Sacramento Downtown Food Tour

The tour begins with an introduction to the farm-to-fork revolution that has put Sacramento on the American culinary map. Amid neoclassical capitals and street art murals, your guide leads you to the first stop: an in-house roastery café where we taste a cold brew infused with elderflower. Here it's explained how the region produces more than 160 crops and how the baristas use only fair-trade certified beans.

Two blocks away we discover a contemporary Mexican bistro; the chef serves a blue corn taco stuffed with citrus-braised carnitas, accompanied by guajillo chile salsa-a bite that encapsulates the fusion of Latin roots and California produce. The next stop surprises with a vegan king oyster mushroom bao, glazed in miso and garnished with hydroponic sprouts, showcasing the local commitment to sustainability.

After skirting the Golden 1 Center, we enter the historic Central Market. Under iron beamed ceilings we sample a cheddar cheese aged in an underground cellar and a fennel salami charcuterie bite, while the guide recounts anecdotes of the Gold Rush and railroad boom that made the city the larder of the West.

The route concludes at an artisan ice cream parlour, where orange blossom honey and smoked Marcona almond ice cream is the sweet ending. With our stomachs satisfied and our heads full of stories, we return to the starting point, ready to toast Sacramento with a local kombucha spritz or explore the bars of K Street on our own.