WINDOWS ON THE WORLD
The mile-high Windows on the World restaurant, closed since the terrorist bombing at the World Trade Center in New York two years ago, has reopened to reclaim its standing as the most spectacular eatery on earth.
Indeed, in heaven too.
For, on days when the restaurant looms above the cloud-line, the sensation in the dining room, with its soft spoken solicitous staff and subdued, nebulous tones, is quite celestial: anyone over-sampling the sommelier’s’ specials could easily imagine they have died and are sampling their first meal in the hereafter.
The first Windows on the World opened atop Tower One in 1976 under the management of the American restaurant impresario Joe Baum. The restaurant quickly disproved the principle that the quality of a restaurant’s cuisine is in inverse relation to its elevation in the sky. Windows soon became one of the most famous restaurants in the world.
But in 1991 the restaurant was in need of restoration and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the World Trade Center towers, put the windows operation on floors 106 and 107 up for bid.
And then a group of terrorists shook America - and the tens of thousands of people working in the tallest building in New York - when they detonated a bomb in a van parked in the World Trade Center basement garage. Eventually the offices in the towers were back in operation but the restaurant remained closed for the next two years, as $25 million in renovations were undertaken.
The contract to create and run Windows on the World went, once more, to Joe Baum – who also operates to other legendary New York restaurants, the Rainbow Room on the top of the Rockefeller Center, and the Four Seasons. Baum, whose winning credo is that restaurants should be a form of entertainment, reckoned he was providing diners with the most fabulous cabaret anywhere: a panorama that subtly changes every second of every day, according to the exigencies of seasons, sunlight, wind, clouds, dust and man’s eternal tinkering with the skyline.
Southward, the view extends over New York harbor to the Atlantic Ocean; Westward across the Hudson to New Jersey and the American mainland, Northward from the bustling financial district uptown to the tip of Manhattan, and across the East River towards Brooklyn and Long Island beyond.
In fact, you have to pity any chef de cuisine here, because nothing he does in the kitchen can actually compete with the glorious feast for the eyes. Joe Baum’s approach is “don’t compete, derive”. So, the food is contemporary international, reflective of the cosmopolitan and corporate occupants of the towers and the city below. The decoration of the two acres of bars, dining areas and private function rooms is muted, in harmony with the gentle tones of a watercolor skyscape and soothing, to appeal to pinstripers who can be seen way down in financial district below.
At lunch time, when the restaurant is awash in light, Windows adds to the ala carte menu a special multi-ethnic, environmentally conscious international buffet ($40) which includes greens grown in the farmlands visible in the distant hills. From this serene security it’s delicious to look across the 1,116ft chasm to the other Twin Tower, where tourists can be seen trying to identify city landmarks from the windblown Observation Deck.
When Baum refurbished Windows he decorated the adjacent bar and eatery in the same lean style. But he abandoned minimalism when he came to naming the joint. “The Greatest Bar on Earth” is an elevated saloon that takes itself so seriously it has a Liquor Library at the door. It is certainly the only bar on earth from which to perch on a stool and, for the $10 or so it costs to buy a specialty bourbon, luxury tequila, fancy cocktail, exotic beer of glass of fine wine, see the twilight send the shadow of the Statue of Liberty shimmering across the harbor. Or, looking uptown, furtively watch the city slowly slip into her sequined gown of night.
There is an Oyster Bar and a variety of finger foods, from sushi to shishkababs. To wash them down is selection of 700 wine labels. Windows takes the vintners art so seriously that it runs an evening wine school, with 500 enrolled, and publishes its own wine guide.
The Greatest Bar is an excellent spot for local color – mainly, shades of gray. When the stock exchange closes on nearby Wall Street scores of bankers and brokers pour into the elevator at Tower One and take the 64-second high-speed ride to the 106th floor for a sundowner. Some of them settle into the Skybox, a semi-detached lounge that celebrates cigar-smokers. Live music is promised every evening and after nine from Thursday to Saturday there is dancing to Rhythm and Blues or cutting edge roadhouse bands.
The third restaurant in Baum’s aerie is an intimate wood paneled room furnished in rich tapestries where fixed price gourmet dinners are served with wines from the 50,000-bottle cellar. Called “Cellars in the Sky” its floor is raised so that no buildings are visible, giving the impression that you are adrift in heaven.
Public function rooms are also part of the Windows world, making it possible to have private parties and weddings in the clouds. On a blustery evening several years ago storm stranded the great ocean liner the QE2 out in the harbor on a night she was scheduled to be dockside to host a huge gala. At the eleventh hour the guests were diverted to the Windows ballroom from where they could see the lights of the regal liner sparkling in the bay.
It is true that all over the world there are tall buildings capped by restaurants with views. Many of them, alas, spin as you eat, making it hard to focus on your fork and constantly changing the location of the exit door. Windows does move, but only in high winds, when the maximum sway recorded is 11 inches. There are some cancellations on very windy days, but don’t bank on them if you are waiting for a table. The reservation desk at Windows on the World fields 1,000 calls every day.
Published: Springbok (South African Airways) 1998
El… (Saudi Airlines) 1998