Ah, summer in New York. It's as humid as a Russian bathhouse, and the whole city begins to smell like an overripe fruit. For some, it's time to decamp to the Catskills, Hamptons, or the Jersey Shore. For those on the staycation plan, it's time to eat out. Venues offer everything from stellar vistas to a backyard's climbing vines, evoking the summer homes you don't own in Tuscany or Martha's Vineyard. Back Forty replicates the casual feeling of eating on your apartment's back terrace—if your apartment were a $2 million garden-level brownstone. Pure Food and Wine and 5 Ninth showcase built-up, wood-plank gardens so tricked out it's easy to imagine you're sitting in an urban tree house. For an actual tree house, look no further than DuMont's leafy back spread. And Barolo may have you mistaking Soho for the restaurant's namesake region in Italy. For those that demand a view with their margarita, Brooklyn's Alma sets a table with a stunning rooftop panorama. And if you want to feast right out in nature (or at least Manhattan's ersatz version of it), Madison Square Park's perennially packed Shake Shack serves up haute happy meals that come minus exhaust fumes and trans-fat alike.