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Memorial Day weekend augurs long, sultry months of al fresco dining. Nothing tops the sheer, silly pleasure of feeding your sun-drenched face. A meal in the open air lets us see and hear the city as we rarely do: from the same seat for several hours, mellowed through a haze of cocktails and wine.
The choices here are personal favorites of mine, but some are mainly for the setting and less (if at all) for the food.
* The best food served outdoors in the city is hands-down at Cafe Boulud (20 E. 76th St., 212-772-2600), although sitting under a scaffold isn’t my cup of thé. But the leafy block is civilized enough to enjoy chef Gavin Kaysen’s great, globe-trotting, modern-French menu.
* Riverpark (450 E. 29th St., 212-729-9790) — Tom Colicchio’s sleek, modern-American restaurant inside the Alexandria Center — is hard to find, which is part of its appeal. The terrace overlooking the East River can be noisy from FDR Drive traffic below, but chef Sisha Ortúzar’s menu, boasting raw materials from the restaurant’s on-site farm, provides all the solace you need.
* At Sripraphai (64-13 39th Ave., Woodside; 718-899-9599) you can enjoy what many consider the city’s best Thai food for peanuts (most dishes on the mile-long menu are $10 or less). It’s even more wonderful that you can have it outdoors in a simple but pretty garden.
* A quartet of places with generous sidewalk seating on Lenox Avenue between West 125th and 127th streets offer a front porch on Harlem’s fast-changing scene: Chez Lucienne (212-289-5555), Marcus Samuelsson’s Red Rooster (212-792-9001), casual bistro Corner Social (212-510-8552) and soul-food standby Sylvia’s (212-996-0660).
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Brasserie Ruhlmann (45 Rockefeller Plaza, 212-974-2020) is a fine, traditional French bistro overseen by chef Laurent Tourondel: The juicy roast chicken, as good as most any in Manhattan, and a colorful crowd make up for tour bus convoys that clog views of the plaza.
* The garden at Haitian bistro La Caye (35 Lafayette Ave., Fort Greene; 718-858-4160), a short stroll from the Barclays Center, is basic: metal tables with red umbrellas inside a stockade fence. But that’s its charm. At twilight, broiled conch with Creole sauce and black rice superimposes Caribbean warmth on the “new” Brooklyn.
* For sheer escapism, few venues can compete with the rear garden of New Leaf Cafe (1 Margaret Corbin Drive, 212-568-5323) on a hill in Fort Tryon Park. It’s a trip to the forest primeval — or to a Swiss chalet, thanks to greenery that envelops you like a warm quilt.
* The twin-waterfall, sunken garden at Cavo (42-18 31st Ave., Astoria; 718-721-1001), if not quite “like traveling to Greece without a plane ticket” as it promises, at least gets you out of the concrete jungle.
* The Boat House Cafe (Central Park Lake, near East 72nd Street, 212-517-2233) is impossibly gorgeous when the wall comes down to reveal a Manhattan fantasy of murmuring trees and winking lights.
* Few places epitomize post-Sandy resilience as much as The Good Fork (391 Van Brunt St., Red Hook; 718-643-6636), which reopened a few months ago after it was all but destroyed. Now, the adorable bistro just reopened its 25-seat rear garden with a harbor view.
* Three big, bustling places — Bar Boulud (212-595-0303), Cafe Fiorello (212-595-5330) and The Smith (212-496-5700) — share the block facing Lincoln Center, a restaurant row on Broadway between 63rd and 64th streets. Awnings afford protection from rain. The deep seating areas have the feel of being on a boulevard in Paris or Berlin. Ever passing, cute dogs mostly know their manners.
* Shrubbery and trees shield the patio of Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s delightful Nougatine (Trump Hotel Central Park, 212-299-3900) from the Columbus Circle tumult.
* From the terrace of Blue Water Grill (31 Union Square West, 212-675-9500) you can enjoy the Union Square spectacle along with first-rate seafood.
* You don’t go to Gigino
at Wagner Park (20 Battery Place, 212-528-2228) for its Italian food, but for its Hudson River setting that evokes the city’s maritime past. And, when the cruise liners sail by, its golden present as well.
Honorable mentions:
* The sidewalk cafe at French bistro Calliope (84 E. Fourth St., 212-260-8484) affords a fun view of the zany East Village promenade.
* The weird oceanfront scene’s a hoot at the Brighton Beach boardwalk cafes, despite oily Russian food and watery drinks.
* Hotel Chantelle (92 Ludlow St., 212-254-9100) offers an arresting Williamsburg Bridge view from a roof high above the Lower East Side.
* Rockefeller Center’s Sea Grill (212-332-7610) envelops diners in a Gershwin-esque embrace of limestone and flags flapping in the breeze.
* The setting for Bryant Park Grill’s patio and rooftop, and adjacent cafe (25 W. 40th St., 212-840-6500) enchants the most jaded.