스포트라이트: 베이커스필드

The three-story Fox Theater, with its Art Deco tower, has reigned as Bakersfield’s glitziest landmark since its terrazzo was first polished for opening day in 1930. Today it’s the centerpiece of Bakersfield’s gallery-and-theater-filled Downtown Arts District, clustered around 19th and H Streets.

Thanks to its 1990s refurbishments, the interior of the Fox gleams with gilded ceilings and gold-leaf walls, which can steal your attention away from the stage where big-name live bands perform. Come on Friday nights to watch foreign flicks or cult films like Rocky Horror Picture Show on the 80-foot silver screen.

Day or evening, wander the galleries in the blocks surrounding the Fox. Start at Metro Galleries on 19th Street, where you can ponder over abstract and contemporary realist works by more than two dozen California painters, sculptors, and mixed-media artists. At the Art Center Gallery on Eye Street, gaze at local artists’ creations, or make your own in weekly art classes for kids or adults. Or drop into the “underground” Bellmoore Gallery on Chester Avenue, cloistered in the basement of a century-old building that was once a bakery. White-washed brick walls showcase up-and-coming artists’ work, and the space also hosts musicians, performance artists, and fashion shows. 

To see the latest creations of local playwrights, wander into the budget-friendly Spotlight Theatre on 19th Street, where you might catch a hot-off-the-press slapstick comedy or tear-jerking drama. For a special night out, go 2,500 miles off-Broadway to Stars Bakersfield Music Theatre on Chester Avenue, where you can dine on prime rib while watching a classic musical like Funny Girl or Guys and Dolls.

Theater performances without the slightest speck of pretense (remember to dress down, not up) happen at the Gaslight Melodrama, located in a big red barn on the outskirts of town (and one of only four professional melodrama theaters in California). The Gaslight attracts a fun-loving crowd that is instructed not to shush: Drink a beer and munch on pulled pork sandwiches while you boo the villain, cheer the hero, and aww the love interest on stage. 

The 1893 Noriega Hotel is the oldest and most famous of the Central Valley’s Basque eateries, but it has plenty of friendly competition in Bakersfield’s Old Town Kern neighborhood—also known as the Basque Block. Here in the largest concentration of Basque restaurants in the United States, each dining hall has its specialties, but one fact unites them: Basque food is served in hearty, prodigious quantities.

Anywhere you go, you’ll be served a similar “setup,” as it’s called—sourdough bread, cabbage soup, beans, salsa, boiled vegetables, pickled tongue, and spaghetti. It all needs to be consumed before the main course, which might be roasted lamb leg, beef or oxtail stew, or fried chicken. It’s a monumental task for even the biggest eaters, but Central Valley Basque food has been served this way since the mid-1800s, when many Basque traveled from their homeland between Spain and France to seek their fortunes in California’s Gold Rush.

If you’re not that hungry, just sit at the bar and order a Picon Punch—the customary Basque brandy-and-grenadine highball, usually mixed with a bitter orange liqueur or sometimes maraschino cherry juice, and typically garnished with a lemon peel. The cocktail miraculously straddles the narrow line between tart and sweet.

Start your exploration of Basque food culture at the Wool Growers Restaurant on 19th Street, clearly marked by a neon sheep sign. The no-frills 1950s dinner house is one of Bakersfield’s most popular eateries, serving specialties like oxtail soup and perfectly crispy French fries. The bright-lit dining room with long trestle tables is boisterous and friendly, a contrast to the film-noir vibe at the Pyrenees Café on Sumner Street, two blocks away. The Pyrenees’ dark wood bar, vinyl booths, throbbing jukebox, and neon Budweiser sign attract motorcycle clubs, indie bands, and Basque old-timers alike. Its dining room walls are lined with black-and-white photos of Basque pioneers. The Pyrenees’ breakfast menu offers pleasant surprises: Nab a seat at one of the outdoor patio tables and order the bacon-stuffed pancakes. 

Right next to the 99 freeway, and surrounded by graceful queen palms, the Chalet Basque Restaurant has small tables and booths in lieu of family-style trestle tables—more appropriate for date night—but everything else is traditional Basque. In addition to the multi-course setup, the Chalet serves a garlicky escargot you won’t find elsewhere. And far across town at Benji’s French-Basque Restaurant, patrons try to manage their calorie intake during the setup so they save room for dessert. Benji’s is more French than Spanish (frog’s legs are popular), but the big ticket is a dessert soufflé—chocolate, lemon, Grand Marnier, or raspberry. Order one when you choose your entrée so the wait staff can time its delivery. Due to its delicate architecture, your soufflé must be served at the precise moment it comes out of the oven. 

Real cowboys around Bakersfield don’t shop at the mall—instead, they tie up their horses next to the tall red boot outside Emporium Western Store and load up their saddlebags with rugged jeans and shiny silver belt buckles. In business for more than a century, the Emporium stocks oodles of western apparel plus more than 2,500 pairs of boots, so the staff knows their way around the pointed-toe versus square-toe issue. In the market for a cowboy hat? Choose one from the 2,000-plus inventory, then have the store manager steam it until the brim curls just the way you like it.

But maybe western duds aren’t your thing. If you’re in the market for something retro-glam—like a 1950s poodle skirt or a 1920s feather headband—go to Bakersfield’s Antique Row (19th Street between H and R Streets), where antique “malls” or multi-dealer shops house dozens of vendors and consignment stores. Three of the largest are the Mill Creek Antique Mall, Great American Antiques, and Central Park Antique Mall, housing more than 60,000 square feet of nostalgic flotsam. Or browse previously owned designer fashions and vintage costumes at In Your Wildest Dreams on 18th Street, right next to the Padre Hotel. Dig through a gold mine of estate-sale furniture, artwork, and home accents at Chester Avenue’s Timeless Furnishings & Antique Gallery.

For time-capsule-worthy shopping-plus-dining, head to the Five & Dime Antique Mall, in the old Woolworth building on 19th Street. Shop the three floors of antiques, then nosh on a grilled cheese sandwich at the 1950s throwback Woolworth’s counter. The iconic Woolworth’s department store closed in 1994, but new owners snapped up the Art Deco building and gave it new life. Waiters decked out in black bow ties scribble down orders for chili cheese fries, amidst black-and-white checkerboard tile flooring, steel barstools with red vinyl seats, and Streamline Moderne stairways.

No trip to Bakersfield is complete without a visit to Dewar’s Candy Shop—the original on Eye Street (look for the pink neon ice-cream cone). This throwback ice-cream parlor can rightfully brag that its frozen confection was served at Disneyland Resort—and it’s made with the same small-batch recipe the owners used nearly a century ago. Sadly, ice cream doesn’t travel well, so spoon down a sundae on location and then stock your suitcase with a bright red box of Dewar’s peanut-butter-filled taffy chews. These soft, pillowy treats make a perfect gift—if they make it home. 

When Spaniards began descending on Bakersfield in the 1800s, searching for gold and herding sheep, they brought with them an appetite for roast lamb, oxtail stew, and baguette upon baguette of French bread. While the shepherds have (mostly) come and gone, the tradition of Basque cuisine remains in Bakersfield. Few places stick as closely to the script as the Noriega Hotel, a former boarding house founded by Basque expats in 1893, still bustling near the town’s train tracks.

Known locally as Noriega’s, the restaurant picks up action before the meal at the bar, where patrons listen to music, chat, and sip Picon Punch (a Basque cocktail). Then it’s time to grab a seat at the long communal tables, where each meal begins with appetizers both common—salad and rolls—and not—cottage cheese cut with mayonnaise and pickled tongue. After that come platters of Basque classics like paella, lamb stew, bacalao (a salted cod dish that hails from the Basque region), and fried chicken with freshly chopped garlic. Loaves of French bread and hunks of blue cheese fill the spaces in between. Meals are all-you-can-eat fare and all-you-can-drink red table wine—or coffee, tea, or milk for non-tipplers. 

In 2011, Noriega’s caught the attention of the James Beard Foundation, which named the institution—run by the same family since 1931—an American classic. “We were very surprised by that,” says Linda Elizalde-McCoy, who owns Noriega’s with her sister, Rochelle Ladd. “They determined that yeah, it was something different.” The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and L.A. Weekly have also heralded the restaurant, which keeps the 120-person dining room humming. (Ms. McCoy notes that summers bring more tourists, while locals pack the place year round.) Though Noriega’s harks back to a time before gluten-free regimens became a thing, most dietary restrictions can be accommodated: Vegetarians who eat eggs are offered omelettes, and those who can’t consume flour can opt for baked chicken instead of fried.

Lunch runs $17 a person, dinner $22; children are charged a dollar per year of age, up to 8 for lunch and 12 for dinner. Reservations are recommended.