Central Park Boathouse is stepping up the spring/summer season with an elevated menu and rowboat rentals.
The restaurant, which had previously undergone massive renovations, reopened to the public in March 2024, unveiling a redesigned restaurant with a refreshed menu, café, and private events space. Executive Chef Adam Fiscus says that business has been booming, particularly because the outdoor experiences came with the reopening.
“We’ve done nothing but better since. This year, when we reopened for our spring menu, we also opened up our dockside experience with the full restaurant menu, and that has been a huge success,” said Fiscus. “Our numbers have doubled or tripled in comparison to what we saw for the outdoor dining space from last year.”
The restaurant’s outdoor dining experience has been popular with guests, who often couple their meal with Central Park Boathouse’s boat rentals. The boat rentals are $25 an hour, and Fiscus says it’s a great way to either build up an appetite or to further enjoy your day out after dining.
“The boat rides are a great way — and a great excuse — to come into Central Park. You get to walk through the park, you can make a whole day of it, come rent a boat,” said Fiscus. “A lot of people make an indoor reservation, and when they arrive and they realize that they can have the full menu and sit outside and get to enjoy the nice view right on Central Park Lake, they will actually sit outside.”
And to add to the outdoor experience, Central Park Boathouse invites birders to come and log any birds they see in the park in their ledger.
“We have introduced our own bird book where people can come in and document the different species of birds that they find in Central Park, and just to share that part of their day with us,” said Fiscus.
The Central Park Boathouse menu changes seasonally, with the menu currently featuring bright spring flavors. Menu items currently include Parker House Rolls served alongside whipped butter and sea salt; Strawberry Fields Salad with spinach, candied walnuts, feta cheese, strawberries and sugar snap peas tossed in a citrus vinaigrette; a Spicy Jumbo Lump Crab & Avocado Cocktail with grapefruit supremes and watercress; Faroe Island Salmon with lemon risotto and asparagus; Chilean Seabass in a lemon beurre blanc, alongside shaved asparagus and watercress; and Lamb Osso Bucco with roasted heirloom carrots, fingerling potatoes and herb gremolata.
Fiscus says when it comes to developing the menu, he leaned into the spring flavors that can help shake off a winter funk.
“Springtime is one of the best times of the entire year, in my opinion. So many vegetables and leafy greens and fruits are coming out of their winter slumber. Rainbow carrots, spring peas, those wonderful pea shoots that grow up from the top of the pea plant, carrots, radishes, rhubarb — those are the ingredients that I like to really focus on for our springtime menus,” said Fiscus.
As we head into the summer, the restaurant’s menu will get a refresh for the hotter months. The summer menu is expected to include refreshing melon flavors as well as items that diners may recognize from past menus.
“We’re going to be sampling a chilled melon soup, which is going to go great on a hot New York day. We are going to be introducing a watermelon salad with arugula, feta, dill and cucumber. We’re going to bring back a salad that performed very well last summer, which is our caprese salad with buffalo mozzarella, locally grown basil, heirloom tomatoes, nice olive oil, aged balsamic,” said Fiscus. “One of our best sellers for last summer was an absolutely simple dish. It’s just a grilled salmon with a cucumber salad and a dill yogurt, and it sold like hotcakes. It’s going to be a very, very nice menu for summer.”
The rowboat rentals and outdoor dining experience will be open through October. Central Park Boathouse’s restaurant serves lunch from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. and dinner from 4 to 9 p.m. on Monday through Saturday, and brunch from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and dinner from 3 to 8 p.m. on Sunday. Reservations are available on OpenTable. For more information, visit centralparkboathouse.com.
