360 Restaurant: Revolving CN tower restaurant in Toronto
360 Restaurant is located in the CN tower in downtown Toronto. The restaurant offers beautiful views as it literally revolves, so while you dine and wine, you get 360 degree views of Toronto and Toronto island.
I came here before during my last trip to Toronto, but recently we came to celebrate my sister and my mom’s birthday. We made a reservation for lunch and if you have a reservation, you can actually skip the wait line to go to the CN tower and enter 15 mins before your reservation time. Unlike all the other tourists visiting the observation deck, you get to take a “secret” elevator to go up to the restaurant floor. But don’t worry! Once you finish eating, you can take their staircase down 1 level to go to the regular observation deck with all the other tourists.
Interior
We are a table of 6 adults. Originally, they gave us a table on the higher level, which actually positions you farther away from the window and the view so we asked if we could be seated in the lower level. They were able to accommodate this and seated us at an 8 person table in the lower level instead.
Seats were plush and comfortable and table was spacious so we were all comfortable. Even if you are not sitting on the end, you get to see the beautiful view because the windows are ceiling to floor and huge. Lots of natural light!
Food
They offer a prix-fix menu as well as al le carte menu selections. For the prix-fix, you can order 2 courses for $75 or 3 courses for $90.
Prix-fix: Duck wings
My dad orders the prix-fix 2 courses. For his appetizer, he selects the duck wings, cooked in black garlic and mustard seed maple, porcini dust, crispy chillies and ginger.
I’ve never tried duck wings before, although I’ve eaten duck many times. It was decent and tasted a little Asian-flavour inspired, which suits my parents’ tastes.
Prix-fix: Frenched bone-in pork chop
For my dad’s main, he chose the bone-in pork chop. This main dish comes with hominy grits, romanesco, patridgeberry and mustard seed gastrique.
I didn’t taste his dish so I can’t comment, but it the pork chop was a big cut!
Beef tartare ($32)
My boyfriend and I order the beef tartare appetizer to share from their al le carte menu. The tartare has a layer of tamari gelée on top, and the yellow droplets you see are sous vide duck yolk (interesting!). It is served with 2 truffle crisps.
Although the duck yolk sounded interesting, I couldn’t really taste much of it to notice it being different from any other egg yolk. The gelée also looked cool, but I don’t think added much to the taste except for the fun texture. The crisps were surprisingly strong enough to hold onto the tartare meat without falling apart, but I usually prefer my tartare with a thicker type of crostini. Overall, a nice tartare dish but not sure if it’s worth the $32 price tag.
BC Sablefish ($58)
For my main, I order the 8oz sablefish because I love sablefish! It is served with a squid ink, roe beurre noir, which is just fancy language for literally the sauce lol. As you can see in the photo, there is just the piece of sablefish and black sauce around it.
All of the al le carte main options don’t come with any sides, so if you order a main without a side, expect to see a dish literally like this (compared to my dad’s pork chop in the prix-fix, which actually came with sides).
Anyways, presentation wise I quite liked it. It looked like a very zen Japanese art. Sablefish was cooked well and was tasty, but definitely feeling a little weird just eating the sablefish on this plate.
For my side, I chose the twice baked potato ($16) because I can’t pass up a baked potato, but as you can probably already guess, restaurants don’t usually pair sablefish with a baked potato so it was kind of a weird combination. I don’t have a photo of the baked potato but it was delicious and actually huge so that was nice, but yeah not sure why it was a whole other $16 for a side dish.
King cole duck breast ($55)
My sister orders the duck breast for her main. It is served with some foie gras, jus and a partridgeberry gastrique. Again, you can see it’s just the meat with the sauce/jus. For her side, she also chose the twice baked potato.
The duck was cooked well and I liked the jus it was served with (I had one piece to taste).
Ontario half rack of lamb ($75)
My boyfriend orders the half rack of lamb for his main. Again, it is literally just the lamb on the dish when it arrives, but it is certainly a lot of lamb! Usually, you get served maybe 2 parts, but here they give you 5 so if you love lamb, you definitely get a lot of it here. It is served with anjou pear and rosemary pistou.
Steak and lobster ($130)
My mom suddenly becomes bougie and orders the steak and lobster for her main, which is a whole smoking $130. The dish comes with a 6oz AAA PEI beef tenderloin and half a lobster, served with a side of creamed spinach, potato purée, and a peppercorn jus.
I tried some of the lobster and it was actually quite good – juicy and lots of flavour. The potato puree was smooth so that was good.
Coconut creme brulee ($12)
For dessert, my sister orders the coconut crème brulee, which has peaches on top and served with an almond cookie. The coconut creme brulee was quite tasty because it is a little bit more fruity and sweet than the regular creme brulee. the almond cookie though was kinda terrible, not sure if it was stale?
Ice cream and macarons (complimentary)
For my mom’s dessert, she chooses the ice cream and macaron. For her ice cream flavour, I believe she chose chocolate but there are other flavours to choose from. The macaron flavours are pistachio, raspberry, orange, and a piece of dark chocolate.
This is a simple dessert so I can’t imagine it going wrong, but I am surprised that they don’t even give you a full macaron? Like they only give you the top shell…
Final thoughts
Loewe’s rating: ⭐⭐
Generally, my family had a good time at the 360 Restaurant. We appreciated the good service and one of the desserts was complimentary since it was a birthday. All the desserts are priced at $12 if it is not included in your prix-fix.
Food-wise, I think it is quite overpriced. 360 Restaurant boasts a lot about their Canadian menu and ocean-wise certified fish and shellfish, but it’s not like they are the only restaurant to have sustainable food and ingredient practices.
I really disliked how their al le carte menu entrees had dishes starting at $50+ but also makes you pay almost $20 for a side dish. Also in my case with the sablefish, I wasn’t really sure which side to pair it with so even though I liked both dishes separately, it was a weird combo and I feel like that could’ve been mitigated if the al le carte dishes also came with some sides that actually made sense, and if a customer still wants to add a $16 baked potato they can do so.
Experience wise, I understand why the food is overpriced. You are not just paying for lunch or dinner at a restaurant, you are paying for an experience at the CN tower. As I’ve mentioned in the beginning of this blog post, you get to skip the wait line and get to go right up to the top if you have a reservation at the restaurant. You also get access to the observatory floor after dinner, which already costs $43 per adult if you are just going up to the observatory. And you get to skip the elevator wait time to go back down because you can always go back up to the restaurant and take their special elevator back down.
So considering this in mind, I still think the 360 Restaurant is worth the price tag as a one time visit because it includes your observatory visit. Although it’s very obvious that the view at the restaurant is better than the observatory so you’re not really missing out on that much if you don’t go to the observatory after eating.
So there you have it! I recommend you to go if you are planning to go up to the CN tower observatory anyways, and it’s a fun tourist thing to try once. I wouldn’t recommend a second visit.
Sincerely, Loewe