The North East's highest restaurant: Review of Newcastle's 3Sixty at Hadrian's Tower

Twenty six floors up in Newcastle’s tallest building, the restaurant at the top of the £27million Hadrian’s Tower, which houses pricey city living apartments, really does make the most of its skyscraper vantage point and is accessed via its own swift lift that whisks you straight to the top of the Toon so you’re not jostling with residents.

As the name would suggest, it literally spans 360degrees of the building with wraparound windows offering panoramic views over the bright lights of China Town, down to the meandering Tyne, shimmering rooftop of the Sage and beyond, much like the towering, swanky restaurants that are a staple in Dubai – minus the weather.

We visited on a wet and windy Wednesday and were one of only a handful of diners, an ideal time to visit if you want more of a private dining experience, as opposed to weekends when the place is packed with people eager to get a good shot for Instagram.

And you can’t blame them for whipping out their camera phones. As well as the views outside, the interiors are also a talking point – all slick black marble, mood lighting, water fall walls and feature neon signage. There’s no denying this is a restaurant which is aiming to take dining to new heights.

As you’d expect from a place like this, where the penthouse apartment below is teetering on the million pound mark, the menu isn’t a bargain price, but this isn’t the place to go for bargain food. It’s more of an occasion place than day-to-day dining, although its neighbours in Hadrian’s Towers do get residents perks and often pop up for a feed.

There’s a new seasonal menu of small plates, priced from £8 for crispy salt and pepper squid to £45 for baked king crab leg, sharing boards which are more reasonably priced from £10 for a bread board and nibbles and mains starting from £13.50 for vegetable fettuccine to £40 for a 140g Himalayan Salt Aged Rib Eye steak.

Despite this being an undeniably boujee place, the menu choices are accessible, nothing too outlandish on there, with something for most palates.

I really enjoyed my burrata salad, a huge mound of this most silkiest of mozzarellas for £12.50, which was served with a whole fig and a generous drizzle of honey which added a satisfyingly sweet twist to the more subtle nuance of the cheese.

My friend enjoyed her scallops starter too with leak purée, crispy bacon and leak fries, however, at two for £12, it could have been served with a third plump mollusk to seal the deal.

For mains, we both chose the 140g Filet Mignon, which is £32 served with a sautéed roasted tomato and half a Portobello mushroom. It’s worth noting, you’ll need to order the other usual steak accoutrements on top, with sauces from £3.50 and chips priced around £4.50, which bumps up the bill.

It was a beautifully-tender tenderloin, a perfectly pink steak that tasted so good it didn’t really need the accompanying peppercorn sauce.

We washed it down with a really full-bodied Chianti, whose notes of cherry worked perfectly with the meat. It was well priced for the quality at £26 a bottle and, was served at the perfect temperature, a detail so often missing.

As you’d expect from 3Sixty, it’s a decadent drinks menu – and it’s vast, with price points ranging from £4.90 to a small glass of white wine and £5 for a pint of San Miguel on draft to £350 for those wanting to splash the cash on a three litre Laurent-Perrier La Cuvée Jeroboam.

It really is a great spot to watch the sun set over Tyneside and there’s certainly an air of romance about its film noir vibe – however, we did have to ask for a lamp for our table so we could see our food properly, which wasn’t a problem for our cheery server.

It’s definitely worth returning during the day, even just for a drink at the impressive bar, to take in some of the best urban views in Newcastle, if not the North East.