Plane Food

Although I’ve loved trying different foods since I was a child, the restaurant that kickstarted my appreciation of top quality food was Maze by Gordon Ramsay at the London Hotel in New York. The single dish that blew me away was a piece of smoked trout with avocado, beetroot and fennel chips. The fish was melt in your mouth tender, the taste was sublime and the artistry in the whole plate was unbelievable.

I moved on from there and tried a number of Gordon Ramsay’s restaurants including Maze (London), Gordon Ramsay at the London in New York and Los Angeles, York & Albany, Plane Food, Claridges, Boxwood Grill, Murano and culminating in a visit to Royal Hospital Road. The experiences had all been good but around this time the renowned chefs who’d helped build the Gordon Ramsay brand including Marcus Wareing, Jason Atherton, Mark Sargeant and Angela Hartnett all left for a variety of reasons. Across the Atlantic the direct involvement of the Gordon Ramsay group diminished as their role changed from directly running the restaurants to acting in a consultancy role. My most recent meal at the London in New York had been a dispiritingly poor but expensive affair.

When it first opened in 2008 Plane Food was one of the bonuses of flying out of Terminal 5. It seemed to be having a genuine attempt at changing airport food that usually ranks amongst the least pleasant things in most airports. More recent visits seemed to indicate that it hadn’t lived up to its early promise. However this was another year and therefore another chance to check out how it was doing.

The large open dining room has a mix of bench seats round tables at the entrance moving onto more conventional, though not necessarily comfortable, table and chair combos. The room is dominated by a wonderfully garish bar with a back window that opens onto the kitchen.

White onion soup has been one of the stalwarts of the menu since the early days and I’d really liked it previously so it was a definite choice for ordering. A few minutes later the waiter returned to tell me that the onion soup was off the menu and there was a cream of pumpkin soup in its place. The soup came topped with roasted pumpkin seeds and chopped chives. The soup was pleasant enough but nothing spectacular and possibly a touch on the salty side. Crusty baguettes that were the bread choice given to all diners were a decent accompaniment. 

The main course was a steamed sea bass with courgette salad and avocado. The warm courgette salad was a good accompaniment to the fish although mint was the over-dominant flavour. The fish itself wore out its welcome pretty quickly largely due to its pulpy consistency. The worst thing on the plate was the tasteless avocado purée that ringed the fish. I had ordered hand cut chips to go with this and these rescued the main from being a complete disaster helped in part by the Tiptree tomato ketchup that was on hand.

Overall verdict.
Although the menu is more ambitious based on what is offered, it seems that Plane Food is slowly on track to becoming indistinguishable from other airport outlets in terms of quality. Sea bass was possibly a risky option but if an item is on the menu I would expect it to be done properly.

Would I revisit Plane Food?
Probably due to lack of other options in Terminal 5 but it would make the decision much easier if the quality picked back up again.


Overall rating - 2/5