Even the city’s upscale restaurants have been paying more attention to barbecue, beef, and various facets of homestyle cooking. A spinoff of Wild Acre’s mothership on the east side, this west side brewery offers a small but wildly impressive menu of artisan sandwiches, soups, salads, and small plates. Food & Drink. The place is an homage to the seafood of Portugal and Galicia, Spain. Others go by at lunch for excellent handhelds: a sliced tenderloin sandwich topped with bleu cheese crumbles on a sweet kolache bun; a burger with double patties of chuck and tenderloin; a BLT piled high with Klein Hardwood smoked bacon, which just may be the best bacon in the world. You don’t go to da Toscano just to eat; you go to be healed. 10 Best New Restaurants in Calgary 2020. We put together an Esquire Best New Restaurants list in the middle of a global pandemic. The flavors are bold, comforting. In the evening, there’s a lot of action on the grill, but the hibachi chefs are more about offering you a mouthwatering peek of what you’re about to eat — be it rib-eye, sea scallops, or lobster — than showing off their knife-throwing skills, as is the case at other hibachi grills. Now Barber is taking the realignments a step further, surrendering his role in the kitchen in 2021 so that a diverse lineup of chefs from around the world can have access to the resources of Stone Barns and connect with a wider audience. Despite the challenges Music City faced in 2020, the restaurant scene still saw some notable newcomers. Misfit SnackBar. Bell's at 406 Bell Street —Kevin Sintumuang. There are other reasons to like Love’s stylish ode to Italian food: You can sit outside near the sunken garden where some of the restaurant’s produce is plucked; the pasta’s good; and the service and drinks are top-notch, both vastly improved since Gemelle opened. Here in the South, we love our classic restaurants, those comfortable old favorites that have stood the test of time.But our region’s culinary scene is hardly standing still, and a parade of impressive new entrants and local eateries have recently come on the scene. Talde’s menu takes its core inspiration from the cuisine of Hong Kong, but he shakes up the canon with all kinds of farm-to-tabley and pub-grubish twists: ribs of sweet summer corn dusted with Chinese five-spice powder, kung pao chicken wings that you dunk in a tub of buttermilk ranch, crab rice that’s got more layers than a Christopher Nolan movie. Zoli’s is one of the few new restaurants built with families in mind. Fieldtrip at 109 Malcolm X Boulevard —J.G. Copy Link. 2801A Florida Ave., Coconut Grove. Fox and Pearl at 2143 Summit Street —K.S. Goosefeather at 49 East Sunnyside Lane —J.G. The chicken was topped with a pile of coleslaw, helping keep things cool, and cradled in freshly made buns. I also love the way Fieldtrip has evolved, thanks to Johnson’s heart and drive, into a hub of influence and enterprise on Harlem’s Malcolm X Boulevard: Just look at how thousands of those bowls were delivered to hospitals this year as Fieldtrip fed medical workers trying to save people’s lives. Other menu items include mac and cheese doused in chopped brisket; smoked chicken salad; and loaded cornbread, a fantastically messy mashup of brisket, cornbread, baked beans, shredded cheese, and green onions. Hamilton Park / High George, New Haven. At his South Main-area pizza spot, opened last year, owner Jaime Fernandez takes inspiration from crusts thin and thick to come up with his unique pizza crust, which is somewhere in between — a near-perfect balance of light and dense. And why? Chef Ari Kolender shucks pristine bivalves, yes, but pay attention to the plates pouring out of his tiny kitchen. Best Restaurant: Bludorn This is my favorite in 2020, the kind of restaurant that's been missing in Houston. You might be unfamiliar with the cuisine of Guam, but Prubechu will turn you into a fan. Every product was carefully curated by an Esquire editor. Meanwhile, much of the menu at Indo is rooted in the complexities of Thai cuisine that the chef grew up with. Count us in. Derek Allan’s Texas Barbecue, run by Allan and his wife, Brittany, is different from most ’cue joints in that it serves Wagyu meat, known for its marbling and richness. da Toscano at 24 Minetta Lane —J.G. Presided over by grande dame Chutatip “Nok” Suntaranon, whose knife work in the kitchen is matched only by the cutting speed of her quips in the dining room, Kalaya delivers Thai dishes with such depth of soul and flavor that you’re left dreaming about them for days: tapioca dumplings, blue-hued from butterfly-pea flowers; khao yum kamin (rice salad) crowned with a bronze-dark gush of caramelized palm sugar; roaring, glorious curries of beef and lamb and crabmeat that make you forget all the other curries you’ve ever met. And local brand Pretty Cool Ice Cream provides dessert. The Best New Restaurant(s) of the Year Our two best restaurants of 2020 (yes, it’s a tie) are the spots I think about visiting the most now and in the near future. We may earn a commission from these links. He folds Maryland crab into his labne as a nod to the mid-Atlantic region (creating one hell of a chip dip in the process); there are foraged chanterelles in his hummus; there are pears and huckleberries in his fattoush. As the ocean winds remind us, all is temporary. You’ll find a handful of less common dishes, too, like a spectacular saag gosht (lamb shoulder cooked in spinach) and Nepalese chicken dumplings. Listen and look around: Tate has curated everything you see and hear and eat, including the art on the walls, so that it enriches the experience of the pop-up. Yes, yes, yes, by all means, get the pizza — the New York-style round pies are so authentic, you’ll think Scorsese is going to saunter by. And rules are for amateurs. The calling card of a good barbecue joint is brisket, and Derrick’s — smoked for hours in a 1,000-gallon offset smoker over mesquite and pecan — is top-notch, outlined in a magnificently peppery black crust, a beautiful smoke ring, and ribbons of fat that give the tender meat texture and flavor. You’ll have a tough time finding a better Reuben on this side of Camp Bowie. While takeout, curbside pickups, and masked dining became the norm, there were plenty of new and exciting culinary spots Fort Worthians could enjoy. By Christina Izzo Posted: Monday December 14 2020, 1:45 PM. A pop-up called Hot Chicks Chicken served a spectacular Nashville hot chicken sandwich whose namesake component was ridiculously crispy and flavorful. Pay attention to the scotch eggs, hard-boiled eggs wrapped in herb-infused sausage and panko breadcrumbs. At Woodshed Smokehouse, he was doing craft barbecue before many of us even knew what that meant, and his 20-year-old Lonesome Dove blazed trails for modern Southern cuisine. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io, 100 Restaurants America Can't Afford to Lose, The New York Dinners We Thought We’d Have Again, Masterpiece Pies and the Mission Behind Them, Chef Michael Lomonaco Knows How to Start Over. Not all of the city’s best new bites came from traditional restaurants. Mama Chow, Fairfield. That’s right, it’s nonalcoholic, and therefore very much part of the “sober curious” wave that has been changing beverage lists at restaurants around the country. The restaurants arriving in Dallas in 2020 are eclectic and interesting. Have you been longing for really good sushi during the months stuck at home? Named after the town from which Cooley hails, Cooley’s snug spot specializes in farm-raised catfish. Helping boost the city’s embarrassingly low number of Indian cuisine options, King’s Kitchen opened last year in the Wedgwood area of Fort Worth in a nondescript strip mall near Interstate 20. Just go. Try the fire-breathing hot chicken sandwich, made with hot chile-glazed fried chicken and horseradish pickles, and the O.D. The grilled trout is a must. Once inside, it’s a different story. Meanwhile, Brent Kroll’s confident, majestic wine list has categories like “Unicorn Wines,” “The Outsiders,” and “Donnie Darko Reds.” Order everything on the menu for dinner and then come back to Yellow for a breakfast pita with kefta the next morning. An East Coast seafood shack in East Hollywood? Perhaps. Yes, we did it. But we covered a hell of a lot of asphalt, and we experienced, again and again, the creative resilience that makes the American restaurant scene a source of delight. This year of nonstop tumult will also be remembered as the year Fort Worth once again embraced its heritage: beef. The Best New Restaurants of 2020. Zhug at 12413 Cedar Road —J.G. Nominally, Adarra is a Basque restaurant, with shimmering interpretations of mussels escabeche and gambas al ajillo from chef Randall Doetzer and a let’s-go-for-a-ride wine list from him and his wife, Lyne. Here I ate inside, and I’m glad I did. It teases your palate with herbal bitterness—enough so that teetotalers can allow themselves to pretend they’re sipping an amaro. Even the city’s new high-end restaurants have gotten in on the ’cue game as new places like Provender Hall, Wicked Butcher, and Toro Toro have embraced, in one fashion or another, the art of smoked meat. I mean, the piping-hot boat of bread that is pide, with its duet of ajvar (a red-pepper spread) and kajmak (a creamy fresh cheese)! While most of us can’t wait to forget 2020, there’s a lot worth remembering, at least from a culinary standpoint. No, we didn’t manage to get everywhere. Opened: December 2019. Heim Barbecue opened the door, and nearly a dozen other ’cue restaurants and food trucks came crashing through. Sisters … T alk about lousy timing. Goosefeather occupies several rooms of the white-columned King Mansion, high on a hill above the Hudson River, and during the warmer months of the pandemic it spilled out onto a vast grassy expanse like a socially distanced lawn party. The top story in American cooking over the past decade has been the rise of Black chefs such as Mashama Bailey, Edouardo Jordan, and Kwame Onwuachi—and a long-overdue celebration of the foodways of the African diaspora. It’s an entirely new perspective on the brasserie. Well, it’s a Southern thing. NYC's best new restaurants in 2020. 7 Brand New Restaurants Offering Delivery in New Orleans, August 2020 ; 8. For people too freaked out to eat out, the concept caught fire, and Garcia has been nonstop busy, filling orders —  often by himself, a one-man kitchen — for specialty sushi rolls and incredible bowls of ramen. Its breast is carved and whisked back to the open kitchen for an additional sear. We didn’t catch any planes—frankly, Kevin and I were freaked out by the idea of flying. It’s an understatement to say that 2020 was different. This is how you do it. Get 85+ Years of Award-Winning Journalism, Every Day, It's Not Just the Food I Miss at Restaurants, This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. I love the central thesis behind chef JJ Johnson’s Fieldtrip—let rice unite us!—and I love the rice bowls themselves, with their crave-inducing combinations of sauces and toppings. His cooking is, in all senses of the word, playful. Skip lunch that day, gather friends, and clear space on the tabletop, because chef Douglas Katz’s vision of the food of the Middle East is the stuff that delirious feasts are made of. You can reach Malcolm at [email protected] or on Twitter, @foodfortworth. One of three concepts he launched within a year (he also started a fajitas delivery service and opened Atico, a rooftop restaurant at the Springhill Suites in the Stockyards), Gemelle is another Love endeavor that marks a first in Fort Worth: Opened last fall, it was the first local restaurant to serve Detroit-style pizza. We ate outside at rickety tables in the rain; we got sublime hoagies and took them to the beach; in some cases, we just ordered boxes of food and carted them home. Ryan’s food finds that farm-fresh, leisurely thread between California and France that makes you want to order another bottle of wine and consider slowing life down a bit. (Our apologies to the great state of Texas. Well, we’re doing it as an expression of support—love, really—for the chefs and bartenders and servers and dishwashers and maître d’s who are fighting that fight every day. 6513 Brentwood Stair Road, facebook.com/thesmokedchickensaladman, Burger from Brix Barbecue and sausage from Dayne’s Craft Barbecue: Two of Fort Worth’s best and brightest new pitmasters — Trevor Sales of Brix and Dayne Weaver of Dayne’s — have been running food trailers for months, developing their own unique styles of craft-inspired ’cue. Sides such as turnip greens are made in-house, as are dipping sauces like his sriracha tarter. In particular, the second-story bar was modeled after the dark mezcal halls of Mexico City. NiHao at 2322 Boston Street —J.G. Call before you go. (Chef Kay Hyun delivers tapas that merge the vantage point of her native Korea with the flavors of Peru, the Middle East, and the Iberian Peninsula, for starters.) 6473 Camp Bowie Blvd., wildacrebrewing.com. As for the how part, suffice it to say that, yes, we had to make a few adjustments to our annual process. Kids love the big playground, fun Star Wars decor, and, of course, scoops and cones from the ice cream shop next door, Cow Tipping Creamery — and heck, we do, too. Drive a thousand miles if you have to. Fast casual has never felt so luxurious. That may sound like a lot to undertake—hopscotching gleefully, as it does, from crab rangoon to Peking duck to cold tofu with century egg to (hey, why not?) Best New Restaurant (2020) Tempest in Charleston wins Best New Restaurant title. Since opening earlier this year, the couple has been building a solid foundation of fans by offering next-level sandwiches, soul food staples, and barbecue in a frills-free, warm environment. This 18-Foot BBQ Smoker Was Stolen. But Jay Jerrier — the Dallas restaurateur who brought us Cane Rosso — did Fort Worth a solid by opening a location of this family-friendly pizza joint here, and now it’s hard to imagine what life was like before it. . Not far from Brix, Dayne’s serves killer brisket and other ’cue essentials, but he pays extra attention to sausage, making it himself. At first we didn’t understand why there was a line down the block at 11:00 in the morning. Esquire's Best New Restaurants in America, 2020. Let rice unite us, indeed. We’ll remember how local chef Jon Bonnell battled the pandemic by offering $40 family meals; we’ll remember the traffic jams when it was chicken-fried steak night. Marjie's Grill. Dan Barber and his Michelin-starred team innovated in part by using beauty to inspire us: museum-worthy boxes of berries and flowers, picnics that gave people a moment to relish food and serenity in fresh air. In particular, barbecue. For instance: How? Boca Oyster Bar, Bridgeport. Prubechu at 2224 Mission Street #A —K.S. _Open for takeout, delivery, outdoor, and indoor dining_ “Pão de queijo is tough to screw up, but it’s rare that it blows you away. Owners Monica Wong and Dennis Cantwell and chef Melissa McGrath planned to open a small-plate restaurant. Fort Worth’s prayers for a good Irish pub were answered this past summer when Trinity College Irish Pub arrived in the West Seventh area, taking over the spot briefly occupied by Tortaco. We have decided to celebrate them, and we’ve done that by meeting them where they are in the midst of this crisis. Love him or love him not, Fort Worth chef Tim Love is often ahead of the culinary curve. Smart move, or else everyone would have a chicken salad this good. The 13 Hottest Restaurants in Orlando Right Now, Winter 2020 The best new eats in “The City Beautiful” by Faiyaz Kara Updated Nov 30, 2020, 9:30am EST We happened to find it on quiet, sunlit afternoons at the Jones (formerly the Great Jones Cafe, now gently spruced up by restaurateur Gabe Stulman), where chef Jack Harris served up his own deeply satisfying homemade interpretation of a certain seafood sandwich associated with the Golden Arches. You’ll find some familiar items on the menu—like conservas served on toast—but it’s the cheeky, more cerebral dishes where chef Marcos Campos excels. Meet the most delicious, exciting and reality-defying restaurants of the year. But with money tight and elbow-to-elbow dining feeling dicey, omakase-counter splurges might be a distant memory for a while. awards? Pasjoli at 2732 Main Street —K.S. New French in the Old West? Fox and Pearl melds live-fire cooking, nose-to-tail butchery, house-made charcuterie, superb hand-cut pastas, and natural wines (chosen by wine director Ben Nuñez) in a handsome space (designed by co-owner Kristine Hull) that will make you rethink what midwestern cuisine can be. . a Basque-style cheesecake. All make up the new dining landscape of Las Vegas when they open in 2020. We’ll remember how Kevin Martinez of Tokyo Cafe hosted weekly meal giveaways, made up of food prepared by some of the city’s top chefs. Best Dining in Ukiah, Mendocino County: See 2,640 Tripadvisor traveler reviews of 93 Ukiah restaurants and search by cuisine, price, location, and more. Nami Nori at 33 Carmine Street —J.G. Grab a six-pack at Maria’s next door (both spots are owned by Ed Marszewski) and you’ve got a real neighborhood hang. Our culture-and-lifestyle director, Kevin Sintumuang, got behind the wheel and drove with his wife and two daughters from Brooklyn to the West Coast and all the way back, logging thousands of miles and hitting cities like Denver, Billings, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Kansas City, and Chicago along the way. Orange Coast Magazine's picks for Orange County's Best New Restaurants of 2020. Clearly the revelers roaming around the East Village were missing the real party. There’s a playfulness to the menu: Skate frites make an appearance in lieu of steak frites, pickled mussels instead of herring. That’s because area hospital workers are in the know about Katrina and Travis Carpenter’s tiny cafe, found a block or two from the hospital district. Love’s rendition, made in honor of his wife, a Michigan native, is rectangular-shaped with a fluffy interior and crisp, browned edges — the perfect specimen of this now-trending dish. Circumstances were weird, to say the least. Deviled eggs with an undercurrent of vitello tonnato, a plate of super-fresh cantaloupe with feathery slivers of prosciutto, a tender tangle of cacio e pepe. Don’t let the modest digs fool you. The former school teacher also serves whole catfish and catfish cake rounds, similar to circular hushpuppies but stuffed with catfish. Catch him in an Airstream at 105 South Main St. until he opens a nearby brick-and-mortar in the old Alchemy Pops spot, which should be any moment now. It’s made with traditional ramen noodles, the rich, beefy broth from her birria, and a shot or two of a hot sauce she makes herself. Everything that requires heat is cooked with fire. Many swing by after work to pick up rib-eyes, strip steaks, pork, chicken, sausages, and charcuterie. In developing the restaurant, Castillo drew from two sources of inspiration: her mother, whose playful nickname, “Tinie,” gave the restaurant its moniker, and Castillo and executive chef/co-owner Christian Lehrmann’s travels to Mexico City, where the two soaked up the flavors of local and regional cuisines. It’s a sideways approach to the coastal region, but that’s the fun of it. Fort Worth could use a few more places like Nana’s, that’s for sure. A few years ago, the city seemed hot to get away from its past as one new restaurant after another, from Wabi House to Piattello, introduced us to new, exhilarating cuisines or new ways of eating that had little to do with Fort Worth’s history as a hub for the cattle industry. 1116 Eighth Ave., derekallansbbq.com; 4645 Dick Price Road, goldeesbbq.com. Yeah, throw that in as well. The best thing about 2020? It’s me putting my own stamp on Texas barbecue.”. Plus, we name our Restaurant of the Year. Meat and potatoes. Barbecue aficionados are now driving up from Lockhart and Austin to taste our barbecue. Please note: Due to COVID-19, some restaurants may not be open for dine-in service. NiHao is the brainchild of a power quartet: Peter Chang, the elusive mid-Atlantic legend of Szechuan cuisine; his wife, Lisa; their daughter, Lydia; and the pastry wizard Pichet Ong. Kalaya is the restaurant that every food writer—hell, every food lover—dreams of walking into someday. “A lot of the new guys are doing barbecue with a Tex-Mex twist,” he says. The number of new artisan ’cue spots in Fort Worth has been staggering; these are two of the best. Sherkaan Indian Street Food, New Haven. TexiKo, Hamden. Of course, you gotta get the fish and chips, made with Bowth beer-battered cod — so good, you may never go back to Zeke’s. Esquire participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means we may get paid commissions on editorially chosen products purchased through our links to retailer sites. But really it’s an alternate universe, a crepuscular alcove for anyone who wants to nibble jamón ibérico and experiment with Louis-Antoine Luyt’s indie whites from Chile all night long. As such, we present our Best New Restaurant list, made up of the city’s best and brightest new spots. The far west side of Fort Worth has needed a good catfish spot for years, and that’s exactly what west siders got when Louisiana native Dwight Cooley opened his acclaimed catfish joint last year near Northwest Loop 820. Allan’s spot also sets itself apart from other ’cue joints by serving breakfast dishes, such as housemade biscuits stuffed with brisket. 305-204-2372. You won’t find any fancy tasting menus on this list. Panther-City Media Group. facebook.com/hotchickschicken, Quesatacos from Birrieria y Taqueria Cortez: Thanks to smart use of social media, this extraordinarily popular food truck near Texas Wesleyan kick-started the local birria taco trend. Housed in the art deco Sinclair Hotel downtown, Wicked Butcher is a high-end steakhouse from Dallas-based DRG Concepts. There’s plenty of traditional bar food, too, including a half-dozen burgers, an excellent selection of beer (duh, Irish pub), and a killer patio. Of course, that’s the point: Nana’s is determined to take you back home to the meat-and-potatoes type of food many of us grew up on. We promise we’ll come back.) In Hokkien, this iconic food centre in … Join the club. Best of SA 2020. Then we took a bite. Wild, indeed. That would include the empanadas, perfectly flaky and irresistibly buttery; the achiote roasted pork, draped in a cape of luscious mole verde; and the super-cool guacamole flight, made up of three different kinds of guac. Kolender performs a meant-to-be marriage by dressing up a lobster roll with bisque. It’s why I return. Owner Toshia “Nana” Ramsey or one of her friendly employees will greet you with a menu and a smile, and soon you’ll feel right at home. The Italian-American has a zing from arugula and a ’nduja aioli; the au poivre makes other roast-beef sandwiches seem bland. It’s never just about the wine list. His scallop tostada is a modern classic adorned with yuzu kosho and opal basil. The best thing about 2020? Start with the Smoky Chick, a chicken salad whose namesake ingredient is expertly smoked, then mixed with celery, green onions, and seasonings that the Carpenters are hesitant to divulge. Hummus with nigella seeds and burnt onions? In normal years, I travel around the country for months hunting for the restaurants that I want to send all of my friends to, the restaurants that are telling stories that I can’t seem to shake, the restaurants where the cooking is so good that I make loud, embarrassing sounds while I’m eating it. Davis St. at Hermann Park. Yes. Our chef of the year doesn’t even have a brick-and-mortar restaurant per se, but through his cooking—and his vision—he is telling a story of urgency and beauty. Restaurants were forced to change—fast—as the pandemic hurt their business. Weekend brunchers swarm the place for lemon bar French toast, which tastes every bit as good as it sounds. 2220 East Rosedale St., instagram.com/birrieriaytaqueriacortez, Smoked chicken salad from Big Boyz Pit Smoked BBQ & More: After months of selling chicken salad to friends out of the trunk of his car, Fort Worth native T.J. Ragster opened a drive-through-only spot in the Brentwood-Oak Hills area. The Korean-style fried chicken is done by Kimski chef Won Kim. I did that from November 2019 to early March 2020, and during those months I managed to visit serious gems in cities like Cleveland and St. Louis and Indianapolis and Philadelphia. We’ll have the nostalgia with extra tartar sauce, please. Jeff Gordinier is Esquire's Food & Drinks Editor. We’ll remember one minute, we were dining at our favorite restaurant and the next, we were contributing to a GoFundMe to help them stay alive. Estelle’s satisfying small plates and enticing entrées combine Portuguese, Italian, and Spanish influences—enough of a draw to make the St. Paul restaurant one of 2020’s best. We spent these months looking for the people and places that restored us. We put together an Esquire Best New Restaurants list in the middle of a global pandemic. He takes inspiration from the soil (his okra dish, called Mama Earth, looks and tastes like a supernova of texture and flavor) and from the dollar store (the cream inside his oatmeal-cookie sandwich is suffused with Tang). Paola Velez is not just one of the most skilled young bakers and dessert creators in the country; she’s a leader when it comes to innovating new modes of activism, from registering voters to raising money for social justice. Mokyo at 109 Saint Marks Place —J.G. The restaurant has good pedigree: Owner Alan Kearney is a native of Ireland (the pub’s name is a tip o’ the ol’ hat to a school located in his birthplace of Dublin), and he has experience in running Irish pubs from here to his homeland. Somehow it works. All have opened over the past 18 months or so, and all are in, for the first time ever for this list, Fort Worth proper. Palm City at 4055 Irving Street —K.S. The hoagies were a pandemic pivot. Tate created his pop-up, Honeysuckle, as a "portal of Blackness" (as he described it in an Esquire essay earlier this year), an ode that he conveys through delicious, history-drenched dishes—from a glass of handmade Kool-Aid to a perfectly poached and seasoned slab of yam. We’ll remember the other food drives, too, the ones hosted by churches and schools and other helping hands. In a year teeming with new restaurants, we dined on speck and burrata, schnitzel, sous-vide octopus, loaded vegan nachos, karaage, meat pies and bowls of bouncy Chinese noodles—whew. The bar gave off a crimson glow, and I listened to German jazz that could’ve been the soundtrack of a David Lynch movie. Nothing is accidental; all of it is unforgettable. Let’s just say you’d better watch your back, pizza. 5054 Trail Lake Drive, kingskitchenrestaurant.com, The past two years have been banner years for craft-inspired barbecue in Fort Worth, and one of the reasons why is this family-run ’cue joint not far from the Near Southside. So Do Black-Owned Businesses. Then there’s Santo Brúklin, a Brazilian … If PFCIC feels like eating at a friend’s place where the party has spilled into the (socially distanced) backyard, that’s because it sort of is. 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