From a supperclub inside a London tube carriage to cat cafés and restaurants where dishes are delivered via roller coaster, the world is filled with weird, wonderful and downright wacky places to eat. Here we reveal the world’s most unusual restaurants guaranteed to drop jaws and get people talking, including eateries in unique locations and diners inside historic aircraft.
In autumn 2023, Subway opened a flying restaurant, serving free subs 1,000 feet in the air. Dubbed ‘The Subway in the Sky’, the 180-foot blimp was designed to look like one of the chain’s footlong subs – complete with deli meats, cheese and veggies – and it soared across the USA throughout September, stopping at cities including Kansas City, Atlanta, Orlando and Miami. The lucky passengers were able to feast on all four of Subway's Deli Heroes sandwiches while taking in breathtaking views of the landscapes below.
Hidden inside the futuristic Salmon Eye experience centre, Iris is a high-end restaurant that literally floats in the middle of the Hardanger Fjord in Norway. The silvery orb opened in 2022 to teach visitors about marine life, and is surrounded on all sides by stunning mountains and glaciers. Iris opened in July 2023 and is helmed by Danish chef Anika Madsen, known for her commitment to sustainability and use of unusual ocean ingredients. The restaurant’s ‘expedition dining experience’ includes a signature 16-course tasting menu, a scenic boat trip from the mainland and a pit stop at the island of Sniltsveitøy.
Guests might experience a close encounter of the third kind when visiting this alien-themed restaurant, shop and small inn, but everything else is far, far away. Because Little A’Le’Inn in Rachel, which has a population of fewer than 100, is in the middle of the Nevada desert off the ‘Extraterrestrial Highway’, en route to Area 51. The restaurant serves up Alien Burgers, stories about alien sightings and advice on the best places for spotting extraterrestrial activity yourself.
Fans of Barbie (and the smash-hit Barbie movie) can get their fix of all things pink, plastic and fantastic at the Malibu Barbie Café in New York. The endlessly Instagrammable spot is filled with photo opportunities, from a retro-style Barbie box to a pair of striped sun loungers surrounded by sand. But the café isn't just about good looks; it's actually got some decent foodie credentials too, with a menu courtesy of US MasterChef semi-finalist Becky Brown. There's also a Malibu Barbie Café in Chicago.
The Eagle’s Nest, or Kehlsteinhaus, is unusual both in setting and history. The property was gifted to Hitler on his 50th birthday and, although he didn’t spend much time here, it became a symbol of Nazi rule. Today, it’s a seasonal restaurant (open May-October) serving traditional Bavarian cuisine from its position right on the edge of Mount Kehlstein in the Bavarian Alps. This gravity-defying engineering marvel is accessed via a wiggly (and at times terrifying) road carved into the mountains, with a brass elevator whisking people to the dining room.
Dine under the stars and soak up the magical atmosphere of the Australian outback with this four-hour dining experience. Located on top of a dune overlooking the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, this outdoor restaurant is truly breathtaking. Guests watch the sun set while enjoying Champagne and canapes, before sampling a bush tucker–inspired buffet and listening to a live Didgeridoo performance. Sounds of Silence also includes a guided tour of the night sky.
It's easy to see why Prime is Niagara's number-one rated restaurant. With the most stunning views over Niagara Falls, this fine dining eatery serves top-quality steaks and mouth-watering seafood alongside handcrafted cocktails. Located inside the Crowne Plaza hotel, Prime also serves a set three-course menu.
Diners can check out Bientang's varied menu of breakfasts, seafood, sharing platters, burgers and salads while watching whales leap out of the ocean, literally a stone's throw away from the tables. Housed in a cave, Bientang's spills out onto the rocky shore of Walker Bay and was previously inhabited by a Koi Strandloper of the same name.
New Zealand's only rotating restaurant offers 360-degree views across the city of Auckland and the Hauraki Gulf. You'll find the Orbit brasserie at the top of Auckland's Sky Tower with a menu featuring local and seasonal produce. Typical dishes include honey soy pork belly and pan-roasted Akaroa salmon.
Carved out of limestone rocks and overlooking the Adriatic Sea, Ristorante Grotta Palazzese feels like something out of a fairy tale. Steeped in history – it supposedly held banquets for local nobles as far back as the 1700s – the cave restaurant is open May-October so you can enjoy that warm summer breeze. The menu changes with the seasons but expect Italian dishes, like seafood and pasta, done beautifully.
This cool, quirky burger bar is housed in train carriages perched on the roof of a building overlooking Melbourne city. Easey's serves gourmet burgers and hot dogs, alongside an extensive drinks list including local beers, wines and cocktails. A retro soundtrack, original features and walls decorated with graffiti all add to the ambience.
Reaching this restaurant on Koh Kood, off Thailand’s southeast coast, starts with a 90-minute flight from Bangkok airport to a private airport island owned by Soneva Kiri resort, where the dining treepods are located. Even then there’s still a speedboat ride to reach the resort itself, so naturally most people sleep over. It’s well worth the trek, though; diners are nestled in their own bamboo pods, which hang amid the trees with bay views, while traditional Thai dishes are delivered by waiting staff via zipline.
It’s a long, arduous hike or a scenic ride on the Ebenalpbahn (cable car) followed by a shorter walk up to this 19th-century inn. Berggasthaus Aescher, open May-October, clings vertiginously to the side of the Ebenalp mountain in the Appenzell region of the Swiss Alps. It was built by farmers as a place to rest while their goats grazed. Now it’s a jaw-dropping guesthouse and destination restaurant, specialising in local ingredients and traditions, with views across the valleys to Lake Constance.
Virgilio Martinez earned his reputation for innovative Peruvian cuisine at his restaurant Central in Lima, where each course of the tasting menu reflects a different altitude in the country from sea level to the Andes. MIL takes things to a whole new level, both in terms of the menu – focused on roots, tubers, herbs and fruit grown by Andean communities at high altitude – and location. The restaurant is in Peru’s remote Sacred Valley, 11,706 feet (3,568m) above sea level and surrounded by farming villages.
Dining at Tonga Room & Hurricane Bar is a surreal experience. In the Fairmont San Francisco hotel, this tiki-style bar has a huge lagoon in the middle, extravagant decor and periodic tropical rain storms with (simulated) thunder and lightning. The Island Groove Band bang out hits from a thatch-covered barge while the dance floor rocks and guests feast on Polynesian-fusion cuisine.
Fancy dining under the sea? You can at M6m in the OZEN by Atmosphere resort in the Maldives. Decked out in plush furnishings, the fine-dining restaurant serves an indulgent, seven-course seafood menu with delicious wine parings, with diners shoulder-to-fin with fish, sharks and stingrays.
The laundrette-meets-diner Harvey Washbangers has found the solution to time-efficient laundering. Head to their restaurant, load up a washing machine then order a plate of food and perhaps a craft beer at the bar. The place serves burgers topped with chorizo, Cajun flavours or jalapeño with cream cheese. No need to worry about your clothes – a light system at the bar will notify you when your washing is done.
For a truly refreshing dining experience, look no further than Labasin Waterfall Restaurant in the Villa Escudero resort in the Philippines. Located right next to the man-made Labasin Falls, the restaurant has long bamboo tables where guests dine on a kamayan-style Filipino buffet of fish, rice, barbecue chicken and bananas, traditionally eaten with your hands.
Climb aboard this 1950s Boeing KC-97 for an aviation and history-rich dining experience. Enjoy a honey mustard chicken burger, slow-roasted barbecue ribs or a fish platter while marvelling at the hundreds of pictures and rare artefacts on display.
If you don't have a head for heights, Dinner in the Sky might not be for you. Diners are strapped to a table which is attached to a crane, elevated around 100 feet (30.5m) – not a dining experience for the faint-hearted. Originally from Belgium, this sky-high mobile restaurant has been rolled out everywhere from Australia to South Africa, with guest chefs devising different menus.
Cat lovers rejoice – this café is for you. The first of its kind in Australia, Cat Café is all about the furry residents, who come from rescue shelters and are just waiting to be cuddled. There's a small entry fee and the spot offers a range of cakes and coffees for sale. While the menu might be short, the furry felines are the main attraction. Best of all, if you really like a cat, you can adopt it. There are similar coffee shops in the UK, France, Taiwan and Germany.
The saying goes that we eat with our eyes but Dans Le Noir takes away that element. Found in a dozen locations worldwide including Melbourne and London, the restaurants are staffed by waiters who are blind or visually impaired and diners eat in complete darkness, relying on their other senses to navigate through the meal. We can’t tell you much about the food as all the dishes are a surprise and each location has a slightly different offering. The London restaurant, for example, asks guests to simply choose from a meat, fish or vegetarian menu.
Diners can really chill out in this icy wonderland in Dubai, the first of its kind in the Middle East. Guests can relax on chairs made of ice in temperatures of -6°C (21°F). But don’t worry – on arrival you’re given a hooded parka and woollen gloves, shoes and socks, and spend a few minutes in a buffer zone to help you acclimatise. There's an entry fee and items from the menu, which consists of sandwiches, soups and hot chocolate, are extra.
For a thrill-seeking dining experience, head to Rollercoaster Restaurant with various locations including Hamburg, Vienna, Abu Dhabi and the UK's Alton Towers theme park. Customers place orders on tablet computers then kick back and wait for their meal to be delivered via a roller coaster-style conveyor belt. The menus include crowd-pleasers like roast chicken with fries and coleslaw, pasta carbonara and cheeseburgers.
If you like being waited on hand and foot, you’ll love @home Cafe, a role-play café in Tokyo. It’s one of many in Japan where patrons are assigned their own waitress who serves food, sings songs and plays games. The menu typically includes treats like Japanese curry, ramen, hot dogs and a toy poodle–shaped cake, plus plenty of hot, iced and alcoholic drinks. There's a small admission fee and guests are required to spend a minimum amount on food and drink.
What makes this restaurant special is its unique cooking method: chefs at El Diablo barbecue meat and fish to perfection using the heat of a volcano. A giant grill has been laid across an opening where, just six feet (1.8m) below, lava bubbles at 400°C (752°F). If you’re worried about any underground rumblings interrupting your dinner, don’t be – the dormant volcano has been peacefully gurgling below the surface since its last eruption way back in 1824.
If history is your thing, take a trip to Kenya and rewind a couple of hundred centuries in Ali Barbour’s Cave Restaurant. The magical location is situated 22 miles (35km) south of Mombasa, hidden inside a coral cave thought to be up to 180,000 years old. The natural holes in the cave ceiling mean you can dine on the locally sourced food, such as fresh Kilifi oysters and grilled barracuda, under the stars.
Dine with the fish under the sea at this quirky restaurant. Located at the Conrad Maldives Rangali Island resort, Ithaa sits 16 feet (5m) below the sea's surface and gives guests panoramic ocean views – think scuba diving meets fine dining without the risk of getting wet. The adults-only dinner is a set seven-course meal that includes dishes like lobster and snow crab with dill, mango gel and pickled baby corn and three-mustard-marinated Wagyu beef tenderloin.
When it comes to burgers, calorie count and the customers at this Las Vegas restaurant, it's definitely a case of the bigger the better. Patrons weighing 159kg (350lb) or more eat for free in the hospital-themed dining room, where waitresses dress as nurses and drinks are served via an IV drip. It’s famous for its Octuple Bypass Burger with 40 slices of bacon. At 19,900 calories, it's the most calorific burger in the world.
When you visit The Yurt at Solitude, trekking half a mile (0.8km) into the forest through heavy snow is first on the agenda. You'll be kitted out with snowshoes and helped down the moon-and-lantern-lit path by your host. The warmth of a Mongolian yurt and treats like pork loin with blue cheese potato gratin, seared scallops, caramelised onion tarts and molten chocolate cake await your arrival.
Deep beneath Bube’s Brewery lies Catacombs, a stone-lined vault 43 feet (13m) below street level. Each reservation includes a history tour of the brewery on the way down to dinner, where you’ll be offered a selection of house-brewed beverages to complement mains such as chicken piccata and crab cakes. Book onto a late-night ghost tour following dessert (if you dare).
This semi-submerged restaurant in the North Atlantic Ocean is an atmospheric experience. Guests at Under are exposed to the wild seas and aquatic life of Norway, while the thoughtful architecture is designed to act as an artificial reef attracting limpets, kelp and other marine life. It’s also the world’s largest underwater restaurant at 5,328 square feet (495sqm) and plunges to 18 feet (5.5m) below the water’s surface, looking rather like a sleek, minimalist capsized ship. It opened in 2019 and quickly gained a Michelin star for its tasting menu of local seafood, seabirds and wild meats.
Step back in time at the dimly lit Bors Hede Inne, where guests, also known as noble travellers, will be greeted by the innkeeper and treated to a 14th-century-style banquet of authentic medieval dishes. Feast on fenberry pye (pork, chicken and cranberry pie), bourblier de sangle (roast pork), sanc dragon (cinnamon and almond chicken) and blamanger (similar to blancmange). Set in Camlann Medieval Village, it’s a dinner-theatre experience and is equal parts educational and relaxing.
The restaurant at Arctic Bath waits in the middle of a river in the middle of nowhere. This floating hotel, whose unique, nest-like main building (pictured) houses the restaurant, glides on the Lule River in summer and is frozen in place when the ice sets in, is accessed via a pontoon. The seasonal, ever-changing menu is driven by regionally sourced ingredients, from berries, mustard and honey to fish and reindeer meat.
Perched above popular Manuel Antonio National Park on Costa Rica’s Pacific coast, El Avión offers the kind of views you might expect from a low-flying plane. Which is appropriate, because this unique restaurant is located inside a 1980s Cold War aircraft, the Fairchild C-123. Its sister aircraft was shot down over Nicaragua while this one was abandoned at Costa Rica’s main airport in San José. It was transported here in 2000 and converted into this restaurant and bar, whose terraces overlook the ocean.
This restaurant clings to a rock on Michamvi Pingwe beach on Unguja, part of the Zanzibar archipelago. The Rock – reached via a paddle or, at high tide, via a short boat ride – resides on what was once a fisherman’s post and now has just a dozen tables sheltered by a roof made of palm fronds. The seafood-heavy menu, peppered with zingy local flavours, is the perfect complement to the Indian Ocean views.
If a giant roadside orange isn’t unusual enough, the fact that this is a burger restaurant – rather than a juice bar – takes this spot to brilliantly bizarre levels. The Mammoth Orange can be found just off the road between Little Rock and Pine Bluff, and was built in 1966, inspired by a similar restaurant in Fresno, California. Hot dogs and hamburgers are the menu mainstays, though there are also milkshakes and specials like fried catfish on offer.
London’s only dine-in tube carriage, Supperclub.tube showcases a vintage 1967 Victoria Line tube carriage in all its glory, with the added bonus of allowing guests the chance to eat aboard. Located at the Walthamstow Pump House, the stationed carriage seats up to 35 guests and offers an exquisite six-course tasting menu of Colombian-inspired cuisine from head chef Beatriz Maldonado Carreno.