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Ramsay aims to land Michelin at Terminal 5
By Rashid Razaq, Evening Standard 12.12.07
Meal deal: Chef Gordon Ramsay secured special terms with 10-year lease
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Gordon Ramsay is aiming to create the world's first Michelin-starred airport restaurant with his new Heathrow venture.
The celebrity chef has spent £2 million on the latest branch of his culinary empire inside Terminal Five, which opens to the public next year, and is hoping it will become a must-visit destination for first- and business class travellers.
The 180-seater restaurant's menu is to be modelled on his award-winning Boxwood Café at the Berkeley Hotel, which offers "fine dining with a New York twist".
Airport operator BAA has given Ramsay preferential terms with a 10-year lease instead of the usual five years because it is hoping the restaurant will become a major attraction, alongside Prada and Tiffany, in the £4.3billion terminal.
Named Plane Food, the establishment will become Ramsay's ninth restaurant in the capital. He also has recently opened two gastropubs - The Narrow in Limehouse and The Devonshire in Chiswick.
The latest venue will target high-spending CIPs - "commercially important passengers" - that BAA is desperate to attract.
Initial problems including the lack of gas supplies in the new building have now been ironed out. However the strict three-month security vetting procedure for kitchen staff from head chefs to dishwasher could yet prove to be cumbersome.
Nick Ziebland, BAA retail strategy director, said: "I think we need to bring back some of the glamour of travel and make it almost a destination in its own right.
"We're not going to have a Primark...not everyday socks and underwear."
On the cachet of a Gordon Ramsay restaurant for attracting high-spending frequent fliers, Mr Ziebland added: "I'm rather hoping they'll sit there, rich, comfortable and slightly bored and say, 'let's go and eat out'."
Terminal Five is due to open on 27 March next year and will be capable of handling 30 million passengers a year.
It means that Heathrow, already the world's busiest airport, will see its total number of customers rise to 90 million.
Terminal Five, which was given the goahead after the longest planning inquiry in history, is the size of Hyde Park.
The main building, the largest single-span structure in Britain, was designed by Lord Rogers and is 400 metres long, 180 metres wide and 40 metres high, with 105 lifts.
Fifty football pitches would fit on each of the five storeys and the complex is the size of Gatwick, making it one of Europe's largest airports.
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