CULINARY EXPERTISE

CULINARY EXPERTISE

Our Restaurants and Chef Partnerships Make the Difference

At HMSHost, culinary innovation is key to delivering the best possible dining experience for travelers. HMSHost has a team of internal executive chefs and celebrity chef and restaurateur partners that personally develop our menus, and our relationships help us to provide a diverse and robust dining program to meet the needs of all travelers.

James Beard Foundation Sponsorship

In the spirit of culinary celebration, HMSHost has been a proud sponsor of the James Beard Awards Gala since 2015. The James Beard Awards are the highest honor for culinary professionals in America and many of our chef partners have received or been nominated for this prestigious award. HMSHost operates restaurants in partnership with talented chefs recognized by the James Beard Foundation, including Hugo Ortega, Suzanne Goin, Rick Bayless, Wolfgang Puck, Susan Feniger, Mary Sue Milliken, Todd English, Erick Williams, and more. Our relationships with these chefs and the extraordinary food they create for our guests are paramount in creating unforgettable dining experiences for our guests.

Learn more about the James Beard Awards here.

Featured Chefs

Restaurants

HMSHost creates a fresh, engaging sense of place for travelers with popular local and specialty destinations, as well as new experiences they may be seeing for the first time with our exclusive restaurants. We invite you to explore some of our dining locations here.

Brand Partners

HMSHost partners with some of the most famous and beloved national brands for travelers seeking the familiar.

Starbucks
Shakeshack
Pret
Blazepizza
Jerseymikes
Californiapizzakitchen
Peiwei
Firehouse
Burgerfi
Lettuceey
Landrys
Pizzastudio
Panera

Creative Spaces

HMSHost’s expertise enables us to deliver customized, award-winning dining solutions for unique spaces. Explore how, through creative design and offerings, HMSHost has been able to develop new, revenue-driving opportunities for our client partners.

The Unconventional

There is often unseen opportunity for restaurants and bars in areas of an airport that are sometimes overlooked due to their unusual configuration or mechanical complexity. Having the vision to identify dining solutions for these spaces, and the capacity to execute complex design and construction is an undertaking that HMSHost skillfully brings to travel venues. Tight areas that were not necessarily intended to be occupied can be adapted to meet travelers’ needs and create sales. To the untrained eye, many areas in airport terminals may appear to be simple passageways between gates; but HMSHost has been recognized by the industry for unique and successful delivery of dining solutions in these types of spaces. Wicker Park Seafood & Sushi, in Chicago O’Hare International Airport offers an exclusive dining experience in spaces between gates, that in the past would not have offered a restaurant. In Kansas City International Airport HMSHost identified an unused office space a level above the gate area for an exclusive gastro-pub and BBQ restaurant called Pork & Pickle, and the area now draws travelers from below with the aromas of smoking meat filling the air.

Farmers Market

HMSHost has transformed many airport spaces with its “farm to fork” dining offering, Farmers Market, customizing each based on the opportunity each space presents. Eating local produce and food is now possible in many airports. Fresh is indeed the key to Farmers Market with healthy salads and sandwiches, as well as other nutritious and sustainable to-go items. You can’t get more local than the Farmers Market—this offering at Chicago O’Hare International Airport actually offers beelove™ honey produced on airport grounds by formerly incarcerated individuals employed by Sweet Beginnings, a subsidiary of the North Lawndale Employment Network. Farmers Market uses a quick-service format that can be applied to unique airport spaces such as baggage claim areas, pre-security, and in tighter areas around terminal passageways. Customized examples of Farmers Market can be found in Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International, Charlotte Douglas International Airport, Fort Myers International Airport, and Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, in addition to the O’Hare location.

Catering Space at B Concourse, Lambert-St. Louis International Airport

Creating solutions for the innovative use of spaces is often a joint effort. HMSHost worked with partner Lambert-St. Louis International Airport to deliver catering services to a previously unused part of the airport that has now been transformed into an event space—26,000 square feet in Concourse B featuring sweeping views of Lambert's airfield. With the culinary staff and kitchen facilities necessary to execute any type of large scale event, HMSHost is capable of matching any style of event in terms of creating a menu to serve complex gourmet fare at events such as Lambert’s annual event, The Art of Travel.

Kiosk Programs

A passion for serving travelers great food regardless of the venue format has driven HMSHost’s kiosk program to always be committed to quality and freshness. HMSHost realized long ago that all too often grab-and-go kiosks are at times underserved in airports and that the ability to access a fresh meal is just as important from a kiosk as it is in a traditional restaurant space. HMSHost believes food from a kiosk should be healthy and appetizing for refueling travelers. That’s why when visiting an HMSHost kiosk, travelers find and can expect something fresh, healthful, and enjoyable to eat from HMSHost’s kitchens. HMSHost has even infused a chef-driven approach to grab-and-go in certain kiosk venues such as at Los Angeles International Airport with popular vegan cuisine from Real Food Daily and sandwiches from ink.sack.