I ate at the revolving restaurant in Times Square 🌀
Reviewing The View.
This was not my first time at the revolving restaurant. I’ve been twice before, actually. The first was with my friend and her dad to scope out the space as her 16th birthday venue, and then again for the actual party. It made the cut for a few reasons:
The restaurant was big enough to host all of her friends and family. She was very popular.
They didn’t mind her bringing in her own cake, a giant and gorgeous but gross chocolate and mango situation.
It was the only place in New York that rotated 47 stories above the city.
It spun for many more years before closing over the pandemic, but thanks to New York’s hospitality lord Danny Meyer, it’s spinning again as The View. It takes about an hour and a half for the restaurant to completely rotate. You won’t feel it unless you really pay attention to the edges of the room, but in that time, you’ll notice a view of the Hudson River transform into one of the Chrysler Building. You’ll also faintly hear a piano player at some points, and hear them a little too loud at others, because while the dining room rotates all night, the center of the restaurant does not, meaning that in addition to the city views changing all night, you’ll also pass a wall of mirrors, the aforementioned piano player covering pop songs, the host stand and stairs you came in through in those 90 minutes that it takes to make a full rotation. For the visual learners, this is the speed (and piano covers) we’re working with:
In order to get up there, though, you’ll have to make your way to and through the Marriot Marquis hotel in Times Square, an experience I will not sugarcoat. The entrance is very confusingly between both 45th and 46th streets and 8th Avenue and Broadway. You’ll walk through a driveway to enter to the hotel, and once you’re inside, there are only a few signs that guide you to the third floor, where you’ll find a host stand and a coat rack. When I arrived there, two couples were waiting to be checked in, a process that somehow took over five minutes per group. There was a lot of furious typing and “what was your name again?” despite that being the only question ever asked. We were then escorted by another person to the only elevator in the hallway with a gold door, and also the only one that went up to the restaurant, which is why we had to wait for a few more groups to make it through that same process before going up ourselves. “The elevator will take you to the lounge on the 48th floor, so find the stairs and walk down to the restaurant on the 47th” were the last words spoken to us before the doors closed. It was all incredibly frustrating, but once we were being shot up dozens of floors past hundreds of hotel rooms, we laughed with the other diners about how the whole thing felt like a poorly chaperoned field trip.
My friend who had a baby last year told me you forget how painful labor is right after giving birth. I thought about this when I finally made it to The View’s dimly lit dining room lined with mirrors, windows and plush red carpeting. The moment my sister and I were seated in the curvy corner of a couch, at a gold-rimmed wooden table with three tall, cheesy straws sitting on it, I, too, completely forgot how painful the entry process was.
Those cheese straws turned out to be more of a savory shortbread in breadstick form. Crumbly, buttery and a very fun bread basket substitute. Snack on those while you decide what to order. A plate of the toasted ravioli are a good place to start. Ethereally light and gently crunchy pasta pockets are showered with Parmesan and their hollow, airy centers are stuffed with milky burrata. They reminded me of the honeyed cheesy frittelle at San Sabino, except these came with a much appreciated side of hot, garlicky red sauce. In this city, sides of sauce are a lost art.
Also showered in sharp, shaved Parmesan was the excellent Caesar salad. It leaned more cold, creamy and cheesy than sharp and spicy — I'd guess they cut back on the traditional abundance of anchovy and garlic used in the dressing. I loved that about it, and also the handful of soft, grassy purple lettuce leaves that were tossed in with the romaine. What I wanted after that was the prime rib au jus, but like the menu warned:
I ate a really delicious picanha steak instead, which is a cut that usually sacrifices some tenderness for more flavor. I didn't think that was the case here. Within its charred, peppery crust was a beefy and buttery cut of meat. It was served with only a sharp pile of big and spicy arugula leaves, so we got a golden brown, molten hot pan of potatoes au gratin to have with it. They were exactly what I expected them to be: creamy, though slightly underdone, slices of potatoes bathing in an even creamier, cheesy béchamel. Nothing blew me out of the water, but I’m not mad about anything either. This is a restaurant that will please almost anyone you bring to it — the main courses are solid, the appetizers are fun, the drinks are strong and the views are unmatched.
Unless you go with your single smokeshow sister, your cherry jubilee sundae will not have cookies on it. I liked the thin sheets of chocolate that rippled through each scoop of ice cream and the coupling of bitter, crunchy cacao nibs and super sweet cherry syrup, but it's not a necessary order.
A lot of caramel-covered chocolate cakes were flying through the restaurant — maybe try a slice of that instead. Or if you're interested in those chocolate chip cookies, you can order them on their own upstairs at the lounge, which serves its own, smaller menu of food and cocktails until 11:45pm every night. Next time I find myself here, which will likely be after a show or when my friends who live above 40th Street want to dress up to go somewhere silly and fun without trekking downtown, I’ll head upstairs for dessert and another drink before being shot back down into Times Square and heading home to Brooklyn.
NEXT TIME ON PERFECT CITY:
None of you asked me what I ate in Las Vegas last weekend, but sometimes life (me) blesses you with something you didn’t know you needed (a list of all the particularly insane foods I ate there). You’re welcome. <3
I would never sell Danny Meyer short but I do have some hesitation about how to overcome the convention feel of entering the Marriott Marquis for dinner. Your validation gives me a glimmer of hope but, man, it’s taking me a lot to overcome my cynicism
i want to go here so badly. also vegas 4ever