Heathrow Terminals 2 & 3 - The Curator

Friday 12th May 2023

I say with some degree of confidence that I'm fairly certain no one has ever uttered the sentence "I just can't wait for Tsingtao when we land". So with that in mind and the prospect of spending a week with a friend who, wrongly, is of the opinion that beer isn't that nice, it was right to get one last pint down me before my trip to the far east and then the very far south.

Heathrow Terminals 2 & 3 is the oldest of all the tube stations serving Europe's busiest airport, opening in 1977, forty-one years after the airport. Back then it was built to serve Terminals 1, 2 & 3, but despite the closure of Terminal 1 in 2016, the roundels on the platform have maintained the name Heathrow Terminals 1, 2, 3. The terminal's closure also put an end to the only Underground Station with a name containing commas.

On the platform multi-coloured tiled columns are interspersed between walls with murals depicting a plane's tail. Regrettably, I didn't have much time to appreciate the station's features with my flight due to depart an hour and a half after my arrival at the station. I did, however, quickly realise that Terminal 3 is quite a walk through several interconnected tunnels from the tube.

Fortunately, due to very efficient staff on the Cathay Pacific front desk, I checked-in in no time and after spending a small fortune on pocket sized toiletries from Boots I had enough time to enjoy that other pre-departure highlight, the pub. After a gander round the terminal, my eyes were drawn to an iluminated sign advertising craft beer (and burgers - though these are significantly of less interest to a pub journalling vegetarian).

The Curator, with 'the' italicised suggesting it perhaps suggesting it should be pronounced 'Thee Curator', was 3/4 restaurant, 1/4 pub, with a series of stools for drinkers immediately on your left after entering. Safe in the knowledge that I'd soon be eating Cathy Pacific's best attempt to align the texture and smell of an omelette with regurgitated baby food, I joined what seemed like mostly solo travellers enjoying their last sip of alcohol on British soil.

This was only after a rather long wait at the bar to find there was in fact no craft beer and only a small selection on draft. I ordered a Camden Helles hoping the pint's price and beauty would soften this blow but it did not, coming to a whopping £7.50 (my most expensive pint to date) and without a head.

With my holiday already ruined I took a stool by the window fronting onto the airport lounge. This one window a brief interlude from the wooden clad walls sitting above faux bricks with vegetable prints hanging from them. Quite what Thee Curator had been curating wasn't abundantly clear but with an array of lampshades on dispaly throughout the establishmenet, I counted seven, I'm going to assume it was that.

I quickly finished my pint and headed off to my gate, disappointed I hadn't had the utopian airport pub experience to start off all the holiday excitement. Perhaps it was travelling alone or perhaps it was the loss of the cheap, well-headed craft beer I'd hoped for upon entering The Curator. Needless to say I was on the Tsingtaos before we'd even left British Airspace.