Nibbling on nostalgia
New restaurants fill the bill for closed favorites
By Mike Dunne - Bee Restaurant CriticContributors to the Sacramento wing of the Web site Yelp have had some bittersweet fun lately as they have lamented the loss of several old-time local restaurants and specialty food shops.
I also miss New Helvetia, Atomic Pizza, Capitol Grill and a few others they mentioned, as well as some they didn't, like American Bran Stand, an original muffin bakery along 21st Street in midtown Sacramento. It closed a decade ago.
But the Sacramento food scene is stronger and more interesting now than it was then, and if you look around you'll find that several of today's restaurants and specialty food stores match or exceed the character, quality and value that folks miss about places long gone. Play along here:
Yesterday: New Helvetia coffeehouse, with its bean roaster up front and its pastry case in the back, occupied the historic 19th Street firehouse that now houses Mulvaney's Building & Loan, also a restaurant, but of a far different stripe.
Today: The relatively new Old Soul Co. springs from the same entrepreneurial spirit that produced New Helvetia, right down to the rehabilitation of an old building, a coffee roaster up front and warm housemade baked goods just out of the oven. Must be something about the neighborhood. Old Soul occupies a former warehouse in the alley connecting 17th and 18th streets between Capitol Avenue and L Street, just a short stroll from the former site of New Helvetia.
Yesterday: In the mid-1990s, Atomic Pizza not only sold pizza by the whole wheel but by the slice. Its crusts were made with organic flour, its tomato sauce with organically grown tomatoes. It also was the first cafe in Sacramento to sell a controversial line of soft drinks with names like Black Lemonade and Brain Wash.
Today: Uncle Vito's, which opened this spring next to Pronto at 16th and O in midtown, may not sell Black Lemonade and Brain Wash, but it does have 10 beers on tap. And just like Atomic Pizza, it's small, quick and casual, and sells pizza by the slice as well as the whole disc.
• Yesterday: Boy, do people miss Greta's Cafe, celebrated for its vibrant salads, house-baked breads and pastries, and luncheon dishes such as ratatouille, lasagna and quiche. The Mailbox feature in The Bee's Wednesday Taste section still gets requests from readers who want the recipe for something they savored at Greta's, like the saffron orzo pasta salad or the mulligatawny soup. After about a decade, Greta's closed seven years ago, its corner site at 19th and Capitol now a midtown branch of Chipotle.
Today: Greta Garverick sold her Greta's Cafe to Allyson Dalton, who also owns Fox & Goose Public House at 10th and R. Fox & Goose has been a longtime hangout for the same sort of clientele that frequented Greta's -- political bigwigs, newspaper columnists, weekend athletes and poets. When she bought Greta's, Dalton also got the cafe's recipes, and continues to offer at Fox & Goose several of the cafe's popular dishes, such as the cashew chicken salad, the Greek pasta salad and the nutburger.
Yesterday: For 12 years, Maurizio Contartese gamely tried to make a go of his Bravo Ristorante Italiano along Fair Oaks Boulevard between Howe Avenue and Munroe Street, just in front of a Borders Books but secluded behind a Swanson's Cleaners. He gave up a year ago. Contributors to the Yelp thread regret that his rustic Italian cookery, his boisterous parties inspired by the movie "Big Night" and the piano music of the late Mario Ferrari no longer are around.
Today: Much of the spirit that distinguished Bravo is available nearby, just down Fair Oaks Boulevard at Watt Avenue, where Cafe Vinoteca occupies a compact corner of Fountain Plaza at Arden Town Center. Cafe Vinoteca's interpretation of Italian cooking is broader and more contemporary than Bravo's, but the relaxed if lively setting is just as warm, and servers strike a similar balance between propriety and good humor. For music, an acoustic guitarist appears Wednesdays, and on the last Thursday of each month the restaurant bakes a large, complex and amusing timbale, the centerpiece pastry and pasta drum from "Big Night."
Yesterday: Whenever Sacramentans lament the passing of a fondly remembered restaurant, whether it be on the Yelp thread or elsewhere, someone inevitably mentions Capitol Grill, a politically themed bistro that Randy Paragary and Kurt Spataro opened at 28th and N in 1990. Walls covered with political memorabilia made it fun, while the restaurant's accessible style of heartland food at modest prices made it democratic. But seven years later, acting as if term limits applied to restaurants as well as politicians, Paragary and Spataro abruptly closed Capitol Grill and made it over into Twenty Eight, a pricier, even Republican, kind of destination. They then subsequently vetoed Twenty Eight.
Today: Speculation persists that Paragary and Spataro have securely stashed all the political posters, clippings, buttons and the like from Capitol Grill and someday just might create another version of the place. There's nothing else like it, though a few other restaurants provide a similar mix of populist cuisine and legislative wonks, including Paragary's Bar & Oven across 28th Street; Ink Eats and Drinks on the very site of Capitol Grill; The Broiler Steakhouse on the K Street Mall; and the downtown 4th Street Grille at Fourth and L.
Yesterday: Before today's massive, fussy and costly hamburgers, there was Tiny's Drive-In along Fulton Avenue, where you could get a burger that weighed just one-fifth of a pound, cost only $1.35 and was dressed up with only salt and pepper, shredded lettuce, diced onions and a proprietary Thousand Island dressing. It was light, simple and homey, but plenty juicy and flavorful. Tiny's drew a cross-section of Sacramento society -- spiffy secretaries, beefy contractors, plumbers in pickups, salesmen in sleek sedans.
Today: After more than half a century in business, Tiny's got razed earlier this decade, and I'm not sure where the old clientele drifted. To judge by the number of baseball caps at Burger Chief along Folsom Boulevard just east of 65th Street, however -- also known as Will's Burger -- several of Tiny's blue-collar customers landed there. The basic burger at Burger Chief is more or less in the same vein at Tiny's, though it's a little bigger and a little pricier. The rich patty weighs in at one- quarter of a pound, and is dressed with mayonnaise, a slice of red onion, a slice of tomato and iceberg lettuce in a sesame-seed bun. It sells for $2.75.
Yesterday: Nearly a decade has elapsed since K&Z Pork Store closed up shop in east Sacramento. Joe Martin had been turning out specialty meats there for nearly half a century. People still rue the loss of his 29 products, including Sheboygan bratwurst, Polish sausage, andouille sausage, liver sausage, landjaeger, bacon and ham.
Today: German-trained meatman Dirk Muller is keeping alive the artisan tradition of curing, smoking and packing specialty meats at his Morant's Old Fashioned Sausage Kitchen along Franklin Boulevard. He makes some 80 kinds, including a Chicago-style Polish sausage, smoked pork links, Sheboygan bratwurst, Mexican chorizo and old-fashioned weiners.
Yesterday: For eight years, Taka's Sushi occupied homey quarters on the southwest corner of 18th and S. It closed about a year ago, much to the regret of food enthusiasts who had come to appreciate the freshness and artistry not only of its sushi but of other Japanese foods on the menu. The place still is shuttered.
Today: Taka Watanabe, who opened Taka's Sushi, then sold his interest in the business more than three years ago to concentrate on other restaurants with which he is involved, is preparing to return to 18th and S this summer, where he is to remake the old quarters into a traditional Japanese restaurant and sushi bar called Ju Hachi, which is a Westernized version of the number 18 in Japanese. In the meantime, Lou Valente, who was overseeing the sushi at Taka's when it closed, now is holding forth at Zen Sushi at 15th and I streets, site of the former Zen Toro Japanese Bistro and Sushi Bar.