Artisan Eats

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"Sorry, but wake the **** up! If it's in season, you gotta use it," jokes Mark Estee, chef and owner of the much-acclaimed Moody's Bistro in Truckee. "Slow food is an education, and it's a wonderful way to learn how to respect the ingredients."

Reservations for many of Sacramento's slow food hotspots are filled weeks in advance, and an ever-changing menu keeps regulars coming back.  And if sales are any indicator, the collective Sacramento palate is eagerly embracing the experimentation. On opening night at Hawks in Granite Bay, 45 duck confits were served, compared to just six chickens.

Pete and Pat Enochs of Latitudes in Auburn tell a similar tale. Thirty years ago, they opened Latitudes as a vegetarian restaurant, eventually evolving into a slow food establishment that showcases world cuisine using local ingredients.

"People thought we were crazy," says Pat Enoch. "Auburn is such a small town … but people like change; they like to try new things."

Despite the boom in popularity, opening a slow food restaurant is not for the faint of heart. Sourcing locally is difficult, costly and can sometimes be unreliable.

"Look, there's a big problem in locally produced food for a restaurant of our size," says David Bagley, general manager of Sequoia, a bigger gourmet restaurant in Placerville that does a lot of business hosting meetings, weddings and banquets. "Each violation of the Truth in Menu law has a fine of $10,000. If we promise meat from a local butcher -- which we did for a while -- and put it on the menu, what happens when we show up one week and he says: Sorry, no pork! We have to redo all our menus or be subject to enough fines to put us out of business. 

"One big wedding or banquet, or a run of several days of full dining rooms, and we can use up a whole month's supply of a small local producer's output. So we use Produce Express, which deals with lots of high-quality valley producers."

Few restaurants, if any, are able to boast 100 percent local sourcing. For most, the guiding philosophy is that anything that can be purchased locally, should be, and that dishes should be created to maximize use of sustainable products. Restaurants that buy beyond Sacramento often do so not because a local producer can't be found but because volumes at small, sustainable farms are often too low to fill the plate.

"Small farms equal small volumes," says Nancy Jo Riekse, agriculture marketing director for Placer County. "More and more restaurants are interested in working with farms, and we're slowly making headway into supplying them. A farmer may produce a beautiful crop of melons, but it's not enough to supply a restaurant. Rather than turn it away, we're encouraging restaurants to put that local product to use as a garnish or in a side dish. It's a way for everybody to participate."

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