This Rotating Restaurant In The Sky Has Just Reopened With 'Altitude-Led' Wine List

There are restaurants with a view, and then there is Milky Way. Set 165 metres above Vilnius inside Lithuania’s tallest structure, the newly reopened panoramic restaurant is bringing back one of Europe’s more unusual dining experiences: a full 360-degree rotating restaurant suspended above one of the continent’s greenest capitals.

Known locally as Paukščių Takas, Milky Way sits inside Vilnius TV Tower, a 326.4-metre landmark that stands just three metres shorter than the Eiffel Tower. From its elevated dining room, guests can watch the Lithuanian capital slowly unfold beneath them as the restaurant completes a full rotation every 55 minutes.

On a clear day, views stretch for up to 31 miles, taking in Vilnius’ UNESCO-listed Old Town, its surrounding green spaces and the lakes and rivers that help shape the city’s landscape.

While elevated dining has long been part of the UK’s city restaurant scene, from Duck & Waffle in London’s Heron Tower to Sky Garden and West Tower in Liverpool, Vilnius offers something more unexpected. This is not simply dinner beside a window. It is dinner in motion.

As the restaurant turns, diners are given a constantly changing perspective over the city below. Rather than a fixed skyline of glass and steel, Milky Way reveals a softer, slower horizon of rooftops, forest, water and history moving gently around the table.

The restaurant’s renewed concept is just as considered as its setting. Led by chef Aleksandras Buiko, the menu reimagines Lithuanian cuisine through a contemporary lens, drawing on local produce and familiar flavours presented in lighter, more refined ways.

“We are focusing on fresh produce, as Lithuania grows incredibly crispy cucumbers, mushrooms, herbs and berries coming from local farms,” said Buiko. “Our menu is reinterpreting familiar flavours and ingredients in lighter, modern ways: trout brightened by sea buckthorn and finished with black bread crumble and dill, or another fish dish served with traditional švilpikai potato dumplings.”

It is the wine list, however, that gives Milky Way one of its most distinctive talking points.

Rather than following a conventional regional or varietal structure, the list has been curated according to altitude, featuring wines from vineyards located at approximately the same elevation above sea level as the restaurant itself.

It is a clever concept that connects what is in the glass to where diners are sitting, turning height into a theme that runs through the entire experience.

Lithuanian producers also feature through the idea of “northern elevation”, where cool climates, long daylight hours and short growing seasons shape acidity and structure in a way that offers another interpretation of place and environment.

“We developed the food and wine side by side, so every pairing feels natural,” Buiko added. “If a wine is recommended with a dish, chances are you’ll find it reflected in the sauce or discover how it brings new dimensions to the flavours on the plate. Together, the cuisine, the wines and the view are designed to create one seamless experience.”

The reopening forms part of a wider transformation of Vilnius TV Tower into a multi-layered visitor destination. Alongside the restaurant, the tower is home to two panoramic apartments at 175 metres, offering one of the highest hotel stays in the region, as well as an Edge Walk experience, where visitors can traverse the exterior platform at 170 metres.

Yet the tower is more than an architectural landmark. Completed in 1980 as a telecommunications tower, it became a symbol of Lithuania’s fight for independence following the events of 13 January 1991, when unarmed civilians defended it during a Soviet military attack. Today, that history is preserved inside the tower through the Fight for Freedom exhibition.

For Sandra Vambutė, Marketing Manager at Vilnius TV Tower, Milky Way’s return is about creating an experience rooted in contrast.

“Our aim isn’t to replicate conventional fine dining formats but to anchor the experience in contrast: height versus flatland, urban skyline versus agricultural horizon, and engineered structure versus natural constraint,” she said.

With its rotating dining room, altitude-led wine list and sweeping views across one of Europe’s greenest capitals, Milky Way is not just a restaurant reopening. It is a reminder that the most memorable city breaks are often found where culture, history and a little theatre come together — 165 metres above the ground.