Paris Airport Adds New Gourmet Restaurant

Airplane food is not known for being very high quality, but airport food is catering to a very gourmet-minded clientele in an attempt to get passengers to change their travel plans by catering to their stomachs. In Paris, Charles de Gaulle Airport has just opened a high-end new restaurant in an attempt to lure customers away from airports in London or Dubai.

According to The Local, the Charles de Gaulle Airport has just opened a high-end new restaurant called I Love Paris, which will only be accessible to customers with tickets to destinations in the U.S. or Asia. The restaurant was developed by French Michelin three-star chef Guy Martin and the space was designed by India Mahdavi.

The menu was reportedly designed to appeal to a wide range of palates and runs the gamut from hamburgers to classic French dishes like veal ragout. There is also tapas, lobster, and some vegetarian options. The cheapest menu combination reportedly costs 30 euros, or $33.

The new restaurant opened this week and is an attempt to lure customers on potential layovers to choose to spend a couple hours at the Paris airport as opposed to another one.

"The aim is to try to make a Chinese traveller prefer to stop over in Paris rather than Heathrow or Dubai," said Laure Baume, deputy director of the Aeroports de Paris.

That might be a difficult goal, as many airports have been rolling out high-end restaurants for just that purpose lately. Heathrow, for example, has restaurants by both Gordon Ramsasy and Heston Blumenthal open in the airport.