THE BEST AIRPORT DINING

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Airport food gets upgraded

  Frommer’s picks top 10 restaurants that serve good eats

     It once was a toss-up at the bottom of the food chain: airline food or airport food?    Times have changed. Some airlines are offering nutritious items in the air, and airports are increasingly featuring local restaurants with high-quality, healthy food.    “Airports are trying to improve the experience for travelers, and part of that is bringing in restaurants serving fresher, local foods,” says Rick Lundstrom, editor in chief of PAX International, a trade magazine that covers airport dining trends. (more after the break)

“Airports want to create an atmosphere of the city they’re in and make the airport more of a destination for shoppers and diners.”    Many frequent business travelers have noticed.      Mike Noblit of Escondido, Calif., says the quality of food at U.S. airport restaurants is much better than it was 10 years ago.    “It seems airports are bringing in the high-quality choice to meet the demand,” says Noblit, a senior vice president in the consumer electronics industry. “Most of the time, there are lines outside the best places.”    At USA TODAY’s request, Frommer’s Travel Guides named its 10 best U.S. airport restaurants. Two are at New York airports. The others are at airports in Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, Seattle and Raleigh-Durham, N.C.    “We’ve picked places that serve food you’d eat even if you weren’t trapped,” says Jason Clampet, senior online editor for  Frommers.com  .    Frommer’s primarily chose local restaurants but ignored local eateries that “still serve food that tastes like airport food,” Clampet says.    The newest top 10 choice — Tortas Frontera — opened last month in Terminal 1 at Chicago’s O’Hare airport and plans to open a second outlet in   Terminal 3 in May. It’s the creation of celebrity chef Rick Bayless, who operates three other top Chicago restaurants. He says he aims to “set a new standard for what airport food should taste like.”    Too many choices    Tortas Frontera specializes in Mexican griddle-baked sandwiches, such as smoky garlic shrimp, which includes seared shrimp with chipotle garlic sauce, black beans, poblano rajas, goat cheese and arugula. The Cubana sandwich includes smoked pork loin, bacon, black beans, cheese, cilantro cream, chipotle mustard and avocado.    Frommer’s says it’s difficult to pick the top restaurant at JetBlue’s new Terminal 5 at New York JFK airport because the terminal has more high-quality dining options than are available at most airports.      But the pick is Deep Blue Sushi, which has a modern Asian menu created by celebrity chef Michael Schul-son, the former executive chef of New York’s highly rated Buddakan restaurant.    Deep Blue Sushi serves such fare as crispy lobster rolls, Kobe beef tataki rolls and red miso-glazed Chilean sea bass.    At New York’s other airport, La-Guardia, there’s a “high-end” food court in the Delta Air Lines terminal — with a steakhouse, Prime Tavern, and a French bistro, Bisoux — but the guidebook publisher instead names Custom Burgers by Pat LaFrieda to its top 10.    The airport “gives you the same meat you’d get at the sit-down Prime Tavern for a lot less dough, along with milkshakes from the local Ronnybrook Dairy,” Frommer’s says.    At the world’s busiest airport, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International   , Frommer’s has a top 10 pick: One Flew South, in Terminal E. The restaurant has “a strange and interesting mix of Southern and Asian influences: pork belly with black-eyed peas vs. seaweed salad and a sushi bar,” Frommer’s says.    Not just a top airport restaurant, One Flew South receives high ratings among all of Atlanta’s restaurants, according to travel and dining guide publisher Zagat Survey.    Two West Coast airport restaurants also make Frommer’s top 10.    At Seattle airport, Ivar’s in the central terminal is a spinoff of the downtown restaurant of the same name that has been serving chowder and seafood since 1938. Besides the chowder, other specialties are fish and chips, scallops and chips, and clams and chips.      Encounter at Los Angeles International Airport “is truly unique, a simultaneously hip and kid-friendly restaurant inhabiting a wacky outer-space-themed building,” Frommer’s says.    Seafood at Boston Logan    One well-known chain — Legal Sea Foods — cracked Frommer’s top 10 with its restaurants at Boston’s Logan International Airport.    “Legal Sea Foods is part of an international empire, but Boston is where the empire started, and there’s actually a different Legal concept in each Logan terminal,” Frommer’s says.    Terminal A, after going through security, has Legal Test Kitchen, which has an abbreviated menu and offers fast delivery. Terminal B, before security checkpoints, has Legal C Bar with plenty of beer options and a full menu. At Terminal C, before security, is the chain’s traditional restaurant.    The restaurants in Frommer’s top 10 and others serving top-quality food at airports “reflect a greater appreciation for food among the population at large, not just travelers,” says David Lytle, editorial director of  Frommers.com  .    “We want fresh ingredients and local tastes rather than cookie-cutter options from food-court purveyors,” Lytle says.