<h3>FOOD / SEAPORT / OCTOBER</h3>
<h1>WHEN DOES DINNER BECOME NIGHT?</h1>
<p>There is a point in a good New York evening when the original plan stops being useful.</p>
<p>Dinner was at seven. Someone else arrives at eight-thirty. The table becomes a bar, the bar becomes another address, and the jacket you almost left at home becomes the smartest decision you made all day.</p>
<p>New York After Dark, part of the 2026 New York City Wine &amp; Food Festival, is an unusually literal version of this transition.</p>
<p>Kwame Onwuachi hosts the rooftop event at Pier 17 around the food, neighbourhoods and cultural influences behind his forthcoming cookbook <em>All Hours</em>. Restaurants and chefs feed a moving crowd rather than a room seated politely at tables. The sun goes down. The skyline lights up. Then Questlove takes over the musical part of the evening.</p>
<p>The event changes without changing location.</p>
<p>Food and nightlife are often treated as separate categories, but in New York the boundary is mostly a matter of time. The same room can be restaurant, meeting place, performance and party depending on when you look at it.</p>
<p>Clothing has to understand that transition early.</p>
<p>A look built only for dinner can feel too finished later. A look built only for nightlife can feel ridiculous while you are still trying to eat from a small plate without dropping it.</p>
<p>The better answer contains both possibilities:</p>
<p>polished enough for the first hour, relaxed enough for the third, with one layer for the roof and one detail that only fully makes sense after sunset.</p>
<h3>ISSUE NOTE</h3>
<p><strong>NEW YORK AFTER DARK / OCTOBER 17, 2026 / THE ROOFTOP AT PIER 17</strong></p>