Up Scale Food .. At The Airport ?!

A little late for this article, but I know that The Columbia Restaurant recently opened a cafe at KTPA (Terminal E Airside). For those of you outside of Florida, it's a fantastic Cuban place, with the best sangria I've had outside of Spain. I hope their airport venture does well.

The Gordon Ramsay "Plane Food" restaurant at Heathrow T5 is quite nice although what I enjoyed best was the massive windows (sort of shown in the photo) facing the ramp -- a very fun place to have a drink and watch an incredible number of BA 747s in the evenings.

In the 70's and early 80's, shall we say pre 911, I used to love to go to the local Airport, to pass time on an RON. There was quite a local crowd at most of them too. You could eat, have a beverage, and watch the flightline activity. Now most of the good places, out of necessity, are inside security as that is where most people are, especially at a hub. Some are starting to come back but the casual days of having a meal and plane watching are lone gone.

When I was growing up in the 60s, the reward for a good report card in school was a meal at The Newarker restaurant in EWR's old North Terminal. Suits, ties, and our best behavior were always required. I don't remember the food so much as the fantastic vistas of TWA SkyStream 707s right outside the windows. I do remember that everything on the menu seemed to be a flambe of some sort, which didn't seem right at an airport.

San Francisco International could really adopt this! The food there is terrible, though food downtown is excellent!

ORD has a Rick Bayless "Frontera Grill" setup. Ate there. Nothing like Frontera. Just Bayless lending his name to airport food that looks a little better than Sbarro next door...