A favorite small town-seeming quirk for a mid-sized city like Anchorage is the chatter when a new restaurant opens. Our burgeoning and diverse food scene has plenty of room for growth, and people are excited about new and potentially tasty experiences.
Crimson opened to the public in mid-June at 4th and C St. and is housed within the new Wildbirch Hotel, which opened in May. The enterprise is co-developed by former U.S. Senator Mark Begich with the ambition of helping to revitalize downtown.
The ambiance at Crimson is fun. It felt stylish, if tad hotel-generic, like a restaurant I’d visit while on a trip Outside somewhere urban. Thankfully, designers avoided obnoxious Alaskana decor that sometimes beguiles our public areas, but the restaurant space lacks local artwork or much in the way of personality. Perhaps the intent was to allow the light and view to be the focus. We were seated along the 3rd avenue side windows, showing the port of anchorage, and the less compelling Wildbirch parking lot in front of that. Marketing for the hotel and restaurant repeatedly reference “unobstructed views of the Iditarod start line,” which will indeed be very cool for the handful of hours per year that occurs…