Two of Sacramento’s premier chefs are opening a Mexican fine dining restaurant. Here’s where

Inside Look is a Sacramento Bee series where we take readers behind the scenes at restaurants, new businesses, local landmarks and news stories.

The Sacramento area has never seen a restaurant like Cantina Pedregal . Most U.S. metropolitan regions haven’t.

The Northeastern Mexican fine dining restaurant will open Monday in Folsom Pointe shopping center, combining the flavors of Nixtaco Kitchen & Distillery owners Patricio Wise and Cinthia Martinez’s youth with Canon and Franquette partners Brad Cecchi and Clay Nutting’s elevated approach.

Cantina Pedregal will have the small plates, shareable platters and seasonal ingredients of Canon, Cecchi and Nutting’s Michelin-recognized East Sacramento concept (Nixtaco, too, has a Michelin Bib Gourmand award). But the Folsom restaurant’s food will be tied to Monterrey, the Mexican city where Martinez and Wise grew up.

“We’re opening a restaurant that should live in the same category in people’s minds as Canon or Ella (Dining Room & Bar) or Camden (Spit & Larder) or, you know, the more ‘special occasion’ dining options,” Cecchi said. “This just happens to be in the Northeastern Mexican flavor profile.

“We built a beautiful restaurant ... We’re going to have thoughtful service touches that are making this not (only) part of what people perceive as Mexican cuisine, but what people perceive as the great restaurants of their Sacramento region.”

Cecchi and Wise will start Cantina Pedregal’s food program before largely turning the reigns over to chef de cuisine Bucky Bray, an alumnus of Canon and The Kitchen. General manager Paolo Ruffi, a native of Sardinia, Italy, previously oversaw operations at late celebrity chef Michael Chiarello’s Napa Valley restaurant Bottega .

Monterrey was founded by Sephardic Jews working as shepherds in the late 16th century, and they’re credited with laying the groundwork for the city’s flagship dish of cabrito al pastor, kid goat roasted on a spit. Cantina Pedregal’s version roasts, then braises adult goat meat in a salsa that’s heavy on cumin and oregano, a flagship option available in tacos or as a platter.

“The style of Northeastern cuisine is very distinctive game meat like goat,” Wise said. “Eventually people started keeping cattle as well, and it became everything open-fire, whatever you can put on the fire.”

Orange groves also abound in Nuevo León, the Northeastern Mexican state home to Monterrey, and the fruit is often used as seasoning along with cumin, oregano and black pepper. Cantina Pedregal’s cazuela de asado Norteño features diced pork belly in an orange-guajillo chile stew, topped with avocado slices.

Other marquee platters include arroz meloso (creamy short-grain rice from West Sacramento’s True Origin Foods mixed with sofrito, pork belly and assorted shellfish) and whole snapper zarandeado, a traditional Nayarit method of splitting the fish head to tail before grilling.

Tostadas and gorditas grilled on the plancha will be served with salsa in lieu of tortilla chips, and a raw menu section features scallop aguachile, oysters on the half-shell section and beef tartare with salsa negro.

The cornerstone of the kitchen is its Vesuvio , a combination charcoal grill/oven from Mexico. It’ll be used for about 70% of the menu, including the major proteins, whole roasted onions for salsas and the kinds of small plates for which Canon has become known.

Esquites, essentially elote in a cup, gets reimagined at Cantina Pedregal with Brentwood corn grown in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, peanut chipotle salsa and bone marrow. Queso panela (a Mexican cheese similar to halloumi) is charred in the Vesuvio before being tossed with Chiltepin hot honey and oregano oil and served with preserved orange.

“If you want to have a couple of botanas because you’re on a budget or you’re only here for a quick lunch, we can do that. If you want to have a finer meal, you can do that as well,” Wise said.

Botanas, Spanish for “snacks,” start at $8, with plenty of options in the $10-$20 range. Platters can cost up to $55 aside from 36-ounce rib-eye steaks with grilled scallions and sweet garlic purée, which goes for $104.

Nixtaco added a distillery wing in 2021, and Cantina Pedregal bar manager Chris Mansury (formerly of Zuzu and The Bitter Bar in Napa) has been developing bespoke infusions and bitters there over the past few months. He’ll source wine from the Sierra Nevada foothills as well as South America, where some varietals are designed to complement spicy food.

Unlike many fine dining restaurants, Cantina Pedregal will open its 3,300-square foot interior and outdoor patio seven days a week for lunch and dinner. The restaurant will have a bright, energetic vibe akin to Nixtaco before dinner, when the lights dim and “it’s going to get sexy in here,” Cecchi said.

Sacramento architecture firm Studio Oxeye and construction company Hive Contracting redesigned the former Broderick Roadhouse and Flock Pizza space with matte brown walls and a semi-open kitchen.

Monterrey’s famous mountain Cerro de la Silla, Wise’s favorite rock climbing wall during his childhood, is featured on Cantina Pedregal’s logo as well as custom plates and mugs produced by ALMa , a Sacramento design studio owned by Mexican natives Alejandra & Luis Magaña.

Cantina Pedregal will be open from 11 a.m.-9 p.m. seven days per week at 185 Placerville Road, Suite 150 in Folsom starting Monday. More than half the reservations for its first week in business were claimed as of July 17, and people were already making reservations two months out, Wise said.

Get Product Recall Updates