Sacramento chef hit rock bottom 2 years ago. Now he leads one of California’s best restaurants

Chris Barnum-Dann set a goal in culinary school 13 years ago: Become a Michelin-starred chef by the time he turned 40.

Barnum-Dann turned 40 in August. His restaurant, Localis, earned that star last Monday.

The monumental achievement — just 89 of California’s 79,000 restaurants received Michelin stars — is the latest feather in Barnum-Dann’s cap, which has grown stuffed as he’s become arguably the city’s preeminent modern celebrity chef.

About the Writer

Benjy Egel, a Sacramento native, covers local restaurants and bars for The Bee.

Yet after Barnum-Dann’s last couple of years, merely walking into his restaurant is an accomplishment.

In August 2020, wracked by depression and family issues, Barnum-Dann tried to take his own life. A year later, burnt out from one 100-hour work week after another, he nearly closed Localis.

Barnum-Dann’s ongoing metamorphosis saved him. A lifelong atheist, he converted to Christianity after surviving his suicide attempt. He restructured Localis to focus more on employee input and collaboration, which he credits with the restaurant’s star turn in 2022.

“The accolades are piling up this year like nobody’s business, and I think that’s all due to leadership versus tyranny. And I think that a lot of kitchens still run in tyranny,” Barnum-Dann said. “I will never step over our people to get to the guest again, ever, and I think that more restaurants should take that approach of ‘care for your people first, and then let them take care of others.’”

For all Localis’ communal spirit, though, it likely wouldn’t exist without Barnum-Dann, the restaurant’s chef, owner, resident wine expert and dining room glad-hander.

Asked what Localis would be without Barnum-Dann, general manager Ashley Rhodes simply replied, “it wouldn’t be.”

“I’ve never met anybody with the creativity and the outside-of-the-box thinking that he has when it comes to an approach with food and drinks and pairings,” Rhodes said. “I don’t know if we could do this without him.”

Breaking into the industry

Barnum-Dann grew up a ball of energy in Foresthill, a small foothill town in Placer County about 20 miles northeast of Auburn, where he currently lives. He worked as an electrician in his early 20s and toured as a member of death metal band Dismal Lapse, travels he credits with opening his culinary eye.

He broke into restaurants in 2009, starting a job at a now-closed Auburn sushi spot on the same day began culinary school in 2009. He then bounced around the Placer County dining scene over the next six years before opening the restaurant that would put him on the map.

That opportunity came in a partnership with restaurateur Chris Jarosz in 2015. They opened Localis at 2031 S St. in midtown Sacramento.

The relationship quickly soured, and Barnum-Dann bought out the restaurant’s majority owner in 2016. As a new chef-owner, Barnum-Dann gradually shifted Localis from $25 à la carte entrees to fixed tasting menus.

Localis’ seven- or 12-course tasting menus ($155 or $197 per person, plus tax, reservation fees and a mandatory 20% tip) often take inspiration from Barnum-Dann’s travels, such as Spanish- and French-themed menus following his trips to those countries.

Another favorite technique involves gussying up approachable favorites, such as truffle lemon butter pasta. There’s always some variation on fire-roasted octopus, “the dish that made us,” and employees’ names are listed on the menu next to their creations.

The wine pairings ($95 for seven courses, $137 for 12) are highly regarded, but Barnum-Dann’s creativity really shines in Localis’ nonalcoholic pairings ($65 and $95). He’s served brown rice/jade cloud green tea with braised rabbit risotto, a booze-free fennel paloma next to locally-grown citrus and a shot made from mackerel bone syrup, activated charcoal and Jimmy Nardello peppers alongside a fish dish with romesco sorbet.

People noticed.

Localis earned a Michelin Plate in 2019 and 2021 (there was no California guide in 2020 due to the pandemic), given by the tourism company to good-but-not-great restaurants.

Barnum-Dann introduced himself to national audiences by winning Season 1 of the Food Network competitive cooking show “The Globe” in August 2021. Back at Localis, the floppy-mohawked chef oversaw a $250,000 renovation that included installing a walk-in refrigerator, adding new tables and upgrading kitchen equipment.

That face-lift paid off as Localis fully stepped into spotlight in 2022, starting in February with Barnum-Dann being named a semifinalist for the James Beard Award for Best Chef: California.

Other awards followed. Localis was named one of Wine Enthusiast’s Forward 50 Restaurants of 2022, a list of places the magazine’s editors most wanted to eat and drink.

Then came the star. Though Michelin’s reviews and importance have been questioned in recent years, it’s still the most recognizable name in fine dining. For Barnum-Dann, it represented the pinnacle: He’s kept a Michelin Man bobblehead behind Localis’ chef’s counter since the restaurant opened.

“As far as a career, this is the highest achievement you could possibly get to,” he said. “It means for the staff and I that we’ll hopefully be very full for a long time to come, and continue being able to do what we try to do with food right here in our community.”

An awakening

As Localis took off, though, Barnum-Dann’s home life began to crumble.

A sense of not belonging had eaten at Barnum-Dann since his childhood, when his biological father vanished after six months and his mother married a man who initially didn’t want children. A misfit mountain town kid turned into an angry teenager. He moved out at 17 after his mom accused him of being on drugs, which he denies.

Long hours at restaurants kept him away from home as three of his kids, now ages 7-20, grew up. He’ll be the first to admit he was a bad husband to Localis partner Jessica Dann. At a certain point, he began to look for a way out.

“I just never really was happy, ever, and I think that leads you to think ‘why am I here?’” Barnum-Dann said. “... It just reached a point where I was definitely very comfortable with the idea that there was not worth for me on this earth, and I was better off not being there with my children, not being there being a terrible husband to my wife.”

Barnum-Dann tried calling suicide hotlines but couldn’t get through, he said. When people close to him tried to help, he shut them out.

Eventually, he attempted to take his own life, details of which he’s not keen to share. What followed, though, was a life-changing experience, something emotional, physical and spiritual.

It turned him to Christianity, made him fully grateful to be alive. He’s repairing relationships with children and wife, trying to connect more with extended relatives and working on killing his ego while keeping his body intact.

There’s also a new member of the family. Chris and Jessica welcomed their fourth child, a girl named Willow, three months ago.

Localis, too, was indirectly saved by Barnum-Dann’s transformation. He seriously considered shutting it down in 2021, having grown tired of the restaurant industry’s emotional demands.

Instead, he established a more employee-centric collaborative atmosphere, one rarely seen in fine dining. Localis employees collectively vote on hirings and firings, menu changes and public statements, and mental health days are taken without judgment or repercussion.

All Localis employees make at least $55,000 per year plus health insurance and a month of PTO, rare benefits in the restaurant industry. Barnum-Dann sponsored a staff trip to Las Vegas earlier this year, the entire team eating through some of the U.S.’ best Thai restaurants and brainstorming ideas for their own menu.

“I was redeemed, and I hope that every person on earth can be redeemed. And that doesn’t mean by a Christian God, it just means redeemed, you know, like to find happiness in life,” Barnum-Dann said. “That was the approach to the restaurant when we reopened. I didn’t care at all about anything other than, ‘are we happy?’”

Line cook Adam Goldberg came to Localis after being a sous chef at two-Michelin-starred San Francisco restaurant Lazy Bear, and previously worked at then-one-starred Mourad. Tired of those intense kitchens, he contemplated leaving the restaurant industry until meeting Barnum-Dann.

“(Localis is) just so different than any other Michelin restaurant you walk into. There’s not an intensity in the air, in a negative way,” Goldberg said. “You just come in and you’re like, ‘OK, I want to do really well because everyone else wants to do really well.’”

A ‘defensive’ Sacramento booster

An outsider might think Barnum-Dann would be basking in the glow of a Michelin star, his hard-won professional goal of the last 15 years. That’s not exactly the case.

In an interview three days after receiving the star, Barnum-Dann described himself as feeling “defensive” and repeatedly brought up “hatred” he felt from people in the Sacramento area since the award — negative Reddit comments, a Sacramento Bee article on Localis’ pricing, a lack of congratulatory messages from other local chefs.

That last slight is part of a larger theme. For all his accolades, Barnum-Dann has always felt like an outsider looking in on the “inner circle” of Sacramento’s dining scene, he said.

Not enough media outlets have reached out for interviews since the star, he said. He’ll frequently bring up the naysayers who told him a tasting menu could never work in Sacramento as he opened Localis, claiming that “at the time, we (were) the only fine dining gig in town,” though restaurants such as The Kitchen and The Firehouse had been selling prix-fixe dinners for decades.

A lack of community support clearly vexes Barnum-Dann, a consistent booster of Sacramento’s food scene who strives to promote local chefs and farmers. During the pandemic, Localis introduced fancified tributes to some of his favorite restaurants around town, urging customers to visit the originators as well.

Of course, he’s quick to note, most of those restaurateurs didn’t acknowledge the gesture.

“So few restaurants — some of our restaurants here that do high-end dining, that do that — (gave) no congratulations, no appreciation, no anything (after the Michelin star),” Barnum-Dann said. “My first reaction would have been to get angry. And now I’m just thinking, why aren’t you happy for our city? You don’t have to be happy for me, but be happy for the city. We are getting exposure that we never had.”

Some greats are fueled by perceived insults, extra motivation to make them even hungrier for their goal (see: Michael Jordan’s famous NBA Hall of Fame induction speech).

That may well be the case for Barnum-Dann. He and Localis’ staff have dreams of two or even three Michelin stars in the future, and have already begun discussing what it’ll take to reach that next level.

Those insecurities, that sense of not belonging, may be part of what’s driven Barnum-Dann to become a brilliant chef. Localis’ food is intensely personal, even emotional. So, too, is its mastermind.

Plans for the next start

After receiving its Michelin star, Localis has never been hotter. Available tables were quickly snapped up, filling all reservations for the next two months.

Prices won’t immediately increase, though they could down the road as Localis pursues two or three stars, Barnum-Dann said. The flavors won’t change much, but Barnum-Dann hopes new plating techniques will push his restaurant to the next level.

He co-owns and oversees the food program at The Pour Choice, a coffee bar, taproom and restaurant in Auburn, along with partners Jordan and Melinda Minyard. Next year, he and the Minyards will open an ambitious concept called Kindred in downtown Auburn’s historic Mickey’s Boots building at 875 Lincoln Way.

Part open-fire-based restaurant, part creamery and part butcher shop, Kindred will be more affordable than Localis but still nice enough for date nights, Barnum-Dann said. He hopes to eventually craft wholesale ice cream for area restaurants — mango sorbet or coconut concoctions for an Indian restaurant, say.

His primary restaurant is flourishing. A new project is in the works. His family life is miles better than it once was.

To anyone struggling with their mental health, Barnum-Dann has a message.

“Talk. Find someone that isn’t going to judge you, and talk to them about everything. I think the second that you say it out loud, things change.”

This story was originally published December 16, 2022 at 5:00 AM.