Rotating Restaurants Trivia Quiz

As the name suggests, the restaurant is situated atop a 191-metre tower in the middle of the city of Calgary, Alberta. The tower opened in 1968 as the tallest structure (outside Toronto) in Canada, and was renamed the Calgary Tower in 1971. Renovations from 1997 to 1990 added the revolving restaurant as part of the observation deck.

During the day, the restaurant rotates once every 45 minutes; in the evening it slows down to once an hour, presumably reflecting the more leisurely pace encouraged as part of the fine dining experience. The restaurant promises "magnificent views of the City of Calgary & the Rocky Mountains", as well as the expected brilliant food and drink delivered by a superb staff. Most revolving restaurants are developed as tourist attractions, and aim to sell an unforgettable experience - to justify the inflated prices that cover the increased operating costs as compared to a street-level venue.

This is the restaurant that actually inspired this quiz, written when the Globetrot 8 adventure stopped off at the CN Tower in Toronto. The restaurant name, again, reminds you that you will have a 360-degree view of the city as you dine. The CN Tower was the world's tallest free-standing structure from 1975 until 2007 (and still ranks in the top 10), with a height of 553 metres. The restaurant is located about 350 metres up, one floor above the Main Observation level.

When the restaurant opened, it was known as the Top of Toronto; it is now formally known as 360 The Restaurant at the CN Tower, or the 360 for short. It rotates through 5 degrees a minute, so a complete rotation takes 72 minutes. It is currently the world's highest and largest revolving restaurant, and its wine cellar holds the record as the world's highest above ground wine cellar. The tower publicity describes the restaurant as a steakhouse, seafood restaurant and wine bar.

When the New York Marriott Marquis opened in 1985 on Times Square (specifically, the west side of Broadway between 45th and 46th Streets), it included two floors of retail space, a 1600-seat theatre on the third floor, several levels of event spaces, 36 floors of hotel rooms, and a revolving restaurant on the top three floors. The hotel lobby is on the eighth floor, and its atrium extends all the way to the restaurant level; at 120 m, it is one of the world's tallest open indoor spaces.

The View (billed as NYC's only rooftop revolving restaurant) is located on the top three floors of the building. They specialise in American cuisine (which is a pretty open palate), with room for 700 patrons. The dining room, on the 47th floor, makes a full revolution in 60 minutes; the bar level above it rotates more quickly, completing a revolution in 45 minutes.

This is the only one of our restaurants located at ground level, but who can resist a visit to Walt Disney Resort in Bay Lake, Florida? EPCOT (an acronym for Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow), one of the theme parks in the complex, opened in 1982. World Nature is one of its four subsections, located on your right shortly after entering EPCOT.

The Garden Grill is much more down-market than most of the rest of the restaurants here (although not inexpensive, by any means), describing itself as offering family style dining in the company of Chip 'n' Dale and other Disney characters. The menu offers a Chip 'n' Dale Harvest Feast - with different components for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It offers vegetarian and vegan options, with visitor reviews indicating that the "food is fine", definitely a place for the kids, who can get photos with their favorite Disney character, while the adults enjoy the slowly-moving scenery.

In Portuguese, this restaurant in the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul is called Restaurante Giratório Mascaron. The Torre Mirante da Serra in Veranópolis was inspired by the CN Tower, although it is significantly shorter at 79 metres. The restaurant is located in a pod near the top of the tower, with an observation deck above it which provides telescopes to enhance your view. This includes not only the city itself, but the surrounding mountains and rivers.

The Mascaron's menu features Italian and Brazilian cuisines (in, according to their website, a sophisticated and cosy ambience). Its wine list features the products of the local vineyards, one of the city's most important industries.

Tyholttĺrnet is Norwegian for Tyholt Tower - a 124-meter high radio tower in Trondheim, Norway with a revolving restaurant in its observation deck, 74 m up. Egon is a Norwegian chain of restaurants, the first of which opened in 1984. It has expanded to include over 30 locations around the country, including the one that opened in 1985 in the Tyholt Tower. As seems to be a common speed, the restaurant rotates through 360 degrees each hour.

All the restaurants in the Egon chain use the bowler hat worn by the Norwegian film figure Egon Olsen as a logo. Diners order and pay for their food (which features items from around Europe, with an emphasis on traditional Norwegian Christmas fare from November through January) at the bar, where they also collect their drinks before returning to wait for their meal to be delivered to the table.

Moscow's Ostankino district is the location of a communications tower that opened in 1967 as the tallest free-standing structure in the world, at 540 metres - the first to surpass the 500 metre mark. It has since been overtaken, but remains (as of 2026) the tallest in Europe, and the 15th-tallest in the world. The three-level restaurant located between 328 and 334 metres up was destroyed in a massive fire in August, 2000 which also caused extensive damage to the rest of the tower. The tower required years to repair, so no visitors were allowed until 2008; the restaurants did not fully reopen until 2017.

Seventh Heaven has three levels: the lowest level is the restaurant proper, the middle one a café, and the top one a coffee shop that features a bar around its rim at which patrons can stand and watch the city moving beneath them. Seating on the other levels has tables next to the windows - the café seats 62 at a time, the restaurant (which requires reservations) 48.

The Donauturm (Danube Tower) overlooks the Danube River in Vienna, Austria. It was originally built to be a centrepiece of the Vienna International Garden show in 1964. Reaching 252 metres into the sky, it is the tallest structure in Austria, and in the top 100 in the world.

The tower has an observation deck 150 metres up, with two revolving restaurants above it. The lower level (161 m) is a café creatively named Turm-Café, while the upper one (169 m) is a more upscale affair, named Turm-Restaurant. Unlike most revolving restaurants, these are not fixed speed - they can be set to take 26, 39 or 52 minutes for a complete rotation. When you make a booking, you will be asked which speed you prefer, and be allocated a seating when that speed is going to be the one you experience. The café claims to offer "Vienna's coffeehouse culture 160 metres high".

The Cairo Tower looks quite different from most of the towers we are visiting in this quiz. It is not a spire with observation levels perched near the top, it is a tapering concrete tower with an open latticework exterior. Located in the Nile River, on Gezira Island, it was the tallest structure in Egypt when it opened in 1961, and held that record until 1998.

The Al Dawar restaurant is not the most upscale revolving restaurant in Cairo (for that, visit the Hilton Hotel, but make sure your credit card is cleared), but it offers spectacular views as it rotates from its spot in the middle of the river. The menu suggests that it is mostly frequented by tourists on their way through as they see the sights (sandwiches include burgers, kofta, falafel, croque monsieur; desserts such as cheesecake and pastries are offered along with an impressive array of hot and cold drinks), but the evening menu does include such offerings as stuffed pigeon and fattah (a traditional Egyptian layered dish with toasted pita bread, toasted vermicelli rice, beef and a tomato-based sauce called tasha).

The three water towers that comprise the Kuwait Towers stand on a promontory into the Persian Gulf. The main tower, which is 187 metres high, has two spheres. The lower one has a water tank in its bottom half, and a restaurant complex in its top half. The upper sphere, at the 123 m mark, contains a café which rotates every 30 minutes.

The lower sphere's restaurants include Horizon Restaurant (offering international cuisine) and Animoto Restaurant (featuring Japanese food). There is also a reception hall, often used for official receptions. The Viewing Sphere offers snacks and drinks, to be enjoyed as the city spins beneath you.

Borj-e Sefid is a shopping centre and office building in the northern part of the city of Tehran, Iran whose name means White Tower - the translated name was used to designate the restaurant on its 22nd floor, which is usually just called by the name of the building, sometimes more specifically as 360 View, to distinguish it from the non-revolving restaurant options in the building.

Borj-e Sefid rotates more slowly than most revolving restaurants, taking 90 minutes for each rotation, so you want to plan for a leisurely meal if you want to take in the complete experience. The restaurant promises 'Fine continental dining for an unobstructed view of Tehran city and the mountains. ... A stunning combination of great food and a magical panoramic view. Enjoy your experience!'

The Colombo Lotus Tower soars to a height of 351.5 meters in Colombo, one of Sri Lanka's capital cities. When the tower opened in 2019, it was the tallest self-supported structure in South Asia. It is designed to suggest a lotus flower, an effect increased at night by the use of lighting to make the vertical part of the tower one color, with the sphere containing the restaurant appearing to be covered in petals of another color.

The restaurant's official name is Blue Orbit by Citrus Leisure, acknowledging the hotel chain that operates it (along with the Cosmic, a banquet hall in the non-rotating centre of the same floor of the tower). As its name suggests, the design of the restaurant is intended to create a spacious feeling, a connection to the universe. It is located on the 26th floor of the tower, 229 metres above ground level. When it opened in 2023 it was Sri Lanka's first and only revolving restaurant, as well as South Asia's highest restaurant. The service is buffet style, with different sections offering different cuisines, which include 'Italian, Japanese, Chinese, Middle Eastern, Indian, Sri Lankan, and Western cuisines'.

Shanghai, China boasts the Oriental Pearl Tower, opened in 1994, as its first AAAAA tourist attraction (whatever that means). It has three spherical platforms connected by three vertical pillars, with the top sphere much smaller than the lower ones. All told, there are fifteen observation levels, some with glass floors - the curvature of the sphere allows multiple levels to have a view down to the city; other attractions include an indoor roller coaster, and the revolving restaurant. The design of the tower was said to be inspired by a verse of the poem 'Pipa Song' by Bai Juyi, which describes 'the wonderful sprinkling sound of a Pipa instrument, like pearls, big and small falling on a jade plate'. Hence all the spheres.

The revolving restaurant is located in the higher of the two largest spheres, 267 metres up from the ground. It offers Chinese (especially Shanghai) and Fusion cuisines, along with the expected panoramic views of the cityscape.

Sydney Tower, formerly known as the Centrepoint Tower and several other names based on who was running it and the shopping centre over which it is situated, is the tallest structure in Sydney, NSW, and the second-tallest observation tower in the Southern Hemisphere, rising 309 metres. Four sections of the tower are open to the public, the topmost being the observation deck (Toften called the Sydney Tower Eye), and the other three hospitality venues operated by a company called Sydney Tower Dining.

The lowest floor houses 360 Bar and Dining, the revolving level. Next up is the Sydney Tower Buffet, and above that a function area called Studio. 360 Bar and Dining describes itself as a 'stylish and intimate restaurant offering guests an indulgent culinary experience with 360 revolving views of the city' - pretty nondescript, but since they offer a glass of champagne to sip as you contemplate your order, it is definitely a fine dining experience, with a seasonally-changed menu to emphasise the use of local fresh produce.

The Sky Tower soars 328 metres above the CBD of Auckland, New Zealand, It opened in 1997 as part of the SkyCity Auckland casino complex. The tower has several levels with attractions for visitors. The main observation deck (Level 51) has sections of the floor made of glass, while Level 53 offers a guide-cable-controlled "Sky Jump" (192m bungee jump), as well as a "Sky Walk", a narrow (rail-free) guided tour along walkway around the outside of the tower. And people pay extra money for this!

For the less adventurous, Level 52 contains Orbit 360°, New Zealand's only revolving restaurant. 190 meters up in the air, it rotates once an hour. Don't plan to spend your entire day enjoying the view as you linger over your food, though - lunch reservations ask you to leave after 90 minutes, dinner after two hours.