Terra Madre kicks off weekend packed with food and culture in Sacramento
Sacramento’s largest food festival was in full swing in the weekend’s opening hours Friday afternoon.
Terra Madre Americas, hosted at the SAFE Credit Union Convention Center at 1401 K St. in downtown Sacramento, opened its doors at noon, with crowds packing the convention center’s lobby in anticipation. Brad Cecchi, culinary director for the festival and owner of Canon in East Sacramento, said the team is expecting at least double Friday’s turnout on Saturday and Sunday.
“(It’s) great because they’ll spill out into the street festival and they’ll be able to see the music (performances) and they’ll check out all the food trucks ... outside as well,” Cecchi said.
On Friday, the festivities were contained within the convention center but, over the weekend, the festival will add an outdoor portion with food trucks and live music on I Street between 13th and 15th streets.
Still, the vendor marketplace, enoteca, drink stands and educational workshops and panels will still be operating indoors. Cecchi said guests should look forward to a panel with chef Jeremiah Tower and iconic East Sacramento grocer Darrell Corti at 2:30 p.m. as well as various cooking demonstrations by Latin American chefs in the center’s agroecology kitchen.
Indigenous food traditions are honored within a dedicated section within the festival, sponsored by Wilton Rancheria, with a panel stage scheduled to host lectures and workshops. Beside the stage is a set of screens with cycling animations showing processes of growing, harvesting and preparing different ingredients.
“They’ve done a really great job with the animation and telling the story and the journey of food within Indigenous food systems,” Cecchi said. “There’s a lot of really cool Indigenous foodways stuff that is happening.”
The vendor marketplace features food producers, restaurants and organizations from the Sacramento-area and beyond, including Zelda’s Gourmet Pizza in midtown, Scott’s Seafood Roundhouse in Folsom and The Willow in downtown Sacramento.
The Slow Food Russian River chapter in Sonoma County is serving apple juice made with Sebastopol’s famed Gravenstein apples while educating visitors on the apple’s decline in the region, and the Sacramento International Airport is giving foodies a taste of the Magpie and Cafe Bernardo restaurants landing at the terminals soon with dessert samples.
Jodie Chavious, a board member of the Slow Food Sacramento chapter and owner of the Chavious Pop-Up pizza truck, said representing small farmers was vital to promoting the core tenets of Slow Food — being good, clean and fair.
“For me (Slow Food is) the pleasures of the table,” Chavious said. “When I have people come over ... I can get some bread from Manzanita (Bakehouse) at the farmers market and then Scrivner (Hoppe-Glosser of Azolla Farm) is gonna drop off some tomatoes ... or maybe it’s just a salad from the backyard.
“It’s really just when we sit down at the table, how does that feel? And it usually feels really good, joyful,” she said.
Cecchi said he believes Sacramento is the perfect place to host Terra Madre Americas, thanks to its prime spot within the state’s agricultural region and Sacramentans’ love for sustainable, regional food.
“We just have it kind of ingrained in our blood,” he said. “For that reason, I can’t think of a better place.”
Terra Madre Americas is continuing through the weekend at the convention center in downtown, from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday. Much of the festival is free, with payment required for some food and drink purchases and certain educational workshops.
This story was originally published September 26, 2025 at 5:37 PM.
