COVER STORY
Fare with flair
Around we go
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MORE INFORMATION
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Spinnaker Italia atop the Hyatt Regency, 575 Memorial Drive, Cambridge. 617-492-1234. Reservations recommended. Appetizers $6 to $13. Entrees $18 to $26. Cocktails and dinner served daily.
Brunch served Sundays 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Dancing on Fridays and Saturdays at 10 p.m. Free two-hour parking in hotel garage. (Get directions).
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Spinnaker Italia, Cambridge
The view from Spinnaker Italia, the revolving restaurant atop the Hyatt in Cambridge, is nearly 360 degrees of urban dazzle. Floor to ceiling glass panels open up to the Boston skyline across the Charles, then Cambridge, then Boston again. Even on a foggy night as Boston University peeks out of the mist and the Citgo sign glows on the horizon, it is hard to take time out for the menu.
The upscale, Mediterranean-inspired cuisine far surpasses the usual hotel fare. Ingredients are fresh and the flavorful dishes rival those served at many restaurants on the streets below.
So, despite the long lines to get in on weekends, why isn't Spinnaker the talk of the town? Wrong decade. After The Eye of the Needle revolving restaurant debuted at the Seattle World's Fair in 1962, every city had to have one. Dining above the skyline on a giant rotating turntable was a sign of progress and prosperity - a thrill that signaled the futuristic world of the Jetsons was close at hand.
These days, we over-computerized and digitized folks of the '90s seem generally blase about revolving restaurants and the techno dream, but I'm still stuck in the '70s, a wide-eyed 10-year-old in awe at the top of Atlanta's Peachtree Plaza as the world circled by.
One look at the excited patrons on a recent crowded night revealed plenty of other inner 10-year-olds around.
Stepping onto a rotating disk is guaranteed excitement - remember the merry-go-round? Executive chef Brad Ozerdem, however, is not content to let this novelty be the only attraction.
"At the hot restaurants in town, there is an element of architecture to the way people do their plating and an element of layering of flavors that to me is Bostony," he said. He crafted the Spinnaker menu to catch that flair.
Pan-seared swordfish was tender, moist, and well-paired with one-inch greens, a subtle couscous with fresh asparagus tips, and a tart berry vinaigrette. Chilean sea bass in roasted garlic tomato broth with plum tomatoes, fingerling potatoes, and spinach got just the right spark from a zesty mix of Calamata olive, orange peel, and parsley. A buttery Florentine-like almond cookie cup was generously filled with fresh berries and a fluffy zabaglione (sweet, whipped Marsala wine cream).
Those prone to motion sickness may feel a bit unsettled at first, as I did, but the pace is so slow it takes just a few minutes to adjust. The restaurant takes 35 minutes to an hour to make a rotation; the speed is on the higher side when the crowd is bigger, so everyone gets a chance to see the view. For those who prefer to stay put, tables in the non-rotating Bella Vista corner offer a grand view of Boston.
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