The Golden Age of Airport Restaurants | NY Times

In recent years, as airlines around the world have cut back on in-flight food, a wave of business-savvy chefs have given rise to the golden age of airport dining. Want Champagne and caviar? Take a seat at the Petrossian bar at LAX. Have a taste for perfectly marinated goose meat? Check out Hung’s Delicacies at Hong Kong International. Even local joints — Ivar’s fish bar in Seattle, the Salt Lick in Driftwood, Tex. — have gotten into the act, opening airport outposts that make it feel as if you’ve visited even when you’re just passing through. (Chefs at Phoenix Sky Harbor International think so highly of their food they’re pushing to host a James Beard Foundation dinner at the airport next year.) Indeed, thanks to a doubling of air traffic in the past 15 years — not to mention a general refinement of taste on the part of travelers — eating at the airport no longer means just preflipped burgers and cafeteria seating. Here, some stats on food’s rapidly ascending staging ground.

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