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Blooming gardens, gorgeous patios and sidewalk cafes are among New York’s best outdoor dining spots.
A New York summer is often a hot one, and prime outdoor dining season is sizzling, too. Throughout NYC, rooftop bars , restaurants with amazing views and lovely waterfront destinations are shining in their annual turn in the sun. And the best outdoor setups at these all-day cafes, Michelin-starred stunners, cozy dives, neighborhood favorites and city newcomers all have picturesque settings to get your attention, and great food and drinks to keep you coming back from now through next fall.
RECOMMENDED: Full guide to the best restaurants in NYC
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At The Rooftop at Time Out Market you can discover impressive bites from culinary rockstars while relaxing on sea foam seats on the outdoor terrace.
One of the best restaurants in New York City is, as often happens, also one of the hardest to reserve. But Tatiana by Kwame Onwuachi has a chic, first-come, first-served outdoor space at Lincoln Center ideal for the same sensational braised oxtails, short rib pastrami and fantastic frozen drinks that they serve in the stylish dining room.
The views walking up to The Fulton at Pier 17 downtown are breathtaking to tourists and longtime New Yorkers alike, and they're even more satisfying with a drink and some sensational seafood. Many of The Fulton's seating areas offer views of The East River, the shores of Brooklyn and the bridge that gets you there, including the patio.
Boats are inherently romantic and Pilot is especially so. The 147-foot wooden schooner was built in 1924 (happy 100th!) and today it’s beautifully appointed in lacquered seaside hues. It does, of course, bear a striking resemblance to sister vessel Grand Banks, but Pilot has a west-facing view of glittering lower Manhattan to accompany the oysters, caviar, lobster rolls and cocktails on the menu.
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The ivy-laced garden at Graydon Carter’s little hobby is as close as most of us will ever get to having a private yard in the West Village. And, while reservations used to be harder to get than a mortgage–with people and celebrities alike clamoring for tables–these days you can pretty much sit right down. Pop in and make up for all those years you weren’t ordering the $90 mac and cheese.
Red Hook is one of NYC’s best waterside neighborhoods and Brooklyn Crab towers above its smattering of restaurants. Literally, it spans three stories with outdoor areas throughout. Choose your altitude and dive into tasty crustaceans, bivalves and other creatures from the sea.
Raw bar items, martinis and absinthe abound at this Williamsburg classic that reopened last year to citywide cheers after a long pause. Its interior garden always feels special, and it's even lovely enough to compete with MP's lovely dining room.
This breezily-chic French restaurant serves unexpectedly generous portions of mussels, steak tartare, pâté and duck confit alongside excellently calibrated cocktails on Atlantic Avenue. The dining room can handily serve as a special occasion spot, and its ivy-lined backyard casually competes with the best of ‘em.
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This large waterside patio in the Bronx is beyond its popular counter-service seafood inside. Collect your clams, oysters, shrimp, lobster and soft-shell crab at the register and settle into a picnic table for peaceful views and a fishing village aesthetic right here in NYC.
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Fantastic Zaab Zaab's original Elmhurst location has a petite patio on Woodside Avenue that's almost as intimate as its interior with the added expanse of the open air. This top newcomer of 2022 is beloved for its larb ped Udon, gaeng om with beef shank and other “true flavors of Thailand’s Northeastern Isaan region.”
This Michelin-starred modern Mexican restaurant from the Speedy Romeo team spotlights wood-fired dishes like lamb barbacoa tacos, market fish and the best bavette you’ll find in town. They bring the outside in with plenty of greenery in the dining room, but it’s especially intoxicating to sip wine, beer, cocktails and frozen drinks on Oxomoco’s inviting patio.
We like Kokomo’s outdoor space so much that we honored it with a Time Out Best of the City award in 2021. Caribbean-influenced menu items throughout its chic spaces include roasted stuffed sweet plantains, flatbread varieties, braised oxtail and jerk chicken.
This destination-worthy neighborhood spot’s outdoor dining setup spans both sides of its corner location. Get situated at its sidewalk seats for sensational baked goods, breakfast sandwiches and large plates like whole fried fish and half chicken.
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This bold-name magnet had a respectable 15-year run, followed by a half-decade hiatus before reopening a stone’s throw from its original Meatpacking District location in 2019. The French bistro is lovely as ever, and dining on its stretch of sidewalk seating feels particularly decadent, especially midday over a bottle of crisp white wine.
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Tables at Olmsted have always been hard to come by, but sometimes space in the backyard, where they grow some menu ingredients, is a little easier to snag. Prepare your patience, hope for the best and eventually you’ll be sitting down to its frequently refreshed selections.
If you know anything about Henry Public, you know about its showstopping turkey sandwich: a mighty hill of leg meat piled between two substantial slices of bread that only the most accomplished sandwich eaters can conquer sans cutlery. The rest of the brunch and dinner menus are terrific, too, but its hard to keep from returning to this winner, whether you're at the vaguely vintage bar, dining room or out in the confines of Henry Public's handsome, sturdy outdoor dining structure.
With beachy white brick walls, sculptural floral chandeliers, real-deal blooms, ruffly green leaves and an angled glass ceiling that cozies up the space, Pinto’s covered garden is as pretty as a birthday cake. Its drinks are also especially festive, including the precious popsicle sangria and the petal-topped Tequila Bloom, which practically push dining here into the immersive experience zone.
Opened in 2022, Lebanese restaurant Nabila's occupies a picturesque corner of brownstone Brooklyn as quaint as a sketch you'd see framed in a neighborhood spot just like this. Arrive on the early side for a chance at its two stretches sidewalk seats, as it's already a popular locale.
Bandits evokes 1970s style in its 32-seat interior, and it has room for 30 more outside in one of the most stylish NYC street sheds you'll see. Slide in for four types of tots, a wedge salad and a chickpea "tuna" melt, plus plenty of drinks.
Claro is one of the best Mexican restaurants in NYC, and its secluded patio really makes it shine. Its chilaquiles is one of a top few in town, and the dish presently appears for $24 on the brunch menu. Spring for the curated mezcal pairing, too: At $36 it’s about as much as you’d spend on drinks at a similarly hot brunch spot, but here, they’ll do the choosing for you.
This longtime Astoria favorite has sidewalk seats, a covered street structure and a picturesque, mostly enclosed interior patio where you may gaze upon the sky without being fully inside. Sample Sweet Afton's wide-ranging brunch, dinner and drink menus across configurations.
Wayla is stylish inside and out. In addition to its popular back patio, it also has a covered street shed right outside. Its highly-regarded homestyle Thai plates are excellent in each configuration.
We were eagerly awaiting Simone Tong’s Cornelia Street restaurant for a year before it finally opened in July of 2020. Today, it serves menu items like deviled tea eggs, Wagyu tartare with garlic scape, and sweet-and-sour snapper inside and out in its slip of a space beyond the dining room.
This Columbia Waterfront District favorite has a sprawling backyard where they’ve been known to host shrimp boils, barbecues and chef collaborations. Its regular menu includes pappardelle, spaghetti, rigatoni and the particularly popular hot chicken Milanese with radicchio and ranch.
Maracuja’s new owners gave it fresh food and drink menus and reopened its long-dormant secret garden after they took over in 2020. For the first time in several years, you can slip through a door marked “private” and sip frozen cocktails in leafy canopy style.
What appears to be a slip of a space on a slip of a street in a picturesque neighborhood tumbles out into a lovely garden secluded from the bustling West Village beyond. String lights, leafy vines and floral accents give the 23-year-old Italian restaurant a fairytale-in-the-city quality.
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Inside, June is a curious combination of cramped and comfortable. A line of booths on the left are spacious enough, but there isn’t a ton of room to maneuver between them and the long bar to the right, especially when that bar’s a few people deep. That makes its backyard even more of a breath of fresh air. It’s still a little small out there, only accommodating a couple dozen, but lights twinkle over glasses of wine and plates of marinated olives, shrimp deviche and mortadella with Calabrian chili mustard , and the sky is literally the limit.
The Bonnie is one of Astoria's best bars for a lot of reasons; good, better than bar food and great drinks primary among them any time of year. Its backyard picnic tables and prime people-watching sidewalk seats shine especially bright during the warmer months.
From the sidewalk, you’d have no reason to know that Gallow Green is overhead. And, once you’re on the colorful, densely lush rooftop, you might, for a moment, forget about the busy streets below. A long with being one of the lushest rooftop bars in the city, Gallow Green will hosts special events throughout the season, including family-friendly Potions & Planting tea parties on select weekends.
This Upper West Side sparkler is equally suitable for brunch, dinner, or just drinks that can turn into whatever. It has a large, arrtactive bar inside, menu items inspired by “somewhere in the Mediterranean" and covered sidewalk and street seats outside.
Boat bars and waterfront spots are the place to be on spring and summer's nicest days. Grand Banks, the historic schooner turned oyster bar, serves small plates and cocktails along the Hudson River on Manhattan's west side.
A classic of the genre, Ladurée is plenty darling inside, but entering into the backyard kicks up all kinds of whimsy. It’s also the only place in town where we’d actually consider shelling out $160 for a macaron tower, but so far we’ve always stuck to their smaller ticket sweet treats.
Although it’s grown to other locations since first opening in 2008, our favorite Roberta’s is still the string-light lit, industrial block original. The ever-hip love letter to market cuisine and artisanal pizza still grows some of its ingredients on-site, a balm to the hyper-locavores who shed a tear seeing the pies in their grocery store’s frozen aisle.
A stone’s throw away from the beautiful High Line, Cookshop’s sidewalk seating manages to feel unrushed in spite of its bustling coordinates on Tenth Avenue at 20th Street. Brunch is bisected into sweet and savory sections: a cinnamon bun or an egg sandwich; beignets or poached eggs; a Dutch baby pancake or a hearty scramble. Lunch includes salads, burgers and brisket, and dinner brings a few of those, too, plus spit-roasted chicken and confit duck leg. Sip cocktails, beer or wine any time.
This Italian-American restaurant in Greenpoint has one of the most stunning and private backyard patios in the area, complete with wooden picnic tables and copious greenery. Enjoy cacio e pepe prawns, duck all'Arancia and a whole branzino under the meandering Brooklyn clouds.
This corner spot’s been prime for people watching since it first opened in 2014. Like many of its peers, it’s expanded its sidewalk seating into the street as of late, so now there’s a little more room to dine on antipasti, chicken, steak and fish mains and eight types of pasta.
This summer-only beach staple is as sweet as all the season’s songs, and just as fleeting. For days when you don’t feel like packing up a cooler full of what will inevitably become real-deal sand wiches, Tacoway’s there for a slightly more formal dining experience, replete with fish tacos, guac, and booze that didn’t recently see the inside of a water bottle.
Marvelous dive bars with outdoor space used to be a little harder to come by, but Ice House has had a semi-secret , large backyard for many years. You wouldn’t know it from the sidewalk, or even from the charmingly worn barroom, but this Red Hook staple has a sunny outdoor space even larger than its dark interior. Its deck and picnic tables are a great, low pressure place to day drink with good burgers, beers and shots.
Although a one-day-a-week restaurant would be an interesting endeavor, Sunday in Brooklyn is open for brunch and dinner all seven. The rustic three-story space boasts an outdoor patio, to-go window, private dining room and rooftop garden, perfect for warm weather dining.
Whether you’re hot off Metro North after a weekend of antiquing, or you've just found yourself at the nexus of Gramercy and Murray Hill after work, Broken Shaker is your no-fail go-to for a good time. Located in the Freehand Hotel, the New York iteration is almost as beachy as the Miami original. Enjoy the Manhattan breeze on its rooftop terrace.
Wave Hill is a wonderful public garden in the Bronx, replete with sprawling lawns and oodles of blooms across 28 acres. That's a lot of room to roam and work up an appetite, and The Café has plenty to slake any tummy rumbling.
Danny Meyer’s candy-colored taqueria recalls Madison Square Park’s Shake Shack, which began as a simple stand before blowing up into the behemoth we know and love and endlessly stack up against In-N-Out today. Order tacos stuffed with carne asado, pollo adobo or fried fish in Williamsburg’s waterfront park.
The individually-tented tables dotting Lilia's frontage can accommodate intimate parties right outside the hard-to-book pasta emporium. They also provide a little extra cover for your ricotta gnocchi, spaghetti and m afaldini during unpredictable in-between-season weather conditions.
NYC has plenty of beer gardens, patios and terraces for those boozy afternoons in the city.
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