On Jan. 22, famed Sacramento restaurant Localis sent out an email to its customer list touting the “triumphant return of brunch!” The Feb. 22 event required reservations, which quickly booked up in just 48 minutes.
I had an opportunity to visit the Localis kitchen with photographer Hannah Ruhoff that morning to observe the team in action and get a behind-the-scenes look at what goes into a Michelin-starred brunch.
On our arrival, the kitchen was in full preparation mode. One chef was dedicated to peeling and supreming oranges — lots of them. Servers and captains assembled the dining room, moving chairs and setting tables. Chef-owner Chris Barnum-Dann oversees it all while deftly working his own station.
Owner Chris Barnum-Dann makes biscuits in preparation for Localis’s return of brunch service at their restaurant in Sacramento on Sunday, Feb. 22, 2026. HANNAH RUHOFF hruhoff@sacbee.com
Barnum-Dann is gregarious, happily chatting with us and cracking jokes while his hands continue prep, as if independently governed. The entire restaurant is architected around his personality.
Unlike Localis’s dinner menus, which are concept-driven, brunch is meant to simply be enjoyed.
“Brunch is supposed to be casual. It’s still fine dining. It’s still what we do,” he said. “A lot of people think we’re doing foams and, you know, we do sometimes, but we also just make delicious food.”
Brunch service would start with a variety of diminutive baked goods: a little piece of jalapeno cheddar corn bread; a petite kouign-amann; a canelé, a pastry from Bordeaux that resembles a small, slender bundt; and dainty buttermilk biscuits.
A member of the wait staff puts out menus in preparation for Localis’s return of brunch service at their restaurant in Sacramento on Sunday, Feb. 22, 2026. Barnum-Dann said, “Brunch is supposed to be casual. It’s still fine dining. It’s still what we do.” HANNAH RUHOFF hruhoff@sacbee.com
Making the biscuit dough, Barnum-Dann combines flour, buttermilk and butter, combining the ingredients just until they form a shaggy dough. He handles it as little as possible, to keep the butter cool and avoid excessive gluten formation which would make the biscuits tough.
The second course would be a “fruit salad of sorts,” a wintry mix of arugula, frisée, apple, pear, orange supremes and shaved fennel with a maple-apple cider vinaigrette.
For the main, diners had a choice of a Dungeness crab cake Benedict; a vegetarian charcoal-grilled maitake mushroom, also known as hen of the woods, Benedict; or a “steak & eggs” of rib eye au poivre with soft-scrambled eggs and frites.
Unlike most crab cakes, which use bread to bind and extend the crab meat, Barnum-Dann’s are tiny pucks of 100 percent crab meat in a Meyer lemon aioli, lightly breaded on the outside and fried until golden. He called the dish “for the wifey,” as crab Benedict is his wife’s favorite brunch dish.
A member of the Localis kitchen staff supremes and peels oranges for the second course of brunch on Sunday, Feb. 22, 2026. HANNAH RUHOFF hruhoff@sacbee.com
A rose geranium sorbet was served as an intermezzo to cleanse the palate.
At the end came an orange meringue “pie,” a pea flower tea pavlova with blood orange curd, blood orange supremes and vanilla meringue.
In the minutes leading up to the doors opening, the air in the kitchen became electric. Paces quickened, and the chefs’ concentration intensified.
Just before opening, Barnum-Dann rattled off how the day was going to go down. From the 10 a.m. opening to 1:30 p.m. closing, the counter will have 22 diners and 34 in the dining room, reservations staggered in half-hour increments. There will be two vegetarians. He sets expectations for how many minutes — or seconds — any given station has to fire their dish.
The kitchen staff works to prepare for Localis’s return of brunch service at their restaurant in Sacramento on Sunday, Feb. 22, 2026. HANNAH RUHOFF hruhoff@sacbee.com
Marching orders set, he has shots sent all around. They raise their glasses and shout in unison, “Good vibes! Good food! Good service!”
It’s showtime.
Among the first to be seated, Stephanie and Jason Buzon came in from Folsom to experience brunch. It’s their first time at Localis. They’re celebrating a late Valentine’s Day and an early nod to their two-year anniversary next month.
He said he was “looking forward to the good food, also the great service that you can expect from a Michelin restaurant.”
At $75, Localis’ brunch service is a more accessible way to enjoy the restaurant’s elevated fare. Dinner costs $197 per person, with a 23% service charge. Localis will be announcing future brunches on a monthly cadence.
Stephanie and Jason Buzon look over menus during Localis’ return of brunch service at their restaurant in Sacramento on Sunday, Feb. 22, 2026. HANNAH RUHOFF hruhoff@sacbee.com What I’m Eating
My husband and I went on a bit of a crawl in Elk Grove last weekend. I had one destination in mind, but first I wanted a snack. I hate to eat on an empty stomach.
I’ve had bolani, the Afghan stuffed flatbread, on the brain for a while. Some casual research pointed me toward a few places in Elk Grove, so we popped into one of them.
With a name like Best Kabob & Gyro Halal Restaurant, you hope it delivers what it promises. The austere, clean restaurant sits in a nondescript little strip mall, as so many surprisingly good places do.
Elk Grove’s Best Kabob & Gyro Halal Restaurant serves piping-hot bolani, an Afghan flatbread stuffed with potatoes and chives and served with a spicy cilantro chutney on Saturday, Feb 21. Sean Timberlake stimberlake@sacbee.com
As we waited for our bolani ($11.99), the server brought us each a bowl of soup, with a viscous texture from pearl barley and vibrant yellow from turmeric. It took great restraint not to eat it all, since we had more eating ahead.
The bolani was a more than generous pile, soft flatbread filled with a smear of potatoes, scorching hot and fragrant with chives. A spicy, herbaceous cilantro chutney was a perfect foil.
At the price, it’s a complete bargain. We took most of it home, and continued to nibble on it for a couple days.
Best Kabob & Gyro Halal Restaurant
Address: 9632 Emerald Oak Dr., Elk Grove,
Hours: 10 a.m.-9 p.m. daily
Phone: 916-585-5280
Vegetarian options: The bolani, certainly. Otherwise the menu is fairly meat-forward.
Noise level: Quiet when we were there, but the place was empty.
Openings & Closings
A new branch of OBO’ Italian Table & Bar has officially opened in El Dorado Hills as of Feb. 20, according to a post on the company’s social media. Part of the Selland Hospitality Group, OBO’ is a casual concept featuring Italian cuisine. As with the original East Sacramento location, the El Dorado Hills location will feature pizzas, salads, hot and cold sandwiches and a full bar.
Fast-casual salad chain Sweetgreen will open its third location in the Sacramento region at the Galleria in Roseville, according to the Sacramento Business Journal. It will be taking over the space formerly occupied by Krush Burger. The popular chain made its debut in midtown in The Richmond apartment building at 1629 S St. on Dec. 2, and subsequently opened a location in Campus Commons at 2080 Fair Oaks Blvd.
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Sean Timberlake is the food and dining reporter for The Sacramento Bee. He has been writing professionally for nearly 30 years, and about food for 20. A variety of well-known outlets have published his work, including Food Network, Cooking Channel, CNN, Sunset Magazine and SF Weekly.