Sky 360 Restaurant & Lounge
101 9 Ave SW
Calgary AB T2P 1J9
Phone: 403 532 7966
www.sky360.ca
In Calgary and looking for a restaurant with a view? This is the spot! The Sky 360 Restaurant is situated in the Calgary Tower, just one level below the observation deck. What’s more, the restaurant revolves, so imagine being 525 feet above street level and getting a complete 360-degree bird’s-eye view of Calgary while you eat. The view is incomparable! Sky 360 makes a complete revolution in 45 minutes at lunch time and in 1 hour at dinner time, so you get a full visual tour of the city in the course of your meal.
So here’s the short recommendation: YES, it is good, and YES, by all means go to Sky 360. Read on if you’d like to find out why.
You might expect a restaurant at the top of the Calgary Tower to feature an expensive menu. That isn’t exactly true. In fact, Sky 360’s prices are very competitive with the nicer, non-tower dining establishments in town. They are just a smidge above the prices at your average chain restaurant, while obviously having superior ambiance. Adult admission to the top of Calgary Tower is $12.95, but this is waived for a Sky 360 customer who orders an entree. So, you’ve now saved $12.95 and your lunch menu burger is only $16.
When you first enter the Calgary Tower, go to the desk and ask for the hostess of the Sky 360 Restaurant. She will call up to confirm a free table and then direct you to the elevator. In exchange for getting to go up the tower for free, you must order a lunch or dinner entree, so plan to have more than a coffee.
When you reach the restaurant, another hostess will escort you to your table. Sky 360 has arranged all the tables to face the 360-degree windows. There is a mix of booths, tables for two, and seating for large groups. As soon as you sit down you’ll feel the restaurant turning. The vertical walls and windows stay in place while the floor moves. Prepare to lose some orientation if you leave your table to visit the washrooms (in the non-revolving center of the tower). When you try to go back, your table won’t be where you thought it was.
The Sky 360 menu has enough to have something for everyone. The food list is short, so a frequent diner could get bored. I don’t know if and how often the menu changes.
For lunch, I quickly settled on the Beef Burger. My friend chose the Seafood Bouillabaisse on the advice of our server Geraldo, who did an exquisite job of attending to us.
The food was not long in arriving. In any case, it doesn’t feel like waiting when you can admire Calgary from the restaurant’s vantage point.
My burger looked sumptuous: a beef patty with a slice of bacon and aged cheddar on an onion bun. It tasted even better than it looked - it was bursting with juice and flavor. The sauce dripped down my hands every time I took a bite. Besides that teeny flaw, I could have one of these burgers everyday. The fries were the right degree of crispy. The portion size of this meal even exceeded my appetite. The burger was easily more substantial than the typical chain-restaurant burger, leaving little doubt as to which one is the better value for money.
The Seafood Bouillabaisse was beautifully 
presented. It was teeming with tasty morsels, including tender salmon, large juicy scallops, shrimp, and mussels. The broth was rich in flavor and texture. The dish came with basil pesto crostini (resting on top, in the photo), a zesty and crunchy accompaniment. Geraldo had made the perfect recommendation. He would get my vote for best server in Calgary.
After your meal, go up one level to the observation deck. Here you can spend more time taking in the tower view.
Last thoughts: Having lived more than three years in Calgary, I’m kicking myself for not discovering Sky 360 until now. The food is exceptional, the service superb, and the view second to none. I would love to go for dinner and gaze down on Calgary all lit up at night. I also want to go back for lunch on a clear day to enjoy an aerial view of the mountains. You can be sure I’ll be looking for excuses to visit Sky 360 Restaurant & Lounge again and again.
Food +++++
Service +++++
Ambiance +++++
Washrooms +++
After a day of basking in the fresh air of the Rocky Mountains, the body yearns to wind down with hearty food. We were drawn to try Bumper’s, which claims that “if you haven’t been to Bumper’s, you haven’t been to Banff”.
While on a little road trip we had to stop in Invermere for lunch. After driving around to scope out the food territory, we were drawn to try Huckleberry’s Family Restaurant.
We had just seen a Sunday matinee movie and were famished. On our way home we walked by Banzai Restaurant on 4th Avenue in downtown Calgary.
Let me start by saying that I don’t single out bad places. Good and bad experiences are equally deserving of blog space on What I Thought of It.
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After repeatedly hearing radio advertisements for the new Summer Sensations meal, we made plans to dine out at Swiss Chalet. At dinner time on a Sunday night, the Swiss Chalet at McKnight Boulevard & 4th Street NE was packed with customers, yet we were still seated immediately.
Uniquely among restaurants, Swiss Chalet Rotisserie & Grill offers a choice of white or dark meat when you order chicken. We chose dark and were happy we did. The chicken was perfectly cooked, slightly juicy, and very flavorful. The salads looked and tasted fresh (we thought spinach was a better choice than tomato-cucumber). The side of fries was a bit overcooked but still tasted good. The side of vegetables was somewhat bland (needing table pepper) but at least not drenched in butter. All in all, each Summer Sensations meal was more than enough to fill one stomach.
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scallops wrapped with bacon were a great flavor combination. The battered prawns were not too greasy and decently meaty. The cod was heavily breaded, making a hard, crispy shell around the fish. The fish inside was flaky and great with the tartar sauce.
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Going to Banff always brings up the question of where to go for food. This time I decided to go for dinner at The Old Spaghetti Factory.
came less than a minute after I ordered. The salad was not too bad but obviously not freshly prepared. Some of the lettuce leaves were frozen, which is common in restaurants that prepare salads beforehand and keep them chilled.
Joey’s Only Seafood Restaurant in Motel Village is nicely situated next to the pedestrian overpass from McMahon Stadium and just meters away from the Banff Trail CTrain Station.
mayonnaise dip. Joey’s sweet potato fries are so good, I could live on them.
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