrospective.
A New Path Forward
The Gorman Museum at UC Davis marks its golden anniversary with a beautiful, much bigger new home to showcase its vast collection of contemporary Native American art. Welcome in.
Best of the City 2023
Airy French puffs, comforting cupcakes that taste just like Grandma’s, sports legends who go the extra mile, hot hotels that breathe fresh life into historic buildings, rockin’ speakers made from retro lunchboxes, and a whole bunch more. What’s old is new and what’s new is newsworthy in our annual list of the local people, places and things that have caught our eyes and captured our imagination this year.
Eastern Eden
Head east for a delicious oasis without leaving town. The Slough House Kitchen offers a haven from the hustle of city life with desert-island-worthy dishes and an escapist patio made for watching summer sunsets while sipping a glass of Amador zin.
The Humor, the Ardor and the Candor of Darrin Bell
In 2019, Darrin Bell became the first Black person to win the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning, and his nationally syndicated comic strip Candorville will mark its 20th anniversary later this year. Today, the Sacramento cartoonist is receiving acclaim for his new graphic memoir, The Talk, which illustrates the racism he has faced, first as a Black child and later as a Black man in America. As Doonesbury creator Garry Trudeau says of Bell’s new book, “It’s nearly impossible to appreciate another person’s truth, but if a brilliant storyteller offers to light the way, take him up on it.”
Where the Sidewalk Blooms
In an innovative effort to green up and cool down our concrete jungle, the Seed Pile Project empowers citizen botanists to color outside the lines (and inside sidewalk cracks) throughout our region. With a goal of expanding statewide and beyond, the nascent urban environmental movement hopes to spread like wildflowers.
Can Electric Bikes Help Save The Planet?
Pre-pandemic, electric Jump bike rentals in Sacramento trailed only Paris in popularity. Today, electric bike ownership is soaring. From commuters to joyriders to grandmothers, e-bikes are turning even non-cyclists into e-vangelists (like Rocklin City Councilmember Jill Gayaldo, pictured below) and creating a greener, less fossil-fuel-filled world. Now we just need more of our region’s leaders to make it easier and safer for all of us to plug and play.
Younglandia
In an industry where women rarely take center stage, Julie Young has quietly become one of the most significant and thoughtful urban developers in the region—crafting exquisitely curated projects that bloom like defiant wildflowers in the concrete jungle. And now, through sheer tenacity and savvy scrappiness, she may just have unlocked the mystery to attainable housing that aspires to forward-thinking design as much as affordability. It’s a beautiful day in her neighborhood, indeed.
Where It’s Easy Being Green
Welcome to Nudge Eco Store, a retail wonderland where you can shop guilt-free, because every item—from shampoo bars to bamboo bandages to vegan eyeshadows—on the recycled shelves of this midtown boutique is sustainably made. If you’re aspiring to live a more earth-friendly lifestyle, this shop will gently guide you in the right direction.
Love Language
Brenda Novak knows a fine romance when she writes one. As the Auburn-based best-selling novelist gets set to release her newest love story and embark on a cross-country Airstream book tour, she talks about her own happily ever after, her days slinging books at the State Fair and living the California dream.
Man. Verses. Nature.
Like the ripple effect of a pebble dropped into the still water of a pond, Gary Snyder’s outsized influence extends far beyond the edges of his remote, hand-built home in the woods near Nevada City. At 92, the poet and environmentalist has lived an extraordinary life—from birthing the Beat Generation with fellow writers like Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg to winning the Pulitzer Prize for his book Turtle Island, which has been described as a “poet’s love lyrics to planet Earth,” and even inspiring the release of the Pentagon Papers. With two new major anthologies out, this former UC Davis professor is proving that he still has a lot to teach us all.
“By Any Means Necessary, I Will Keep Being an Artist.”
Painter. Bluesman. Filmmaker. Educator. After retiring in 2012 from UC Davis, where he was an art professor for 43 years—and on the eve of a solo show at the Manetti Shrem Museum—Mike Henderson reflects on shining shoes as a young man in Missouri, seeing his soul in Van Gogh's Potato Eaters, believing he had lost decades' worth of paintings in a fire, and securing his place in one of the greatest university art departments ever assembled.
A Comedy Giant
Jimboy’s Tacos, Tower Records and Sunrise Mall. As Brian Posehn gets ready to take the stage at Punch Line and release a new special this December, the “forever nerdy” 6-foot-7 stand-up comic—who is also a proud metalhead and Dungeons & Dragons podcast host—shares tall tales (literally) from his childhood and how he got his comedy start right here in River City.
Magic Mountain
On a clear day, find your way above the tree canopy in Sacramento, look southwest, and there you’ll spot it—the soaring 3,849-foot peak at the center of Mount Diablo State Park. The summit—reachable by foot, bike or car—rises over a thousand feet higher than the world’s tallest building, and from it, you can see 40 of our state’s 58 counties. At Mount Diablo, you can also hike up to 150 miles of trails, camp in the ultimate “room” with a view, and literally lunch above the clouds. So go west, young men and women, and experience California from a whole new point of view.
Thiebaud: A Celebration
Five months after Wayne Thiebaud passed away on Christmas Day at the age of 101, the Crocker Art Museum is remounting its Covid-curtailed 2020 retrospective of the artist’s career—this time with more than a dozen additional works. The museum’s chief curator Scott A. Shields gives us a tour of 10 of the 117 pieces in the exhibition, which opens May 29, and lends his perspective on Sacramento’s “patron saint of painters.”
Q&A with Sci-Fi Author Kim Stanley Robinson
The Davis-based New York Times best-selling author is celebrated for epic sci-fi novels, including his classic Mars trilogy about terraforming the Red Planet and The Ministry for the Future about solving the climate crisis, which former President Barack Obama named as one of his favorite books of 2020. But in his new memoir The High Sierra: A Love Story, which comes out on May 10, Kim Stanley Robinson takes a turn for the terrestrial, covering a half-century of writing, thinking and adventuring across our altitudinous backyard, tracing the origins of both backpacking and environmentalism. He talks to us about entering the God zone while hiking, being a “utopian science fiction writer,” and why despite a certain tech billionaire’s predictions, we won’t be living on Mars anytime soon.
The Shops Around the Corner
Talk about a Hollywood ending. Over two decades since Meg Ryan’s sweet little children’s bookshop lost the battle to Tom Hanks’ big bad Fox Books, it looks like indie bookstores around the country (and around town) may have won the retail war. We spotlight a dozen or so of our favorite local literary nooks in the Sacramento region. Trust us, this story is a real page-turner.
A Life of Crime (the Perfectly Legal Kind)
John Lescroart became an “overnight” success at 45, and the Davis author has since published 19 New York Times best-selling legal thrillers, with his 30th novel due out in late March. Meet the man with his ink-stained finger on the pulse of American crime stories.
Q&A with Gulshan Yusufzai
One in nine Afghan natives living in the United States reside in Sacramento, and Gulshan Yusufzai is among them. She fled Afghanistan with her family in the 1980s during the Soviet invasion of the country, landing here when she was 9 years old. Today, in the aftermath of the Taliban’s takeover, the UC Davis alum and executive director of the locally based nonprofit Muslim American Society Social Services Foundation (MAS-SSF) is lighting a candle in the window for the over 1,700 Afghan refugees projected to resettle in our region by year’s end.
Super Natural
A pair of local landscape architects take us to church with California Cathedral
Best of the City 2021
If there’s one thing we’ve learned during the pandemic, it’s that the human spirit perseveres through the darkest times. The dozens of Sacramentans featured here—struggling like all of us over this past year and a half—have found ways to shine some much-needed light into our lives, whether with charmingly anachronistic TikTok videos or a winning French pastry made with Top Ramen or an eco boutique that’s trying to help save the planet one bottle-free shampoo bar at a time. They bring smiles to our faces, good food to our bellies and taps to our toes. And if you haven’t already met, we’re thrilled to introduce you.
Perfect Picnics
We’ve filled our wicker baskets with the best takeout en route to eight sonnet-worthy spots across the region for your alfresco dining pleasure. Whether you’re unpacking a gourmet BLT on toasted artisan bread while gazing upon a sweeping view of Gold Country or digging into a bucket of crispy fried chicken while smelling the roses at McKinley Park, we prove that life in the wake of a pandemic can be a picnic after all. (Just don’t forget the sunscreen.)
On Sale Now!
Stay in the know!
Get Sactown's top stories in your inbox by signing up for our weekly newsletter.
