Re-Imagined Rainbow Room To Re-Open In October

The splendor of The Rainbow Room at the Top of the Rock will soon be dazzling guests again. After five years of being closed for renovations, The Rainbow Room — an 80-year-old New York City landmark — will be reopening in October with new lounges and a spiffed-up interior, and  will welcome Jonathan Wright (Le Manoir aux QuatSaisons in Oxford) as executive chef.

The actual dining room of the Rainbow Room is considered a New York City landmark and so cannot be altered by law, but Rockefeller Center's 15-year-veteran architect was still able to create a high-tech, glamorously new experience, from the crystal curtains to refract light and create a rainbow effect, to the two high-end lounges, SixtyFive and The Gallery. The event space will also see the return of the famous rotating dance floor.

As for the food at The Rainbow Room, the menu will be contemporary American, with French-influenced farm-to-table cuisine, and chef Wright took cues from decades of vintage menus. (Here's a hint: we can definitely expect oysters to play a starring role).

"Everyone's looking forward to this because of what Joe Baum created," Drew Nieporent, proprietor of Nobu Fifty Seven a few blocks away, told Bloomberg.  "He gave the Rainbow Room its iconic status."

Sunday brunch will be served, as well as Monday dinner, but most of the time, the dining room will be closed for private events.

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Joanna Fantozzi is an Associate Editor with The Daily Meal. Follow her on Twitter@JoannaFantozzi