What is going on with BaxterStorey and British Airways lounge catering?

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• Dave says:

  5 Jun5 June 07:59

  I’m not sure if you can post links in the comments but if you visit the site mentioned above and click on ‘Menus’ in the navigation bar then you’ll see a picture of the galleries first buffet before the change and after. It’s clear from the picture that both variety and presentation have taken a MASSIVE drop. It now resembles what you’re used to when you were a silver card holder.

  The cook to order menu still has some reasonable options on it. Unfortunately for BA + BaxterStorey it costs more for each customer who orders from the menu rather than using the buffet. Hopefully the increase in menu orders may encourage the buffet selection to improve.

  • Volker says:

    5 Jun5 June 11:36

    “It now resembles what you’re used to when you were a silver card holder. ”

    I actually thought the picture was taken at the T5 Galleries Club Lounge 😯

• DV says:

  5 Jun5 June 08:02

  Is there a Twitter hash tag for comments?

  • Rob says:

    5 Jun5 June 09:12

    Well beyond my tech skills (!) …. one for the guy behind baloungefood.com I think!

    • Dave says:

      5 Jun5 June 12:54

      #baloungefood

• Ben E says:

  5 Jun5 June 09:12

  I was in the T5 Galleries lounge at the start of May and everything from the cold offering was either running out or completely out of stock – it was a terrible sight. In the hot offering, there was some pasta and then 5 trays of hot food with sauce, such as curry, hot pot, chilli etc. But nothing to eat it with other than pasta! And looking rather similar to the ‘gloop’ first class photos. Disappointing

• Lady London says:

  5 Jun5 June 10:26

  My G*d! Worse than school dinners! And it was bad enough even BEFORE they switched to Baxter Storey.

  One can only think BA, who after all are a very competent large company, has determined that this is the level of service it wishes to offer those with frequent flier credentials with itself and other airlines. Isn’t it time we got the message BA is so clearly trying to give us ?

• AusTraveller says:

  5 Jun5 June 11:06

  Have yet to try the new catering service at the BA lounges at LHR but that’s not promising.

  The very sight of that catering is off-putting and, frankly speaking, having previously experienced BaxterStorey catering (they’re contracted to English law firm Herbert Smith Freehills whom I’ve previously worked with and hence had to suffer the ‘delight’ that is their catering – they’ve also got the Slaughter & May contract I think) I think one is better off avoiding it as much as possible.

• Daftboy says:

  5 Jun5 June 14:04

  I was in T5 Galleries on Monday evening for the first time since the change, arriving around 5:20pm when obviously all the customers have told BA they want a light afternoon offering. Cue a few forlorn prawn sandwiches, which I didn’t feel the need to sample. Then the fabled 6pm dinner arrived, and despite being the woeful slop pictured above there was a queue stretching away from the buffet of poor bedraggled travellers gasping for a hot bite to eat. And no plates of course.

  The sensible lady eating some takeaway from Itsu at the high tables near the buffet says it all really.

  I thought the biscuits and bar snacks in big, self-serve kilner jars were nice, and they can only lead to less packaging waste over time, but obvioulsy of no use to those who are used to shoving a few packets of shortbread into their carry on baggage for the flight.

  All in all, pretty lame.

• Richie says:

  5 Jun5 June 23:35

  I will be at t5 Saturday so will get there early and try the breakfast . Hope it’s not as bad as people are saying ….

• So…. Is the food in the BA Galleries First Lounge at T5 that bad? - Ghetto IFE says:

  17 Jun17 June 14:51

  […] his recommendation of “Order off the menu”, and not go to the food service area, whilst Head for Points isn’t too impressed […]

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