I was trying to match a list of 100 best restaurants in the UK with airfields, as I have friends interested in doing a combined restaurant / plane trip.
I was planning on superimposing 2 lists on google maps, one of restaurants, one of airfields, and pick something where there is a pair close to each other, far away from London.
I just need the list of airfields, with an approximate address. Controlled and Uncontrolled. Does anyone know where to find such a list?
(peter if you read this, please s/off/of/ in title)
Hi Noe
I can certainly recommend the Apron Cafe at Retford Gamston! Only open from Wednesday – Sunday though.
It’s my colleagues who want to explore that “Best 100” list from Bloomberg, and I take it as a good excuse to go flying. The Burger you got me at that Hotel near Newquay would be worth going too!
The simplest way to get addresses is probably to buy the Pooleys Guide
Hilariously, on Ebay you can buy old versions and a lot of UK GA seems to do that 
I normally buy the spiral bound version.
I am not aware of a machine readable list although obviously some flight planning apps might contain something which might be usable.
If you ever get a list together let me know and I will send them some EuroGA leaflets I have done France and Norway and it is a very time consuming business – as well as expensive in postage.
Substantially tongue in cheek however, your desire for “100 best restaurants in the UK with airfields” is going to be hard to do because UK airfield food ranges from bad to terrible. But the pilots seem to mostly like eating fry-ups done in a 50hrs old Shell 15W50 with a 3 days old lettuce leaf
Thanks,
The restaurants don’t have to be at the airfields, but close enough (reasonable taxi ride, or car hire available).
I don’t even need exact addresses, even probably airport name would work, and then let google map do it’s magic.
Colleague of mine did this (restaurants) with just restaurant name + city.
In that case there will be loads of options. I guess the usual process e.g. tripadvisor reviews.
Peter wrote:
I guess the usual process e.g. tripadvisor reviews.
Is there actually someone relying on those? There have been reports in newspapers and TV how these reviews can be bought in bulk for a few Euros. Obviously there are centers, similar to call centers, in India where people write several hundred reviews per hour and google-translate them to the local language (which sometimes is really obvious).
Peter wrote:
In that case there will be loads of options. I guess the usual process e.g. tripadvisor reviews.
I wanted to match a precise list of restaurants with the list of airfields. It’s not like starting at an airfield or restaurant and then picking which other works, I would have liked to find a pair directly on the map :)
Yes, tripadvisor has it’s flaws, but it’s better than nothing, and gives a general trend.
If you live in london, look at the ranked list of restaurants: https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Restaurants-g186338-London_England.html. I don’t know almost any!
A lot of reviews are either biased by (generalizing here, humor me) americans who mostly care about service, or people who have never really tried good food and are easily amazed.
Travelling abroad, one often finds more local places that are better suited, but there’s often little info on the internet, and it’s hard to find reliable locals.
I never regreeted trusting trip advisor on this one which entirely deserves it’s reviews: https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Restaurant_Review-g187782-d1806249-Reviews-Ristorante_Bagni_Delfino-Sorrento_Province_of_Naples_Campania.html
In Portugal, for instance, many places where you eat the best (especially fish) will have paper towels and tin plates, basic service, but the good is delicious. Some people will also be scared of hygiene with a grill like this:
These often won’t be / won’t rank high on TA.
Is there actually someone relying on those? There have been reports in newspapers and TV how these reviews can be bought in bulk for a few Euros.
That’s true, but it is usually obvious from the wording. Most fake reviews are lazy or illiterate or both.
These often won’t be / won’t rank high on TA.
There won’t be many such places in the UK because they probably fail to meet EU food safety standards
…because they probably fail to meet EU food safety standards
They fail to meet any food safety standards. I remember some years ago a flights to Cascais. In the evening we had fish in a “restaurant” on the beach which looked very much like that one in Noe’s posting. The food tasted really good but during the night and the following morning I was really sick. Luckily we only flew back in the evening but I hid a sick back on the kneeboard under the flightlog and hoped that the passengers wouldn’t see me use it.
NB: The main reason why I wrote this is to point out that flying and eating sometimes don’t go together too well – maybe they should better be kept separate 
