An English Summer: Concorde Room London Heathrow

After our treatment at the Elemis Spa, we had about 2.5 hours to go before our flight, and we decided to get some breakfast at the British Airways Concorde Room London Heathrow.

The Concorde Room is British Airways flagship lounge for First Class passengers. They’ve created other First Class Lounges called Galleries for all the other oneworld Emerald members and their own elites. Access to the Concorde Room is limited to passengers who are flying British Airways in a First Class cabin (and your guest) and holders of the Concorde Room Card, which is a super status of sorts for the British Airways Executive Club program, for those who earn 5,000 tier points in a year.

Now, I’ve been over the Galleries First Lounge a lot of times, but this was my first time in the Concorde Room. We walked in through the main entrance and noticed a spacious, and uncrowded lounge area.

British Airways Concorde Room Entrance

Though not the most upscale lounge ever, it did the job. There was ample room to take in over three times the number of people who were actually there. The main hallway had a fireplace.

British Airways Concorde Room Hallway

The Fireplace was occupied, so we went about exploring the lounge.

There were many options inside.

British Airways Concorde Room Seating

I have to mention, that the furniture did not look like it was the most upscale, but more like from an old hotel maybe? If this is a part of the offering for the First Class passengers, I’m sure the Middle-Eastern and Asian carriers would move a lot more heaven and earth to make them feel wanted.

Quintessentially runs the concierge desk for the Concorde Room, and they are also the people who allocate cabanas. Unfortunately, no one at that desk meant we were not going to have a cabana to ourselves. These cabanas are private rooms with showers enclosed.

What did catch the eye was the bar. They serve drinks across the whole lounge from here, and it looked like it was tapped out from the night before. However, it was serving up Laurent Perrier Grand Siecle, so how can one not have some of that fabulous champagne.

Anyhow, before we headed any further, we figured it would be a good idea to get breakfast. We found our way to the Concorde Dining section. The Concorde Dining area has old style booths with high separators.

British Airways offers various kinds of booths, open and closed for their guests here. We did not have to wait to be seated since there was no one at the entrance but found ourselves an empty table.

British Airways Concorde Room Dining Booths

Once we were seated we were brought the menus by a member of the staff. The wait staff was chirpy this morning, and juggling 5 tables together between the both of them. However, they were on top of their game, and not mixing up orders to start, which was a good sign.

British Airways Concorde Room Breakfast Menu

The Menu referred to the Breakfast Dining Offer. I’m not sure what was that about. Being English I’d have expected a better use of the language unless I’m missing something myself and connecting the dots with the offer in the marketing promotion sense of the term.

British Airways Concorde Room Breakfast Menu

The breakfast had English as well as continental dining options. For the benefit of everyone, here is the menu.

British Airways Concorde Room Breakfast

I did miss a couple of my usual options from the Galleries First Lounge but went with a Full English Breakfast in the spirit of the last hoorah before leaving England. My breakfast was brought to me in a few minutes. There were fried eggs, toast, a hash brown, mushrooms, blood sausage, ham and sausages on the plate. The multigrain toast was brought along as well as per my request.

British Airways Concorde Room English Breakfast

Shipra went with the Smoked Salmon and Scrambled Egg, which looked delicious as well.

British Airways Concorde Room Smoked Salmon with Scrambled Eggs

Along came coffee and juice. My breakfast was very good and greasy, and Shipra’s was healthy. I had a couple of cappuccinos while writing up some emails.

The ultimate test for me of a hospitality business is how they make their Eggs Benedict. So, for a taste test, we asked for one of the signature Concorde Egg Benedict. It came with pulled ham, free-range eggs and hollandaise sauce on top of a sourdough bread. It was nothing to write home about.

British Airways Concorde Egg Benedict

After finishing up on breakfast, we still had some time on hand, so we went about exploring the Terrace section of the lounge. The Terrace has views over the terminal, and again, is an assortment of random furniture put together. But given its high roofs, there was the space factor which was working for this part of the lounge. I liked it.

British Airways Concorde Room London Views

British Airways Concorde Room London Seating

However, I was happy to see many couches for those who wanted to work solo.

British Airways Concorde Room London Seating

British Airways Concorde Lounge Seating

There was also a smaller menu which could be brought to your table in the lounge. Not very elaborate, and everything that could be eaten without elaborate cutlery I presume.

British Airways Concorde Room Lounge Breakfast

For our 10:15 departure, we left the lounge at about 9:30 AM to ride the train over to the satellite Terminal C. When we arrived, it was still not boarding our flight, and they actually did not start to board all the way till 9:55 AM which sort of surprised me.

Bottomline

The British Airways Concorde Room London Heathrow is the best that the airline has to offer. And it does the job for them, so why break something that does not need to be fixed. BA renovated the lounge after we were gone, but all I see is similar furniture with newer upholstery. Perhaps Elegance is a term their memo missed? Or this works with the BA philosophy that First Class is really a marginal step up from Business Class rather than a many-fold one.

Ultimately, I enjoyed my singular trip there, but I’d perhaps like to be found more often in the Galleries First Lounge with some comfort food after a long flight rather than the stiff mannerism expected of me this end of the lounge. And there are so many better lounges to plan a layover, but then, London is a place I end up transiting often, and then BA is the best fit to fly there.

Have you been to the British Airways Concorde Room? What do you think about its offerings?