In Defense of Airport Sushi
Maggie Cowles
This article is part of our airport food survival guide, which includes tips and tricks—even a hot take or two—that challenge the notion that airport meals are always dull, overpriced, and tasteless.
Airport sushi. Did you just audibly blech? Instinctively gag? Tell me if your stomach turned a little—at the suggestion alone?
I can’t blame you. There’s a reason that a Google search for “airport sushi” will bring up, first, an SNL skit (plot: everyone is horrified when Pete Davidson considers buying airport sushi), and second, a suggested question: “is it safe to eat airport sushi?” (if you have to ask…). The wider public can seemingly agree on nothing, bar the fact that raw seafood can’t be properly executed in an environment so inhospitable as an airport. At best, it’ll taste bad, they say; at worst, it’ll make you sick.
I’d argue that airport sushi just needs better PR.
Granted I haven’t been to Japan; I haven’t walked the aisles of Tokyo’s greatest fish markets; and I’m no Michelin-star-touting sushi chef. However, I’ve been to my share of fantastic sushi restaurants stateside. I know great fish when I see it—and no, I haven’t had great fish in an airport. I have had perfectly fine fish, over and over, and I’ll tell you something else: I’ve never gotten ill from it.
What I have also had in airports, it bears mentioning, are awful turkey and cheese sandwiches; fruit cups that make me unsure of which phase of the compost process they’re in; and pastries so rock hard I think TSA should consider them weapons of blunt force. I’m not saying the best sushi is found in airports; I’m simply insisting that sushi can be a worthy choice in any terminal bold enough to serve it.
Hear me out: You’re tired. You’ve been traveling for over a week, eating like a teenager. You’re not 100% yourself anymore. You’re gearing up for a red-eye, maybe you’re heading to the office right upon landing the next morning, and you have two choices: a honking Philly cheesesteak from some chain you’ve only seen in a Greyhound station or a humble little sushi counter, where some soul is trying their best to roll up a salmon-avocado number for travelers who want something lighter and brighter. Don’t bother exerting yourself by calculating where the nearest ocean is—walk up and grab a seat at that counter.
When that cool mix of rice, fish, and some crunchy green veggie, salty with soy sauce, hits your lips, you won’t be blown away. But amid the sheer violence of the airport experience, you might be pleasantly surprised. You might feel relieved. Airport sushi carries the vague allure of health, of a more-civilized outside world; at the very least, there’s the absence of gut-busting grease and fryer oil that will cling to your clothes, which you can’t swing a piece of pickled ginger in most airport terminals without hitting these days. As Davidson’s character in that SNL skit puts it, I just “want a nice balance of carbs and protein… sell me the sushi, man!”
It’s easy to throw up your hands and ask the obvious. Where does the fish even come from?! I emailed Bento, one of the largest airport sushi suppliers in the US, to ask this very question. No reply. And so what if airport sushi is a bit of a mystery—isn’t all airport food? (And, to that end, most sushi, if you really want to get into it.)
At the airport sushi counter, where prices are no more offensive than the highway robbery over rubbery personal pizzas and gigantic pretzels, a confident—and meager—crowd silently communes over their unassuming California rolls. Recently, I turned to the only other person seated at a sushi bar in John F. Kennedy airport, an “Alaska roll” in a plastic tray at their fingertips. “Airport sushi gets a bad rap—but it’s totally fine, right?” I asked. "I've never had anything below supermarket level," my new friend Shoshanna from Phoenix said, shrugging.
Where to find the best airport sushi
If you're in search of reliably good (dare we say great) airport sushi, James Beard-nominated One Flew South located in Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport's Concourse E comes highly recommended by travel writer Jordi Lippe-McGraw. Meanwhile, writer Mary Holland's favorite pre-flight meal at the Mexico City International Airport is a nigiri assortment from Sushi Iwashi, tucked away in the Terminal 2 waiting area, outside the security checks.
And of course, one place we can confidently recommend airport sushi you won't regret is Japan (surprise, surprise). Andres Zuleta, a travel specialist and founder of Boutique Japan, tells me that his colleagues have had great meals at Tatsu Sushi, a casual tachigui ("stand and eat") sushi spot in Narita Terminal 3, and Sushi Kyotatsu, which has 3 locations in Narita (Terminals 1 and 2, and the North Wing) and a surprisingly good 3.5 rating on Tablelog. For their part, the team at the Japanese National Tourism Organization (JNTO), when asked about in-terminal dining, said that the notion of “airport sushi” as something to be looked down upon is pretty foreign to them (“more of an American thing,” a PR representative wrote). There you have it.
Originally Appeared on Condé Nast Traveler
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