Good shop/bad shop

Good shop: Carluccio’s

Landside, Heathrow T5

Strange things, landside retail outlets. Who visits them? Certainly not the average traveller, who is preoccupied with facing the security assault course. (The day must soon arrive when we’ll have to strip fully before entering the metal detector.) So, it is mostly the friends and family crowd, who are left with few choices because there is no attempt to create a landside shopping destination at T5.

Carluccio’s, bizarrely given the T5 hype, is a little oasis of warmth and comfort in an austere departures hall. It has a brand experience formula so competent, it wouldn’t surprise me if more foodie mementos bought landside at T5 are Italian rather than British.

Bad shop: Glorious Britain

Landside, Heathrow T5

Set against what we’ve all heard about T5 being such a national asset, first-day disasters notwithstanding, Glorious Britain strikes a discordant note.

An attempt to adjust clichéd perceptions of dear old Blighty and all she stands for, this ain’t. This feast of grey slatwall and products of the Beefeater teddy bear variety smacks of a missed opportunity. When one considers the potential that is offered by a store experience in this high-profile context, themed on the essence of contemporary Britain, and the standard of the equivalent in some other airports around the world such as Cape Town or Sydney, it’s enough to make the heart sink.