360 Opens a New Window on a Head-Turning Panorama of Los Angeles

The new penthouse restaurant and bar at the top of that tall, tall building at Sunset Boulevard and Vine Street offers a verticality virtually unknown elsewhere in Los Angeles. The view from the windows of 360, as the new place is called, may not rival that of Manhattan’s celebrated Windows on the World, but it’s one of the closest things we’ve got, and all the more exhilarating for its unexpected sense of vertigo.

Whoosh! you go up the elevator. The doors slide open. And then the wall of noise hits. The restaurant and particularly the bar, which unfolds on two sides, are packed. When the platinum-blond host finally notices us waiting, he seems more like someone giddily attending his own party than a traditional maitre d’. But then everybody does seem to know everybody else. The bartender is working as fast as he can, frantically filling martini glasses, and then doing it over and over again. Maybe that’s what makes this crowd so, well, festive. Or the fact that there are four simultaneous birthday parties going on that night. And only two waiters. The kitchen struggles to catch up, but the food is slow in coming. When it finally does, the shrimp cocktail, bibb salad and “half-fried” chicken with garlic mashed potatoes and the roasted venison are actually all right, probably better on a less intense evening.

Hey, it’s a view. And that in itself puts 360 on the map.

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To Note: On Monday, Jean-Louis Palladin, formerly of Jean-Louis at the Watergate Hotel in Washington and now at Napa Restaurant at the Rio Suite Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, will cook at Crustacean in Beverly Hills with chef Helene An. Cost of the seven-course menu is $100 per person. For reservations, call (310) 205.8990. And on Wednesday, Coco Pazzo in West Hollywood offers a five-course white truffle dinner at $130 per person, tax and gratuity included. Reservations: (213) 848-6000.

BE THERE

360 restaurant and lounge, penthouse at Sunset Boulevard and Vine Street, 6290 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood; (213) 871-2995. Open daily for lunch and dinner. Valet parking. Appetizers $5 to $9; main courses $14 to $23.