Taste: Cravings: Spring Veggies

As winter slows to a crawl, we happily embrace the command: Eat your vegetables! We crave crisp. We crave green. We crave new. And yet we’re still in the mood for hearty, which is why we really crave Mercato’s fava bean risotto . Beginning the first day of spring (March 20th), chef de cuisine Mackenzie Hilton pays homage to the season of tired meets the season of awake via arborio rice, baby artichokes, spring onions and fresh favas, all dressed in earthy truffle oil and ripe Grana Padano. At Terrain’s Café at Styer’s, we’ll be looking out for cheddar-and-chive biscuits, charred ramps, and salmon with Lancaster-grown candy-stripe beets (winter) and spindly, subtle garlic scapes (spring!). Harvests from the Fountain’s new rooftop garden, a two-years-in-the-making project of gardener Grace Wicks and green-thumb chef Ralph Costobile, will be coming soon, too. When a pickled salad of kohlrabi, baby carrots and seared tuna appears on the menu at Four Seasons, you’ll know spring has sprung.