Are the young things wafting about the 12th floor of this shimmering Westport Plaza office building too young to know about Mad Men? Are they not old enough to have had bonkers crushes on Jon Hamm, because who didn't? Probably.
Too bad for them. Too bad their appreciation for all of this may be a little lacking, their experience not quite as moody as it was for me. Because Don Draper would have been here. He would have stopped up after work, loosened his tie in the elevator, patted his pockets for his cigarettes. And the smokiness — if it was 1961 — would have been real; the air would have been thick with the noisome bilge of Lucky Strikes. Now, though, the haziness comes from glass tinted to temper the sun's day-long glare, and the floor-to-ceiling gauze that drapes at the giant windows. Yeah, if 360 Westport (111 Westport Plaza, Suite 1200, Maryland Heights) isn't a pick-up joint, then I don't know what.
Aside from wishing I wasn't 95 years old, I wished I wasn't driving. At this west county iteration of 360 STL downtown, the drinks are beauties — big, and, by reports, pack a punch. But I was OK with a very nice glass of rosé from Provence once I'd stuck in a few olives, a cherry and a skinny tongue of orange peel. The expense of the lux surroundings boggles the mind. The bar stools alone — and there are so many — could sleep two comfortably. And then there are the myriad couches and sofas and divans and table arrangements. In this huge 11,200-square-foot space, there is so much choice of where to be; here or here, or over there through those doors where the fire pits are, and the night breezes of Maryland Heights tickle in your mint sprig. But it is all rather lovely — the Art Deco lines and circles, the black corrugated walls and silvery seams running through.
And then there's the menu. 360 Westport wants to be good in the kitchen, and certainly needs to provide some solid food to sop up those bevvies. So what's on offer here is a little taste of any flavor you might be in the mood for after a few — and then a few more — drinks. In the main, the menu is appetizery (de rigeur shareable things), and it's all over the map — a veritable food court of international offerings. Spain is here in the pintxos, Mexico in the shrimp tostada. There's Korea in the BBQ lettuce wraps, Japan in the karaage chicken. America is honored by the chargrilled burger. Somewhere else is present in the bone marrow with clams and grilled bread, and I assumed wrongly that my native UK was represented by fries that come with salt and vinegar. But those, apparently, are a nod to New Orleans and aren't fat and soggy, but thin and crisp. I skipped 'em.
Dump a $1 can of cannellini into a bowl, mash them roughly, add some deep green olive oil, garlic, etcetera, and I'm as happy as a clam casino. These beans, on offer when we visited, were blitzed to a stiff paste, strongly fragranced with lemon and pretty with microgreens, but I wasn't in a paste-y mood. That tuft of microgreens turned up again on the beets with labneh and hazelnut vinaigrette. I suppose I was expecting a delicate nuttiness, a suggestion of it in the dressing rather than a full-on nutfest. My jaws were weary afterward, but thankfully, the beets were (too?) soft and the labneh may have been over-strained: It, like the beans, was stiffer than I'd have liked it to be. And was that a fizz I picked up in those root vegetables? The shrimp tostada had a bit of bean going on as well, but the legume helped secure the shrimp, which were inching rather pleasantly toward undercooked.
Having girded myself for disappointment at the cheese and chive drop biscuits (they looked small and tight), I loved them. And I also got a kick out of this: You either may order them with a pimentoey dip (or honey butter) for $7, or you can add caviar for an additional $48. I loved that! A couple of lucky biscuits boomeranged from "second fiddle" to "main event" in the green wink of an ATM balance transfer. There was whipped ricotta with giardiniera as well, and I should have paid more attention to the menu. I puzzled over its accompaniment of rather tough squares of fry-bread only to understand later that those were gnocchi frito. So Italy was in the mix, as well.
Everyone's been talking about the housemade Kit Kat. Either 360 Westport is being humble or it's being cute, because comparing this dessert to a candy bar with almost zero percent cacao is both misleading and silly. These dark, rich, silky cubes scattered with crispy wafer-ish crumbs most closely resemble flourless chocolate cake — and by that I mean they're luxe and have nothing whatsoever to do with Hershey.
Thanks, in part, to that "cake," 360 Westport is a fun place to be, and it'll be funner still once the exterior glass elevator starts carting customers up to their drinks-and-eats-and-drinks-again. Because take note: Word has it, the line during peak hours can be 50 to 100 strong before you even reach the main elevators. This is not good news if you're hoping for a seamless start to your Tinder date. But if wishes were horses, perhaps, on the sun's next tour of 360 Westport's gilded flanks (i.e. tomorrow), I'll be 24 again, merrily perched on a bar stool, ordering a "Soft Hands," because Don Draper — very kindly — will have offered to drive.
360 Westport is open Mon-Sat, 4 p.m.-1 a.m., Sun 4 p.m.-11 p.m. Contact Alexa Beattie with tips and feedback at [email protected].
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