dining alfresco

With the weather getting warmer, we’ll be firing up the grills and dining alfresco.

If that was you pre-pandemic, you’ve probably changed your ways as you started dining alfresco and frequenting farmers markets.

These days, though, whenever I pass the Beacon Theater and cross Broadway, I think to myself, “How I wish I could be dining alfresco with him now.”

It makes sense: The sun barely sets, so locals and in-the-know visitors spend the long daylight hours summiting peaks in the Chugach Mountains, biking more than 100 miles of city trails, sipping craft beer, dining alfresco on freshly caught salmon and attending festivals that stretch into the wee hours of the morning.

European dining alfresco and the legacy of wealthy Americans’ great houses are also influences on this trend, says University of Pennsylvania architecture professor emeritus Witold Rybczynski.