Biba Restaurant reopened Tuesday with a soft new look after a remodel to celebrate its 25th anniversary in Midtown. Sacramento restaurateur, TV show host and cookbook author Biba Caggiano added a new color palette and made other changes at her namesake Italian eatery. The restaurant at 2801 Capitol Ave. was closed July 3 - Monday to allow work on the its two dining rooms. The makeover was done in time to mark a quarter-century in business next month. "Just like a beautiful woman, you don't stay beautiful forever unless you do something," Caggiano said during the lunch hour Tuesday. "This place needed something: color, other things. I'm very, very, very happy." Both rooms opened Aug. 6,

Chef Ryan Rose, the 28-year-old chef at the Zócalo restaurant in Sacramento, is one of the top 15 finalists in the “Next Food Network Star YouTube Challenge.” His in-it-to-win-it dish: paella. Originally on a search to apply for the Food Network’s casting call for the “Next Food Network Star,” Rose came across the YouTube challenge. Viewers can vote daily on their favorite video of national chefs demonstrating their favorite dishes in three minutes or less. The winner will fly out to New York for an audition with executive producers of the show. But Rose didn’t always want to be a chef. It wasn’t till a two-year visit to Spain where he watched his Italian roommate cook every day, that he

A year in the making, the new home of pizza-with-style - Hot Italian at the corner of 16th and Q in the downtown Sacramento Grid - will be opening inside of three weeks. The owner's self-declared deadline: the Amgen Tour of California on Feb. 14. "That's Valentine's Day as well," says Andrea Leport, the woman who has managed this eatery from concept to near-fruition. "And the next day is St. Faustino's Day, the holiday for the single." Sounds like they're expecting business those days. And tying it to the big international bike race fits perfectly the theme of Hot Italian. “We’re all about the two wheels,” says Andrea Lepore. Hot Italian is a concept place that aims to serve lifestyle