Giraffe Restaurant @ Heathrow T5

Giraffe, Heathrow T5

It’s a bit of a different one, but since I went there whilst on my travels, I feel like Giraffe deserves a little mention.

I have to admit, going to Giraffe for breakfast turned out to be a bit of an oversight. Not due to the restaurant itself, more because I managed to forget that because I was flying with BA and not Ryanair (other budget carriers are available!), I would be provided with a breakfast on the flight.

First Impressions

I like Giraffe, I’ve been a few times, mainly to the one in Waterloo (which is always rammed and has a half an hour queue… plan ahead) or the one in Guildford, which is not normally rammed, but is equally good.

This particular restaurant is more like a department store concession, mainly because it isn’t in a retail unit or anything like that, it is open plan with the rest of the departures concourse. This is pretty nice, it means you can see what’s going on, both inside the terminal and on the runway, whilst the screens help you to spot when your plane is on ‘last call’ and you still have a sausage left on your plate. It does mean the experience is also a little odd though, as you don’t have the normal restaurant atmosphere.

4/5

Service

It was pretty packed in there and to be honest, the service wasn’t great, but it wasn’t awful either. We made a couple of changes to the standard dishes when ordering and they got those totally wrong, so that wasn’t so great, but what can you expect from somewhere like that. The waiter was exceptionally cheery though, especially given how early we were there.

3.5/5

Food

Giraffe’s food is generally interesting because it comes from all over the world, or at least it is inspired by stuff from around the world, a little bit. My breakfast wasn’t, it came from a frying pan, just the way god intended. I can’t really say much about it because it was a typical fried breakfast, a pretty good one at that. If you like that kind of thing and you are indeed flying on a budget airline, you could go a great deal worse than eating here. In terms of the lunch/dinner menu, I don’t suppose it’s much different from the other Giraffes, meaning that it remains a great place to go and grab a bite before your flight. (I’m rhyming now, genius writing crossed with simplistic poetry is just one of my many untapped talents.)

4/5

Price

A restaurant in a location with a captive audience… There isn’t a single moment in all of history where this didn’t mean vastly inflated prices. My Breakfast was over £8, which is far too much, but I’m pretty sure it’ll be the same situation anywhere, so what can you do…

3/5

Overall

Nice restaurant, good food, slightly odd location, decent service, 3x large Giraffes. What more could a soon to be jet-lagged man ask for?

4.5/5

499