(Bloomberg) -- Capital One Financial Corp. is shaking up the airport lounge space with its latest opening at DC’s Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, which opens Tuesday.
Though it marks the fourth Capital One Landing lounge for the McLean, Virginia-based banking company, it’s the first of several planned partnerships with acclaimed chef José Andrés. As such, it’s more like a private, high-end restaurant—with food you’d rave about even outside an airport—than a traditional rest-and-recharge space. Bloomberg previewed the restaurant at an invitation-only dinner last Thursday.
A Washington local, Andrés says DCA has been his most frequented airport over the last 33 years. And while he owns more than 30 restaurants around the world, including eight in his hometown, Capital One Landing is his first foray into airport dining. “With [Capital One], we’ve always had this great partnership and they allow my voice to be what it needs to be,” he says, referring to trips he’s led exclusively for cardholders in the past.
At Andrés’s Zaytinya in DC, getting a reservation on a weekend evening means planning weeks in advance. Here, it’s as easy as having a Capital One Venture X or Venture X Business card up to three hours before your departing flight. If you have a Venture or Spark Miles card, entry costs $45; for everyone else it costs $90 to enter. In a democratic move, all travelers are welcome to enjoy a neighboring café with grab-and-go options.
“The opening of Capital One Landing comes at a time when air travel is on the rise and more and more passengers are looking for special dining experiences along the way,” says Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority chief executive officer Jack Potter.
At the preview dinner, the food was worthy of Andrés’s reputation—and not just an instance of a well-known chef slapping their name on a menu. Unlike most airport restaurants, everything is prepared fresh rather that pre-cooked. And like at the Bazaar by José Andrés, servers push interactive carts around the dining room. At breakfast they peddle mimosas in a variety of fruit combinations (orange, pomegranate and pineapple); in the afternoon, it’s a selection of cheesecakes (try the burnt Basque one).
During the preview event, there was a caviar cart—no word yet as to how often it’ll make appearances. And at the bar, there’s a tight selection of creative cocktails, Spanish wines, DC beers and mocktails such as the Negroni-esque “cuadra tura,” made with nonalcoholic vermouth and ginger spice.
Andrés confirms this is just the first lounge bearing his stamp, with “more to come” in the near future. Capital One’s Matt Knise, head of travel and premium product experiences, says travelers can also expect this type of chef-driven lounge experience at the three lounges in its current pipeline, set to include New York’s La Guardia (which will also be done in partnership with Andrés), John F. Kennedy International Airport and Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas.
“[It] will be an opportunity to have people enjoy my restaurants in the city, enjoy my hospitality with Capital One in the airport, then landing in another city and enjoying my restaurants in that other city,” says the chef of his plans to expand to airports from coast to coast.
A Novel Airport Dining Experience
Other Capital One Lounges already focus more on all-day dining and drinking than on quiet spaces, and DCA’s restaurant-first approach takes that to a new level.
Centrally located in Terminal 2 in the National Hall just past TSA, the sprawling 5,500-square-foot space is easy to spot through a large window, rather than being hidden on an upstairs level. Once inside, it feels like you could easily in the heart of Washington, if it weren’t for a side wall-to-ceiling window with direct views of planes on the tarmac, luggage nooks and outlets discreetly tucked into table edges.
Butterscotch and blue-colored leather banquettes are set beneath intricately knitted pendant lamps that cast a warm, ambient glow on patrons as they schmooze over Spanish tapas. If other airport lounges aim for nap- or work-friendly decibel levels, here there’s the noisy hum of diners clinking wine glasses and conversing about their adventures on layovers.
Service varies from the typical Andrés spot: Atop tables and at the bar are unglamorous QR codes to pull up the menu. But with ingredients sourced directly from Spain, the food will feel familiar to the chef’s fans. It includes items such as “pincho de tortilla” (a Spanish omelet) made with confit potatoes or olive oil pancakes at breakfast. At lunch or dinner, go for anchovies from Spain’s Cantabrian Sea and grilled hanger steak with a zingy Canary Islands-inspired mojo verde sauce.
To get a preview of the experience without paying for admission, anyone can order from “On the Fly,” a grab-and-go café adjacent to the lounge. There, options include grilled vegetable sandwiches, baba ghanoush with chips, and cups of chia oatmeal topped with coconut and quinoa. For Venture X and Venture X Business cardholders, there’s a substantial discount: 50% off all purchases.
This more democratic approach offers a stark contrast to the increasing cost and difficulty of getting into other lounges. At American Express Centurion Lounges, including the one that opened at DCA in September 2023, access has been reduced to curb overcrowding. Now it’s limited to those who spend more than $75,000 on their Platinum cards each year, plus two of their guests per visit.
Capital One is betting that it will appeal more to leisure travelers who won’t mind if the lounge becomes buzzy and crowded—and that free access will be desirable enough to lure new cardmembers. It’s a gamble on good time vibes versus productivity and relaxation, made just in time for business travel to start rebounding.
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