As our regular readers know, we’re often (although not as often as pre-Pandemic) darting off to destinations both exotic and prosaic, and most of the time that means grabbing the occasional airport meal. As you can read in my many airport dining reviews, dining in airports is pretty much never ideal. You’re dealing with higher prices, service challenges, tight timelines, and often poor ambiance. But every once in a while I find a case where an airport managed to scare up an actually good option, such as our stop at Tony Luke’s at Philadelphia International Airport.
You have to hunt a bit for Tony Luke’s at PHL, it’s located in the far reaches of the airport in Terminal F, far enough from the main ticketing counter and security that I’m sure several PHL travelers are all “I didn’t even know there was a Terminal F!”. Indeed, the easiest way to get there, unless you want the exercise of a 3/4 mile walk (with the occasional moving walkway), is to take an inter-terminal airside shuttle bus to the relatively quiet and somewhat sleepy Terminal F. Despite all that, this is otherwise a fairly normal food court, with a Smashburger, a Sbarro, a La Coulombe, and… Tony Luke’s.
I can’t say that an airport concourse food court wins a lot of points for ambiance, but on the other hand, it’s actually better ambiance than I remember of the indoor and outdoor dining options back at the original Tony Lukes. Speaking of which, you can read my review of the original location of Tony Luke’s back in 2011, although you can’t actually go to that “Tony Luke’s” anymore. Back in 2015, the family owning Tony Luke’s had a family squabble that ended up with son Tony Luke Jr taking the franchise business, and his brother Nick and father Tony Sr taking the original business. Since then, Nick and Tony Sr were convicted and sentenced for tax fraud, and part of the fallout from that was the location changing to “Tony and Nick’s Steaks”. The two businesses have also diverged a bit with menu and service, and, at least in my opinion, the franchises generally perform better, especially when it comes to the classic “second sandwich” of the Philly area: the Roast Pork.
I love a good Philly style roast pork sandwich. The cousin to the cheesesteak, replacing the beef with copious slices of fresh-roasted pork loin, topped with provolone cheese and your choice of simmered broccoli rabe (or spinach in a few places). I always get mine with sharp provolone and the broccoli rabe, and that’s what I did at PHL. And how is it? It’s one of the best sandwiches around. Good, flavorful meat, juicy with all the dripping from the roasting pan. Sharp provolone for some tang. And some nice leafy green and bitter notes from the broccoli rabe. While a bit messy to eat, it definitely fortified us for our overnight flight to Portugal.
So yeah, airport dining isn’t all that bad at times. In the case of Tony Luke’s PHL, I’d say the end product is at least 95% as good as their other locations, with only airport inflation being a downer. Definitely worth wandering to that end of the airport if you have a long layover.
