Food takes flight at Changi Airport

With a wide range of dining options, the hub has been named the top airport for food lovers in a 2025 poll

- Cherie Lok

In most countries, few people travel to the airport for the fun of it. Airport fare, after all, does not have the best reputation: soggy sandwiches and bland bowls of noodles forced down your throat at criminal prices.

But for fans like Ms Lyanna Wong, who lives in Simei, the food at Changi Airport is far from a grim necessity. Ranked as the top airport for foodies in a 2025 survey by Australian digital agency SEO For Restaurants — based on restaurant ratings, variety of establishments and average food prices — this liminal space has become a destination for locals.

The 38-year-old homemaker takes her three children, aged four to nine, to the airport at least once a week. "My kids love Crown Prince Kitchenette at Terminal 3. They ask to go there nearly every weekend, and have declared it the 'best restaurant ever'," she says.

"It's just an easy, familiar place for us. These restaurants are kid-friendly and have a variety of options that suit my children's tastes."

Another frequent visitor, Ms Ng Leng Leng, makes the journey down from Seletar thrice a month, drawn by the good food and Jewel Changi Airport's calming ambience.

"The dining options are representative of Singapore's food culture and adequately provide transit or business visitors, who have no time to venture out, with a taste of Singapore," says the 46-year-old, who works in insurance.

All this is by design. Mrs Chandra Mahtani, senior vice-president of airside concessions at Changi Airport Group (CAG), says: "We have about 70 million people who pass through the airport yearly, and they're very diversified in terms of nationality and age group. They look for different things. So, what we need, and have always planned to do, is to ensure that we have an expansive range of food and beverage options to suit every one of our passengers."