Paragary's — Restaurant in Sacramento

Legendary outdoor area that I’m going to call one of the best in Northern California, let alone Sacramento. This is what other restaurants try to be when they say “industrial chic”. Incredible water features, tasteful noise dampening on the roof, heating for when it’s cold and fans for when it’s hot… and keeping the rest of the restaurant open to this exterior patio in the back means the whole place is MUCH more COVID safe, which is brilliant design, so even if you’re indoors you’re much safer here than many spots!

Food was a delight and priced well for the quality. Flavors all felt purposeful and well considered, although I would say nothing stood out as mind blowing or exceptional - save the decor. Again, spectacular there.

The menu had a fair number of options and portions were generous without being overbearing, which I like to see. Don’t give people more than they’ll eat and you reduce food waste and save everyone energy / money. You’d need to bring a party of 10 to try everything on offer here.

Starting bread and butter is a treat but so is the grilled bread appetizer - it’s got a sweet note from grapes which you may not expect in the dish but do elevate it. Mussels could have had a stronger flavor but were cooked well. Would look to include more potent oils or salts in this dish, potentially a drier/brighter white wine for accent. A few peppers found their way into the sauce as well but weren’t giving any of their flavor to it.

Heirloom tomatoes were decadent, as was the burrata cheese. For sure worth getting if you like these flavors. The team knows how to pick a good tomato that’s for sure.

Entrees were each interesting and chicken was cooked perfectly, but probably highlight among them was the salmon. Really tender. Good flavor combinations at play. Portioning on the pasta could have been more generous or at least included other elements more. Feels like they’re too small to sit alongside other large entrees on the menu as they do.

Dessert I’d say was strong, although the chocolate sundae suffers from weak random plating, the flavor is great. The almond / fig cake is what you should be eyeing. A good deployment of fig with balanced sweet and savory notes.

Plates and silverware were of good quality, glasses were pretty standard. A full carafe of water was always available for us which was great. Service was super friendly and didn’t linger. Was fairly busy during our stay but we never felt ignored. High level of attention to kitchen and good food presentation for sure. You can also tell them to switch order of appearance around for various items or make things come out together and they’ll do it for you, which is really nice.

The cook temperatures and finished textures of everything were splendid, without exception. From appetizers to food to strong drinks, there wasn’t a weak note in the whole ordeal. That nothing knocked socks off is not a negative, it just means everything was on equal footing for being quite good.

It’s also a local seasonal / sustainable menu which grants big points from my crew.

This was our second time dining here and we would 1000% return. One of Sacramento’s very best. And my goodness the outdoors, really really a special place.

**(Sorry for the photo order and any duplicates, google is doing that thing where it doesn’t upload some and...

Went for Easter brunch. There was a limited menu, but with good variety of options - steak and fries, eggs Benedict, Huevos rancheros or a Salmon salad. Brunch included a few pastries (very small samples) which were just okay. First course was a choice of yogurt & granola parfait or a choice of 3 salads. Our table ordered the yogurt & granola and a seared salmon salad - both were good. The parfait was large with some fruit also, much of which was not quite ripe yet, but over all good. For the entree we ordered the steak and fries, the Huevos rancheros and the Salmon salad, which all tasted good. Unfortunately though, "the hot" meals came out cold... we saw earlier there seemed to be a little confusion as to which table some plates were to go, and the servers just took them back. When I looked around, we seemed to be the only table in that dining area without our meals and it was several minutes later when our meals were finally served. I suggested sending the cold plates back, but as we had already been waiting quite a long time, they were hungry and just opted to eat the food. I did mention it to the server and later the manager came over and apologized, taking a little off the bill. This was my companions first time at this restaurant (though they'd been to other Paragary's), and the managers apology and gesture may have saved losing a customer - one had already exclaimed that they wouldn't return.... As for me, though I haven't been to this location for quite a while, I don't think this is the norm and would definitely return and give it a 2nd shot. It's a little pricey and you don't get huge portions, but you go for good food and service, and I think they know it. I should mention, they have a very nice patio with fireplace and water feature for dining also, but it was closed due to wet weather. Not sure about their bar, we had a michelada (hard to mess up) which wasn't very good - very blah, plain and another cocktail which was...

Made reservations for this restaurant for 7:45pm yesterday for my boyfriend and myself. I requested outdoor seating since they have patio dining. When we arrived, the hostess knew that I requested outdoor but didn't mention it at all. I asked if we were sitting on the patio and she said that even though she saw that she didn't have anything. I had to ask before she acknowledged it. It was going to be at least 35 minutes before we could sit outside so we opted to eat inside. They put us at the smallest table in the entire dining room that was shoved up against a pillar. I immediately went into an anxiety attack. There is supposed to be 6 feet between people but the other table was no more than 3 feet behind me with people at it. Mind you, the rest of the restaurant is EMPTY. Every table was bigger than ours and had 2 people at them as well. The waitress came by and asked what we would like to drink. My other half asked for Sprite and I was ok with water, which she said she was bringing. Sprite came and I had to ask for the water. She said she forgot. We were given cold, hard bread and butter. The water finally came and we ordered. I ordered whole wheat spagettini and my boyfriend ordered the rigatoni. The menu states there is summer squash and roasted cherry tomato in the spaghettini. I had 3 not roasted cherry tomatoes, and strips of zucchini and yellow squash that were no thicker than the spaghetti noodles. There were about 5 pine nuts and no parmesan. Seriously, for $20 you couldn't actually put squash in it? Or actually roast a cherry tomato? My boyfriend got his dish and there was about a tablespoon of sausage in the plate. It really looked sad. We only saw our server one more time without having to flag her down. Hands down it was the worst dining experience I have had in quite some time. I do not recommend this place at all. My dish was overpriced and underwhelming. I can cook the same dish at...