Sacramento’s pizza scene is booming. Inside the new restaurants raising the bar

Thick, Sicilian-style crusts from a veteran pizzaiolo. Seasonal toppings from the area’s best farms. Late-night slices near a hopping entertainment district.

Sacramento’s pizza scene is exploding with new concepts, culminating in a moment unseen in years. A rash of new restaurants over the past two months is flooding the city center with mouthwatering concepts, each one different from the last.

Once derided as a town bereft of good ‘za, Sacramento’s pizza selection has become seriously better over the past half-decade thanks to additions such as Majka Pizzeria & Bakery , Pizzasaurus Rex and Pizza Supreme Being . The latest crop of newcomers promises to make their mark in the years to come, alleviating some sting from legacy deep-dish joint Zelda’s Pizza’s recent closure.

There’s Solimar , Faria Bakery’s neighboring project in North Oak Park that debuted in August, where Chicago tavern-style pies share menu space with others topped by local figs or housemade carnitas. The latter is somewhere between New York- and Neapolitan-style pizza, much like Bambina Pizza & Pasta’s signature creations.

Opened last month in midtown’s Ice Blocks development, Bambina also makes Sicilian-style pies and oblong flatbreads called pinsas. Meanwhile, owner Juanes Ramazzini is closing Alkali Flat’s Anonimo Pizza to rebrand it as Luccas, which will keep some Anonimo items while adding square Detroit-style pizzas and calzones to its listings.

Burgers Pizza + More took the downtown K Street pizza mantle from Pizza Rock , opening in August with wood-fired pies and toppings like no other. The former operators of fusion taco spot Tako Korean BBQ now fire pizzas with bulgogi, kimchi, japchae and gochujang tomato sauce.

TJ Bruce is almost ready to start serving 20-inch, New York-style pies and late-night slices at Marilyn’s Pizza , his midtown shop a stone’s throw from several of his LGBTQ+ bars in Lavender Heights. Even Chicha Peruvian Kitchen added aji amarillo-covered pizzas when expanding from Roseville to midtown Sacramento last month.

What’s changed? Well, pizzerias fared as well as any restaurant subcategory during the COVID-19 pandemic since their primary product was easy to enjoy at home. Sacramento’s dearth of eats after a night out certainly contributed to Marilyn’s business model and Bambina’s decision to serve slices until midnight.

More and more Sacramento customers have also shown they know good pizza and will support the businesses making it, said Ramazzini, who worked at 2010s favorites Pizza Rock and Hot Italian between stints in Italy and the Bay Area. That encourages operators to push the envelope from dough to toppings.

“What’s changed is the culture,” Ramazzini said. “There’s a change in appreciation for good quality, which attracts and allow us to be more creative and bring more to Sacramento. It’s not just whatever cheap thing you can get at the chains or whatever fills you the most, but actually a care of quality, a care of farm-to-fork on pizza.”

What I’m Eating

Miso Japanese Restaurant sits in a seemingly run-down space across Broadway from Tower Cafe and Tower Theatre’s bright lights. That’s part of what makes it a favorite restaurant for several cooks: a Japanese dive with premium fish and old-school items you won’t find in many other Sacramento restaurants.

Winnie Fok’s restaurant is actually quite a bit nicer on the inside. A light wood sushi bar, samurai swords, geisha dolls and a display case of small Japanese figurines create an amiable backdrop for happy hours and tabletop-grilled meats as well as $80-per-person omakase nights.

While specials such as sushi tacos keep Miso current, its bread-and-butter is less glamorous but filling dishes such as Japanese curry ($12.50-$17) , Kyoto-style beef katsu ($20) and yakiudon ($14.50-$18.50) , thick noodles stir-fried with vegetables and your choice of protein. It’s all bound together by a creamy house-secret sauce that has a hint of tanginess and served with a pile of fluttering bonito flakes.

Sushi runs the gamut from simple ebi (shrimp, $5 for two nigiri pieces) to premium hamachi toro (yellowtail belly, $24 for five sashimi slices). Hon maguro (bluefin tuna, $9 nigiri/$17 sashimi) is an excellent choice to split the difference, a buttery, tender delight finished with fried leeks and kizami wasabi. If taken as nigiri, it’s served over Edomae-style rice tossed with sourer red vinegar instead of the usual, sweeter rice vinegar.

There are rolls aplenty, and the sake punch ($15) might be the best of the bunch. Eight pieces of spicy tuna and shrimp tempura took a smoky taste from the torched salmon, garlic cream and bonito flakes on top before lingering heat crept through.

Miso Japanese Restaurant

Address: 1517 Broadway, Sacramento

Hours: 11 a.m.-9:30 p.m. Monday-Friday, 4-9:30 p.m. Saturday, closed Sunday

Phone: 916-680-9338

Website: https://sites.google.com/view/miso916/home

Drinks: Full bar

Vegetarian options: Available for most menu categories, including yakiudon, ramen, sukiyaki, curry and rolls

Noise level: Relatively quiet

Outdoor seating: None

Openings & Closings

▪ Shipwrecked Tiki Bar opened Oct. 5 in midtown. The “Paradise Island” location followed the original downtown Davis one and replaced owners Nate and Melissa Yungvanitsait‘s University of Beer concept at 1510 16th St., Suite 300.

▪ Tallow Organic Grill will have its grand opening Friday at 3905 Park Drive, Suite 100 in El Dorado Hills. Pasture-raised meats and a hard aversion to seed oils help define this wellness-focused restaurant in La Borgata shopping center, which serves grain bowls, tacos and tallow-cooked fries with tri-tip and tzatziki.

▪ Cilantro’s Mexican Grill has permanently closed after 18 years in Elk Grove’s Waterman Plaza. The Mexican restaurant at 9304 Elk Grove Blvd., Suite 150, which has sister concepts in downtown Sacramento and North Natomas, had its last day on Sept. 30, according to an Instagram post Monday.