LEON | Budget-Friendly Airport Cuisine With A Twist

Extras soon rack up the price of a holiday, and having to spend all that extra cash can be frustrating. It’s easy to end up spending way more than you want to in the airport when it comes to food, but that’s where budget-friendly restaurant Leon at Stansted Airport comes in.

Given that our holiday to Fuerteventura was a budget one, we wanted our airport breakfast to be budget too. I’d almost lost faith after seeing another certain restaurant at Stansted Airport serving club sandwiches for £12.99 each… Until we came across LEON, with its brightly-lit logo and decorative charm.

LEON promises fast-food with bold flavours and natural goodness. As we were eating at the wonderful time of 5am we went for products on the breakfast menu, however they also serve hot lunch boxes, wraps, salads, and burgers from 11am, all with a Mediterranean twist. The breakfast menu is fairly varied and you can choose between muffins, poached eggs, porridge, and Greek yoghurt, or simply a dose of caffeine if you’re not all that hungry.

I was completely swayed by the poached eggs so had to go for this option, opting for the English breakfast poached egg. It contained the egg at the bottom plus sausage, bacon, and haricot beans, which were much more like the homemade variety than what you might get in a can of Heinz. The breakfast was served in a cute little pot – it was a small serving but I was expecting that at just £3.95 – and it really blended the flavours together well.

My partner decided to try out one of the breakfast muffins, and was able to have a special request of bacon and sausage together (the menu allows for either one meat, or combined with an egg). Again the portion was small, but it was again only £3.95 which is very good value compared to other restaurants within Stansted Airport! Like the breakfast pot, the muffin was full of flavour, and contained a beautiful Mediterranean sauce that I would never have considered to mix with breakfast items, yet it worked even better than your standard ketchup and added a slight zing.

As well as the food I really appreciated the decor of LEON, which was warmly lit and featured lots of vintage photographs on the wall. It was colourful but tasteful – not too vibrant for 5.30am but enough to make you feel excited about eating there. Generally it was quite spacious and the seating was very suitable for a fast-food location. Ordering the food was easy and the whole process from ordering to sitting down and eating took minutes.

I was impressed by the focus on eco-friendly products with LEON – all of the packaging used within our food was recyclable which is rare in the food world. They claim that their food is all natural and, while I can’t confirm that, it tasted a lot healthier than other fast food I’ve had before and I didn’t come away feeling bloated and over-full like I might do at McDonald’s or KFC, for instance.

I’d be happy to eat at LEON next time I’m at Stansted Airport as it didn’t break the bank yet served food that tasted great and kept me full for my flight. While it might not be best-suited for those who want a full sit-down meal, LEON is perfect for travellers that need something fast, budget, and above all full of flavour.

Where is your favourite place to eat at the airport? Let me know If you liked this review then don’t forget to like, pin, and leave a comment! You can also check out my other recent eatery reviews here:

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