Dining at Namsan Tower

I’ve wanted to have dinner at the top of Namsan Tower ever since I got the chance to visit the place when I was 18 years old.  The tower is very dear to my heart, as it’s featured in my favorite Korean drama (Boys Before Flowers) and gives people a magical and spectacular view of the city of Seoul. When I found out I’d be visiting Korea for Christmas, a birthday dinner at Namsan was at the top of my priority list!

There are 3 restaurants at the top of Seoul tower – with only one (the french one) being a revolving restaurant. Unfortunately, when we called to make reservations we were told that all dinner tables were sold out for the entire week.  So we settled for lunch instead, and headed up for the meal of a lifetime.

It takes an hour and 40 minutes for your table to slowly revolve around the entire tower, so lunch or dinner is never done in a rush.  The lunch course starts at around 45,000 won, and you can expect to pay an additional fee for tax and service. There was nothing vegetarian on the set menu, but my mom was able to explain it to the wait staff and luckily they were able to whip up several courses of food for us to eat.  We ended up eating…

• French bread with an olive oil / vinegar dip
• Artichoke, mushroom, and pickle appetizer
• Ravioli, filled with spinach and an egg yolk
• Chestnut soup
• ‘Spaghetti’ (a basil pasta dish with almonds)
• Coffee ice cream
• mini chocolate cupcakes with green tea.

At the end of the day, the food was definitely not worth what we paid, but the view and experience was well worth it. It’s kind of hard to take good photos of the view during that time of the day, but it was definitely amazing being able to point out districts in Seoul and see the entire city.  I’d definitely do it again (if I had the money…) in a heartbeat!