Localis

About Localis

Localis is the Midtown restaurant chef Chris Barnum-Dann runs with his wife Jessica Shelton-Dann, on 21st and S Street in Sacramento. It holds one Michelin star, and Barnum-Dann took the Michelin Guide California Sommelier Award in 2025 for the wine program that runs alongside the food. The cooking is rooted in carefully sourced Northern California produce but draws on the chef's travels, shifting course by course rather than settling into a fixed canon.

This is ambitious fine dining in a tasting-menu format. For the city's other notable tables, compare the seasonal cooking at The Kitchen, the farm-to-fork plates at Grange and the kaiseki-leaning Kru. For a marker night out, see our anniversary dining guide.

The Kitchen

The kitchen serves one always-changing tasting menu, offered as seven courses at 155 dollars or twelve at 197, with wine and non-alcoholic pairings. Barnum-Dann's cooking is thoroughly Californian in its sourcing but playful in its references: signatures have included a single woodfire-roasted octopus tentacle in black peppercorn sauce with pickled cherries - the kitchen calls it "The Dish That Made Us" - and a crisp puffed-potato pillow piped with French onion dip and finished with caviar. Whimsy runs through the meal without tipping into gimmick, and the produce-first instinct keeps it grounded. Prices sit firmly at the special-occasion end, matched to the star, the format and a long evening that the kitchen paces deliberately.

The Room

The room is intimate and warm rather than formal, a Midtown storefront space that seats a small house each service, with a chef's counter for those who want to watch the line work. The location is 2031 S Street, on the corner of 21st and S in the dense Midtown grid - a walkable, restaurant-dense quarter a few blocks from Sutter's Fort. Service is engaged and knowledgeable, and the sommelier-led pairings are a large part of why regulars book. The dining room is compact and the tasting format means a single seating rhythm, so reserving ahead through the restaurant's online system is essential, particularly for a weekend table or a seat at the counter.