Sacramento's golden Tower Bridge will shut down to traffic Sunday and reopen as an 800-seat outdoor dining room, and the appetizer, dessert and drink lineup revealed this week shows just how deep the region's farm-to-fork bench really runs. Beyond the four headline main courses already announced, five chef squads are stepping in with everything from wood-roasted pears to Argentine-style beef empanadas, while local wineries, breweries and coffee roasters fill in the drinks list almost entirely from within the Sacramento region.
The full spread was detailed by The Sacramento Bee, which reported that the 13th annual Tower Bridge Dinner will feature appetizers, desserts and drinks alongside the main dishes already unveiled by the event's lead chef team. Corporate executive chef Lee Hinton of Aiona and Allora will serve a wood-roasted pear bruschetta with caramelized onion-fennel, prosciutto jam and Aiona schiacciatta bread, and told the Bee that Sacramento's pear season and Stillwater Orchards' French butter pears are especially suited to wood roasting. Stillwater Orchards grows those pears, according to the same report.
Appetizers Draw From Local Farms and Family Recipes
Zach Schechtman, executive chef of Good Neighbor by Urban Roots, is making a chilled corn soup with Brentwood corn, green tomato chow chow, finger limes and Aleppo chili oil, per the Bee's account. Cesad Cienfuegos, executive chef of Olive & Vine Catering, will offer an arepa topped with pork belly, roasted tomato and habanero sauce, avocado crema and pico de gallo, with tomatoes for that dish supplied by Durst Organic Growers.
Estefania Bozzolla, who operates two Buenos Aires Grill food trucks, is serving beef empanadas made with a generational family recipe, sourcing vegetables from Midtown Market while importing the empanada crust from Argentina. Nina Curtis is bringing a vegan and gluten-free option — stuffed cucumber cups with hearts of palm ceviche — and told the outlet the dish celebrates seasonal California produce through citrus, heat and texture. Altogether the appetizer and dessert lineup spans five chef squads, the Bee reported, working alongside the four lead chefs handling the meal's main courses.
Desserts Lean on Clarksburg Figs and a Milk-and-Cookie Nod
Pastry chef Elizabeth Dippong of Ella Dining Room and Bar will serve a soufflé cheesecake with yuzu-stewed plums and matcha milk crumb, a dish that Ella will also add to its own menu starting the following week for a limited time. LaQueanya Henry is offering a black mission fig honey cheesecake with almond shortbread crumble, fig compote, honey mascarpone and pistachio praline crunch, using figs grown by Sucré Farms in Clarksburg. Chloe Albin, who has spent four years as pastry chef at The Waterboy, will present a rosemary polenta cake with lemon.
Julian and Bailey Jimenez of Julian's Patisserie & Café — which has locations in Folsom and Roseville — will present a Casselman plum-almond financier with plum compote and basil mascarpone chantilly. Alan Toral, representing Twin Snakes Coffee, is offering a peaches-and-corn cream scone alongside a lavender madeleine with strawberry compote, with lavender grown by Araceli Farms in Dixon. Angela Harris, associated with Midtown Bakery, will offer four desserts: French puffs, brownie bites, shortbread cookies and millionaire's shortbread bars. Devin Dedier, director of food and beverage for Cuvée Club, will serve milk in shot glasses alongside a brown-butter salted chocolate-chip cookie.
Wines and Beers Stay Close to Home
Wines, beers and non-alcoholic beverages at the dinner will come mostly from the Sacramento region, according to the Bee's reporting. Guests will be welcomed with Silt Wine Company's sparkling charmat method chenin blanc from Clarksburg, while other pours include Gros Ventre Cellars' Less Traveled Gamay Noir made with Placerville grapes, Bokisch Vineyards' Blanco Fresco white wine, Haarmeyer Wine Cellars' SRV Chenin Blanc and Lava Cap Winery's Nuée Ardente GSM red blend. Cuvée Club will operate within Mimosa House's Granite Bay location for the event.
On the beer and cider side, Urban Roots will provide its 10 Degrees Czech-style lager, Shred Beer Co. is bringing its Tenacious Weed West Coast IPA, and Ponderosa Cider Co. will pour its Southern Aspect hard apple cider. Oak Park Brewing Co. is supplying a beer-ish non-alcoholic lager, and Sucré will provide a non-alcoholic chardonnay juice. Sugar Coated, which opened its storefront in 2024, rounds out the non-alcoholic and sweets offerings mentioned in the Bee's coverage. Nick Mallon said the local producers were chosen to pair with the food and the season's weather, per the same account.
Four Lead Chefs Anchor the Main Courses
Those appetizers and desserts surround four main courses unveiled at an August preview event hosted by Visit Sacramento, according to CapRadio: Albacore Tuna Tataki, Mushroom & Ricotta Rotolo, Filipino-inspired Adobo Quail, and Roasted Pork Belly Chile Verde with Braised Heirloom Beans. Those dishes come from a lead chef team named in June, comprising Francisco Rivera of Hawks Public House, Kate Sutherland of The Waterboy, Giancarlo Zapata of Chicha Peruvian Kitchen and Joe Pruner of Bocce, with Brad Cecchi of Canon serving as culinary advisor, as reported by Comstock's Magazine. Hoodline previously covered Pruner's selection for the dinner back in June.
During the August menu preview, the lead chefs told CapRadio that overall restaurant operating and ingredient costs have surged, but said regional kitchens are still willing to pay above market rates for local farm produce because of its freshness and quality. Many of the dinner's ingredients, the Bee noted, are sourced from local farms — a thread that runs through both the appetizer program and the headline courses.
Exclusive Tickets, Broader Community Purpose
Getting a seat at the table is its own challenge. Public tickets for the 2026 dinner cost $600 per pair, or $300 per seat, and were distributed through a random public drawing that closed in late July, while corporate sponsor tables ran $6,500 for eight seats, according to Visit Sacramento and Comstock's Magazine. The event requires Caltrans to close the golden, vertical-lift Tower Bridge — which opened in 1935 and carries California State Route 275 between Sacramento and West Sacramento — turning a working highway into an open-air dining room for 800 guests, as detailed by KCRA.
Proceeds from ticket sales fund scholarships for Sacramento State students enrolled in the College Assistance Migrant Program, which supports children of local migrant and seasonal farmworkers, according to CapRadio's prior reporting on the event. The dinner traces back to 2013, when it launched under lead chefs Patrick Mulvaney and Randall Selland following a 2012 proposal from restaurateur Josh Nelson that led Sacramento to formally brand itself America's Farm-to-Fork Capital, per the Downtown Sacramento Partnership. The gala now anchors the city's broader Farm-to-Fork Month, which celebrates a surrounding agricultural region of roughly 1.4 million acres across the Sacramento Valley and Central Valley, according to UC Agriculture and Natural Resources.
That scale shows up in the numbers, too. Wine grapes remained Sacramento County's top agricultural commodity in 2024, valued at $167.9 million and representing more than 31% of the county's total agricultural production, according to the Sacramento County Agricultural Commissioner's crop report, with market milk and pears close behind. In 2025, Visit Sacramento folded its September Farm-to-Fork Festival into Terra Madre Americas, a larger international culinary event at the SAFE Credit Union Convention Center, broadening what was once a local celebration into a global platform, the Downtown Sacramento Partnership reported.
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