Great Alfresco Growing in Kansas City
by Chris Becicka
translated by Edward Fitzgerald: “A Book of Verses underneath the Bough, A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread - and Thou Beside me singing in the Wilderness - Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow [enough]!”
About 17 years ago if you wanted to dine alfresco in Kansas City, there weren’t many choices: The Classic Cup Café and Fred P Ott's Bar & Grill on the Plaza, Grand Street Café, the wonderful Prospect in Westport, Joe d’s in Brookside, and a few others I’ve forgotten.
Alfresco is Italian for “in the open.” And why now we have so many places with outdoor dining is somewhat of a mystery (other than expanded capacity and profit), given our mercurial weather, stifling humidity, biting flies and mosquitoes. Nonetheless, there are open-air spaces all over the city and I don’t just mean drive-ins or drive-throughs where you can attempt to eat a burger or a taco, forever changing your car’s interior.
Great alfresco dining requires more than wilderness, a loaf of bread, a beloved companion, and a jug of wine (though that can certainly help all the other dimensions). There must be something to look at besides cars, whether parked or moving.
My favorite is the ocean or other large body of water, but both of those are scarce in Kansas City. (Mountains? Ditto.) The color green, as in plants, must be predominant. There must be a breeze, real or fan induced. The food must be excellent and the service as prompt and attentive as indoors, especially in refreshing drinks if it’s warm. These all seem like simple things to me, but it is rare to find them all in one place and so often, I settle for four out of five. Or sometimes even just three for a perfect dining out day.
Ingram’s readers are less conflicted—in the last five years, they’ve continuously voted for the aforementioned Classic Cup as number one, Baja 600 for number two. Third place has been won by Lidia’s, Frondizi’s, McCormick and Schmick’s, Aixois, and Jasper’s (whose outdoor deck is now enclosed but screened). Personally, some of the third choices seem to better meet my criteria but there are several others deserving of mention.
The Power and Light District’s outdoor living room with the myriad restaurants opening on to it is probably the newest example of what can happen to outdoor space. There’s a huge video screen to entertain you, hundreds of people to visually amuse you, plants and trees and comfortable lounging to break up the cement, and too often loud music to distract you. The sheer energy of the space is active and invigorating, a big outdoors party. For good food, I’d go to Maker’s Mark but I might also just walk the block to the Bristol, even though its outdoor dining is moving car-bordered.
In Parkville, Café des Amis is a place where I prefer outside to in, probably because the inside seems a bit close-in to me. The food is excellent in both, but the crisp linens, black wrought iron furniture, white lights, ivy and tree-top sensibility all combine with the excellent French food to produce that certain “je ne sais quoi” feeling. The sauces here always delight and the fish dishes especially are pleasing.
I do love Grand Street’s calm patio with its well tended
mix of flowers and herbs and a mostly green vista. For
water-side viewing, I go to Marina Grog & Galley at Lake
Lotawana whose pleasant deck and water panorama
enchant. But there’s also Yia Yia’s and Lilly’s, dog or no, Le
Fou Frog, Lidia’s, and quite a few others which offer more
than a loaf of bread and a jug of wine. It will take you all
summer before you get ‘enow.’
Return to Ingram's June 2008