We did a thread like this on another forum on a different for of transport that I am involved with. It was very popular.
Idea is to post reviews of restaurants at airports/airfields/strips with a view to highlighting good options to fly in to or ones to avoid. Very important to stay on topic or it dies.
To start:
EFFE – Egelsbach
Shuhbeck’s Check Inn is a good airfield restaurant that seems to serve food all day. If you can cope with getting in and out of EDFE it is certainly worth dropping in for lunch. Added benefit is pilots shop next door. Reasonable German/European cuisine. Can get busy in good weather so worth booking if it is sunny.
Last year, somebody started this website here for exactly that purpose: http://www.wikiairports.com/
There was a thread about it on EuroGA.
EDFE – Egelsbach
Not my cup of tea. Quite expensive, just a famous name. Weird switchover times between lunch menu and dinner menu. On sundays, they have a brunch arrangement and one can’t eat à la carte.
Idar-Oberstein (EDRG)
The best airfield steaks in Germany
Italy
Too many good ones to mention. Pretty much every smaller GA airfield has a restaurant with the best food there is. Just a few examples:
Calcinate del Pesce (LILC, striiiiictly PPR), Ozzano nell’Emiglia (ZZZZ), Carpi (LIDU), Vicchio di Mugello (“Aviostorai”, ZZZZ), Alessandria (LILA), Rubbiano (ZZZZ), La Speziana (ZZZZ) and many others :-)
Glenforsa (ZZZZ)
The best in the UK (by a wide margin…)
Le Touquet (LFAT)
A classic. One of the best ones in France, even though slightly in decline IMHO.
Hohenems (LOIH) and Zell am See (LOWZ) in Austria
Both have a good Wiener Schnitzel!
Femoe (ZZZZ, Denmark)
Obviously a bit expensive, but a very nice setting
A few others I could mention…
Hangar 7 in Salzburg (LOWS) might be a little bit expensive, but where else you can taxi right up to the restaurant and park between a B25 and a Corsair …
Seriously, I’d say it is a good recommendation for an anniversary or some other “special occasion”.
When it comes to more affordable establishments, I think the restaurant in the renovated terminal at Venezia Lido (LIPV) is hard to beat. In Austria, I recommend Krems (LOAG) and – like Boscomantico – Zell am See (LOWZ).
The best on-airport restaurants I recall are at Cherbourg LFRC and Le Touquet LFAT.
The worst (among many many pretty poor candidates) was probably Wellesbourne, with one cucumber slice which must have been cut the previous day and was curled up and dried out.
However it is usually a quick bus/taxi ride into town and then the options expand massively (provided you don’t try it in the UK or Germany) I know I have posted this before but I just can’t resist
A couple in Belgium:
EBKT Kortrijk-Wevelgem has the Biggles, really very good – actually one needs to book a table by phone, best the evening before. Good views on runway and apron as a premium. http://www.bistrobiggles.be/ It calls itself a bistro, but “restaurant” would be more appropriate.
EBZH Kiewit and EBKH Keiheuvel have actual bistro kitchen, quite good and not expensive; but both tend to suffer from poor organisation, days of good weather usually bring huge delays (I have once given up even trying to order after patiently waiting for half an hour).
EBTX Verviers Theux is informal yet quite fine, already very much in the French style. It is, besides, one of the few fields I know with FOUR fuel pumps. (100LL, jet A1, Mogas, Diesel – the last is for one club aircraft).
EBAW Antwerp has an inexpensive restaurant, with a rooftop terrace overlooking the apron; but I have heard complaints about very unfriendly service from a class of airline pilot students who now go across the street for lunch.
EBOS Ostend and EBLG Liège certainly have restaurants but I have no experience.
I know the wiki airports thread but thought a place for restaurants is better in one spot. I sometimes like to be able to look for ideas of places to fly to based on food.
I sometimes like to be able to look for ideas of places to fly to based on food.
But then, a thread on an internet forum might not be a good place either. In a few days, this one will (hopefully) have grown into another 50-pages thread and it will be impossible to find anyting… Some kind of database like this wikiairports thing would be better.
Le Touquet (LFAT)
A classic. One of the best ones in France, even though slightly in decline IMHO.
In a kind of spiral?
No, not at all. Last time I went (last July) I still enjoyed it, but I enjoyed it even more about ten years back, before the temporary closure.