Bee Appetit: Magpie’s 21st anniversary served free passed bites, good vibes
Openings & Closings
Popular Bay Area-based pizza restaurant Slice House by Tony Gemignani opens its Granite Bay location at 4060 Douglas Blvd. tomorrow at 11 a.m. Gemignani will make a special appearance, Slice House hats will be given to the first 50 guests and customers can enter a raffle for the chance to win free pizza for one year.
Following a five-year hiatus, poke and sushi burrito concept Make Fish Market reopened at their midtown location at 1801 L St.
After 17 years, Black Bear Diner shuttered its Davis location. Seven other regional locations remain open.
Two Bay Area Denny’s franchisees are looking to bring three locations of Florida-based Keke’s Breakfast Cafe, a subsidiary of Denny’s, to the Sacramento region.
Midtown’s Magpie Cafe celebrated its coming of age in style
This past Wednesday, April 1, farm-to-fork restaurant Magpie Cafe hosted a special event for their 21st anniversary in business. It was a drop-in event, with passed bites for all who came.
Co-owners Janel Inouye and Ed Roehr — the latter in his signature porkpie hat — worked the room, shaking hands, talking to customers, friends and industry folk who came to raise a glass to one of Sacramento’s most esteemed eateries. A DJ was spinning Gen X-friendly tunes.
Roehr told chef Brian Hawley he could serve whatever he wanted, figuring he might serve up just some sliders and fries. Hawley took the reins and delivered a cavalcade of tapas-style bites adapted from their main menu that came out in great lashings of food.
We had the foresight to sit near the kitchen, so we were more or less assaulted with dishes for the first 20 minutes or so.
Smoky BLT sliders were first to come out; how are they getting such good tomatoes in early April?
A springy skewer with artichoke, charred green onion, asparagus and Ione’s PT Ranch sausage. PT Ranch’s meat also starred in another skewer, this time with pork belly saddling a soft, citrusy confit kumquat.
Crisp saffron risotto mini arancini arrived in dollops of aioli. Another fried bite, a cauliflower fritter, sported dabs of bright chutney.
Crostini are a passed hors d’oeuvre mainstay. One was topped with tender steak tartare, while another conveyed a briny white anchovy on a smear of aioli.
The final bite we managed to taste, and we could barely consume another bite, was a “potato salad” of fried gnocchi dribbled with a bright sauce gribiche.
Drinks were not free, but we weren’t complaining. I enjoyed a Farmer’s Friend ($14), a refreshing cocktail of Meyer lemon-sage shrub, bourbon and ginger beer, followed by a glass of Haarmeyer’s Field Blend ($12), a bone-dry blush of a rosé made from 52 distinct varieties from a single vineyard.
In the end, we left happily sated and buzzing with good vibes. Magpie has long been on my shortlist of favorite restaurants, and it remains firmly seated there.
Magpie Cafe
Address: 1601 16th St., midtown
Hours: 4:30-9 p.m. Tuesdays & Wednesdays; 4:30 p.m. - 10 p.m. Thursdays; 12 p.m.- 10 p.m. Fridays & Saturdays; 12 p.m. - 9 p.m. Sundays; closed Mondays
Phone: 916-452-7594
Website: magpiecafe.com
Vegetarian options: A healthy smattering of options throughout their regular menu
Noise level: Medium-loud
