The Abridged version:
- Sacramento’s vaunted food scene faces a big test Sept. 26 to 28 hosting a global festival, Terra Madre Americas.
- Admission is free and includes tastes, sips, food classes and live music.
- Sacramento’s Farm-to-Fork history helped land the event.
Sacramento’s culinary reputation has been steadily burnished over the past decade. Its biggest moment arrives next weekend.
Terra Madre Americas, the Western adaptation of a landmark Italian food festival, will take over downtown Sacramento’s SAFE Credit Union Convention Center and its surrounding streets from Sept. 26 to 28. Coordinated by Slow Food International and free to the public, it will showcase a “who’s who” lineup of celebrity chefs, food classes and tastes from across North and South America.
Sacramento has hosted Michelin Guide ceremonies, been described by The New York Times as “a great restaurant city” and seen its annual Farm-to-Fork Festival draw tens of thousands of people in years past.
Sacramento’s food leaders expect Terra Madre’s impact will outstrip all of those, cementing the city as one to visit within the food world.
“Having Terra Madre here is going to be the first step to Sacramento’s great march toward becoming a food destination, really,” said Ed Roehr, who co-owns Magpie Café in Sacramento and is co-director of Slow Food Sacramento. “The things that have been happening have been building up to this. “This could be the biggest food conference and show in the United States. And for us to have it here in Sacramento, it’s going to be pretty amazing.”
100,000 expected over three days
It’s the first true Terra Madre Americas, which has swallowed up the Farm-to-Fork Festival and will run every two years for the next 10. As with the Farm-to-Fork Festival, Terra Madre will be free to attend and won’t require advance registration, making attendance estimates somewhat of a guess. Visit Sacramento CEO and President Mike Testa said he hopes 100,000 people attend across the three days this year.
A hastily assembled Terra Madre trial run last year at Memorial Auditorium had some educational components, such as the Food, Justice, and Belonging: Building Inclusive Food Systems talk scheduled for Sept. 28 this year. But by Testa’s admission, it largely lacked the smells, sounds and energy that people can expect from the 2025 festival.
Those senses are perhaps most tapped at the Terra Madre Americas Marketplace, which will take over the convention center’s 160,000-square foot exhibit hall. Attendees can sample more than 75 types of cheese, seafood, coffee and more produced across North and South America, as well as purchase more to take home as desired.
Those first tastes are free, though, along with outdoor shows by indie rock bands Spoon and The War on Drugs on Sept. 27. In a way, it’s the antithesis of the Tower Bridge Dinner on Sept. 7, Sacramento’s most exclusive culinary event, which can only be attended by corporate benefactors and lucky lottery winners.
Sacramento-area food joins international offers
Terra Madre Americas will incorporate some Sacramento-area food, wine and beer, including the Grand Tasting, a $125-per-person dinner with bites from more than 20 top local chefs. But it will generally take a more global view than the Farm-to-Fork Festival and cost three times more to produce, about $3 million, Testa said. Part of the cost increase is due to events such as the Enoteca, a sampling of roughly 100 wines from North and South America.
That follows the vision of Terra Madre Salone del Gusto, the original Terra Madre that’s been held in Turin, Italy, every other year. Founded in 2004, Terra Madre Salone del Gusto now draws 700 vendors and 300,000 attendees from 120 countries. Visit Sacramento took a dozen locals to the last festival for inspiration, including Brad Cecchi, who co-owns Canon in Sacramento and Franquette in West Sacramento.
“This is like the Super Bowl, and we’re the host city,” Cecchi said. “This isn’t our thing. This is a thing we’re playing host to, which to me is almost more important. You get to welcome the world to our home.”
Festival reputation draws celebrity guests
As with the Super Bowl, there will be celebrity guests. California cuisine pioneer Alice Waters, her former Chez Panisse chef Jeremiah Tower and three-time James Beard Award winner Sean Sherman of Minneapolis will all be on hand for cooking demonstrations, and the latter two (plus other chefs) will prepare three-course dinners in a reservation-only, pop-up bistro.
Sacramento drew those chefs thanks to Terra Madre’s reputation within the food world, Roehr said. Asian and Nordic versions of Terra Madre are coming to the Philippines and Norway in the next seven months, with indigenous and African iterations in the works as well. It’s already an international brand for some who ascribe to Slow Food’s mission of “good, clean and fair food for all,” and with a global expansion coming, the potential for growth seems promising.
“You already see the people in the first year that are interested in coming,” Roehr said. “If those folks are interested in coming to Sacramento in Year 1, you pretty much can say that over the course of the next 10 years … people that are influencing food globally, that are recognized as authorities in the food scene globally, are going to be thinking of Sacramento, saying ‘maybe I should incorporate that into my year.’”
Why Sacramento?
So why isn’t a bigger city hosting Terra Madre? Having knowledgeable chefs, farmers and tourism professionals helped, according to Slow Food International general director Paolo Di Croce. Meeting with Visit Sacramento’s board of directors felt like talking to experts in Piedmont, the truffle-and-wine producing Northwestern Italian region that includes Turin, Di Croce said.
The other reason: when Terra Madre Americas drops into the Convention Center next weekend, it will be the biggest show in a food-loving town.
“To have a strong event in food … you need to be in a place where food is an issue. It’s not one of 300 things that you can have,” Di Croce said. “In Sacramento – and California in general, but especially in Sacramento and the area around it – you have a lot of producers who are in line with our philosophy.”
Benjy Egel is the senior food editor at Abridged. Born and raised in the Sacramento region, he has covered its local restaurants and bars since 2018. He also writes and edits Abridged’s weekly food and drink newsletter, City of Treats.
