I rarely enjoy airport food. With the massive hustle and bustle and noise in the terminals, I can barely hear myself think, much less enjoy the cuisine, which is a word I think is a bit too generous for all of the Macaroni Grill-style chains that seem to pepper the hallways of every airport.
But in London Heathrow Airport, right in the heart of Terminal 3, there's a delightful restaurant called Rhubarb, which has become my favorite dining oasis. Now, don't get me wrong - I'm a huge fan of Gordon Ramsay's Plane Food in Terminal 5 at LHR. But since the Baroncini-Moe family's official British Airways Ban of 2010, we're never really in T5, so I may never dine there again (sigh).
Leo and I went there for the first time last January, on our way home from spending the holidays in Spain. We were excited to try it out because we were engaged at a restaurant in Edinburgh called Rhubarb (not at all the same company) and we liked the name and the style of the restaurant in T3. We were enormously pleased with our choice.
So now, if I'm departing London in the morning, I'm thrilled to wait for breakfast until I get through security, because I know that the most delightful vegetarian English breakfast awaits me at Rhubarb. The plate is generous and includes portabello mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, a poached egg, a mini-croissant with butter and jam, and a small pot of yogurt with berries, granola, pistachios, and almonds. The omnivore's version includes the tomatoes and mushrooms in smaller quantities, the egg, croissant, yogurt, some ham, and a Cumberland sausage. The food is exceptional and the presentation quite lovely. I'm actually looking forward to trying some of Food Design's other restaurants next time I'm in London, and have a hankering to visit the Admiral's Club in T3 as well, now that I know that the same catering company is presenting a buffet inside the club. Yummy!
The service is pleasant and friendly, if a little harried. During our most recent visit, our server went to the kitchen to find out for us how the mushrooms are prepared, so I can attempt a version of my own.
All in all, breakfast at Rhubarb is a lovely way to await your flight...and the food's better than anything else I've tried in that area of the airport. So if you're stuck in T3 at LHR, give Rhubarb a try. I can't imagine you could be disappointed.
It's my favorite place too for breakfast. For dinner I usually go to Chez Gerard down in the corner. The food options in T3 is otherwise pretty bad. I tried TGIF last month and it was one of the worse experience in my life. I didn’t think it was possible to fail a cheeseburger but they did
ReplyDeleteCathy, great tip on Chez Gerard. I've always been attracted to that place, but lately I seem to come through LHR in the AM, so I always end up at Rhubarb.
ReplyDeleteI tried Yo! Sushi in T3 once (my first kaiten experience) and was disappointed. It wasn't _terrible_ but I'm used to a better caliber of sushi. The trouble with kaiten is if you're in a place that isn't too busy, you end up having to keep track of which dishes you've seen before and trying to avoid the "old" stuff. The last thing I want is to chow down on fish that's been sitting on a conveyor belt for the last hour.