Atlanta – I knew my dinner table was high in the sky when I looked out the bank of windows next to me and saw a helicopter – flying below me. It weaved its way through all the skyscrapers lighting up the Atlanta night like candlesticks.
Atlanta has a wonderful skyline and wonderful restaurants. But try combining the two and you get a bigger disaster than “The Towering Inferno.”
I shouldn’t have been surprised when I took the windowed elevator up to the 71st floor of the Westin Hotel, the highest hotel in the Western Hemisphere. I was headed to the Sun Dial, your prototype high-rise hotel restaurant that can guarantee you two things: one, a spectacular view; two, food so bad bungee jumping would be a preferable option.
In American restaurants, way too often the quality of view is in inverse proportion to the quality of food. Restaurants with views figure patrons will be so mesmerized by the sights that they won’t notice the meal, which is more fitting for a dark, padded room somewhere.
I have a history of this. I’m a city kid and a sucker for skylines. I can rank the world’s best to anyone at anytime: one, Hong Kong; two, San Francisco; three, Rio de Janeiro. So I’ve always wanted a good restaurant with a good skyline view. Yet every time I find one of those views that looks fresh off a postcard, the food tastes fresh out of a back alley.
Does anyone remember Baby Doe’s? It was on 23rd Street near the old Mile High Stadium. Just on the other side of Interstate 25, Baby Doe’s had this huge picture window that perfectly framed a scrumptious view of Denver’s underrated skyline.
I remember 1995 when I took my girlfriend there for Valentine’s Day. She had just moved to the U.S. from Albania. Now keep in mind, Albania was the most communist country in the history of the world. Under iron-fisted dictator Enver Hoxha, Albania’s few restaurants were government controlled and basically catered only to business travelers and the few Albanians with money. My girlfriend was not one of them.
How bad was the food at Baby Doe’s? This Albanian girlfriend nearly stormed the kitchen. We were two of four people there. On Valentine’s night. The other two were two guys in T-shirts. Baby Doe’s has since mercifully closed.
I lived in suburban Seattle for a year and a half and am firmly convinced the reason a rail rings the top of the Space Needle is to prevent diners from throwing themselves off the top after one taste of the clam chowder.
While living in Las Vegas for 10 years, I often squired first dates up to the restaurant atop the Landmark Hotel, a B-grade dump where the lounge acts were nearly as tasteless as the food. I didn’t care. My dates obviously did. I didn’t get many second dates. I’m assuming that’s the reason.
So I didn’t expect much from the Sun Dial except to confirm my theory. My friend and I arrived at the hostess stand and checked in with my reservation. For the Final Four, it surprisingly wasn’t full. In five minutes, a dour hostess yelled, “HENDERSON! PARTY OF TWO!”
I thought I was at Denny’s.
She sat us by the window and we looked out into the night. Down below were the Georgia Dome and the giant “G” of the Georgia Aquarium. The slowly rotating circular floor soon had us staring at the illuminated top of the Bank of America Tower. Then came the CNN Headquarters. Lights from Georgia Tech’s Bobby Dodd Stadium flickered in the distance.
It was truly a beautiful vista. We should have stuck with it. I would say we should have stuck with cocktails, as did the street-smart tourists who snickered at our dining choice. However, my two Stoli martinis with a splash of Chambord were so sweet the glass sported a plastic decal of Snoopy.
That’s a bit of an exaggeration but the prison-line quality of food is not. Our friendly, efficient waiter came from Hong Kong so I figured he knew something about high-rise restaurants. He told me the food is good but it’s too expensive for him.
Save your money, buddy.
After a marginal shrimp cocktail appetizer, I ordered the grilled tenderloin of beef made with burgundy blue cheese butter and wild mushrooms atop roasted garlic whipped potatoes, haricot vert and a red wine demi-glace. Sounds intoxicating, no? Reminds you of something you had in a chateau in Provence?
This 10-ounce chunk of tasteless pseudo meat reminded me of something I cooked my freshman year in college. It could’ve turned a tiger shark into a vegetarian. By the end of my meal, the messy pile of mashed potatoes and green beans on my plate looked like something you’d see on the floor after a junior high food fight.
But I only paid $73 for it so I don’t feel too bad.
That’s right, $73. Because it was my birthday the day before, the waiter gave me a free dessert: mango and banana ice cream in a shell of crushed almonds and caramel crust. Since the hotel profited about $65 off my dinner, I had no problem taking the freebie.
The problem with high-rise hotel restaurants is they’re hotels first, bars second and restaurants a distant third. Management is more concerned with quality sheets than quality meat. If you don’t like the food, you’ll love the view. Besides, they cater to business travelers on expense accounts and tourists. What does management care if you return or not? You don’t live there anyway. However, later I found an even better view than from atop the Westin.
The Westin’s front door.
Staff writer John Henderson covers sports and writes about the food he eats on the road. He can be reached at 303-954-1299 or jhenderson@denverpost.com.
If you go
Sun Dial Restaurant, Westin Hotel, 21 Peachtree St. N.E., Atlanta, 404-589-7506.
