Review: The fabled British Airways Concorde Room at London Heathrow

The Flight Detective
a room with a couch and chairs

The Concorde Room at London Heathrow is pitched as the best lounge the airline has to offer. You only gain access if you are flying in First, or if you are a very high level Gold Guest List frequent flyer in the Executive Club.

I’ve visited exactly once before, when I flew in First from London to Washington using Avios. Since that was six years ago and before the refresh, I was looking forward to visiting again.

An Invitation I Couldn’t Refuse

A friend of mine from University was flying to Australia in First with his fiancée. As they were able to bring a guest each into the lounge, another friend and I received invitations to join them.

We planned trips around their dates so that we could tag along. I hadn’t seen these people since before the pandemic, so it promised to be a lovely catch up, and it was!

Visiting the Concorde Room

Upon my arrival, I was duly guested in and immediately ordered a glass of the Laurent-Perrier Grand Siècle Champagne. A quick online search reveals this retails around €160/£170/US$180 per bottle.

When the third member of our party arrived, we decided to order something to eat. Since that sweet tooth of mine just won’t quit, I decided on the afternoon tea. How British! The others had various things and in due course the final person arrived. After eating, we decided to decamp to the terrace as we were in high spirits and wanted to avoid disturbing people around us.

The Bar, Those Lamps And More

One of the main features of the interior is the bar, complete with models of Concorde. It’s very precisely laid out so that everything looks very elegant. Since the booze is generally top shelf stuff, it makes sense to present it well.

You can elect to dine at the tables in the centre of the lounge, which we did not end up doing. Many people did eat there though, so it was used and is popular. By the way, that duck feet lamp retails for £1,676… I kinda want one!

Exploring The Lounge

Since it’s an airline lounge, the Concorde Room unsurprisingly contains many places to sit. There are many little nooks and crannies, with some set out a little bit like the living room in a home.

Privacy is the main theme that they seem to be going for here. The well heeled clientele can hide away quite unobtrusively if they so desire, which makes a lot of sense.

The Toilets

I was frankly not expecting anything different in the Concorde Room toilets compared to the ones in the Galleries First Lounge. Naturally I was wrong and found these ones feature a bidet.

There are Elemis products here, which have been supplied to BA for as long as I can remember. I wonder if they will ever move away from that brand?

The Concorde Room Terrace

Outside is the terrace, and as mentioned we headed out here for quite a bit of our stay. In a fitting tribute to the supersonic aircraft, the nose cone of one of them is situated here.

It’s rather nice and airy on the terrace, and it’s also where I sat when I visited back in 2016. It was never particularly busy either, which was also pleasing.

Sampling Some Drinks

While out there, we sampled some of the drinks on offer. We also ordered all the bar snacks – Truffle & Pecorino nuts, Sea salt & Balsamic vinegar crunchy corn & broad beans, Nocellara del Belice olives and Kalamata olives. In for a penny, in for a pound!

The Marmite Martini was interesting to say the least, but hey, it was worth trying. Everything else was very good as well, as you would expect from a high end lounge such as this.

Concorde Dining

Before we departed on our flights, we headed for the dining room and had dinner together. This is a really nice part of the lounge and there is plenty of food on offer.

By this stage I wasn’t taking photos of the food, but what we had was just as delicious as everything else we had eaten. Once done, we headed off after a lovely lounge interlude indeed.

Overall Thoughts

The British Airways Concorde Room is a very nice place to spend some time before flying. During our visit it never felt busy, though there were people passing in and out regularly. That made it feel very relaxing indeed, a calm oasis in the airport even!

Service was very attentive throughout and we never really ever had to find someone to bring us drinks. In fact, most of the time we were proactively offered top ups and so on without having to ask. The attention to the service was exceptional, as should probably be expected.

With delicious food and a wonderful selection of drinks, there is nothing to fault here. Everything was good, clean, comfortable and well presented, so I was happy all round.

Have you visited the British Airways Concorde Room at London Heathrow Terminal 5? What do you think of it having seen the pictures? Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.

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Christian

Thanks for the very comprehensive review. The lounge overall seems nice enough but a couple of things seem incongruous considering the reputation:

The food menu has a shortage of restaurant style entree options. A hamburger is fine but I’d rather expected a steak or veal option, as an example.

They offer 4 different vermouths but zero bourbon or Canadian whiskey options.

Jay master

Visited the Concorde lounge in June 2023 and still as good as the review describes. Friendly and professional staff. We had a delayed flight so enjoyed the a la Carte dining and a little too much fizz. Yes, lot of passenger flow but so much quieter than the club lounge which can be super busy with code Share and one world card holders. Great afternoon tea selection and cocktails were great. I’m miss the magazines which have vanished from all lounges post pandemic.

Shindig

Was there in January after not having been since pre-pandemic. The dining choices were-and look like they still are- considerably curtailed. I’m not a Champagne maven like my wife, but I preferred the English sparkling wine to the LPGS. She stuck with the LPGS after trying mine but admitted that the Brit bubbly was very good. I actually prefer the smaller CX business lounge in terminal 3 when flying AA as their noodle bar is nearly as good as The Pier at HKG.

Michael

Those departing in F on AA from T5 are supposed to have access to the Concorde Room, although recently all AA flights were switched back to T3 as BA wanted to use all the T5 gates.

Chad Smith

Was last there maybe 6 years ago and your pictures certainly show the updating that has been done. Glad to see the food and beverage menus have been improved as well.

ChuckMO

Quite an eclectic assortment of interior design styles. Seems like the only vibe missing was Sarasota Strip Club.

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