London's LHR Terminal 3 is the site of a number of OneWorld lounges, the airline alliance Alaska joined in 2021.
The lounges widely considered the best in T3 are the adjoining Cathay Pacific First and Business Class Lounges, and the nearby Qantas International London Lounge.
We've visited all three of these lounges on previous trips through LHR, but on our recent stopover en route home from Larnaca, Cyprus to Vancouver, we happily confined our attention to the Cathay Pacific First Class Lounge, open to passengers flying any OneWorld airline and holding Emerald status.
The lounge itself is intimate, inviting, and fortunately uncrowded during our two-hour visit.
It features comfortable seating and great runway views.
The self-serve bar is well stocked and its wines include a variety of no fewer than four Champagnes just waiting to be sampled.
We had spent a restful night at the Accor Sofitel connected to Terminal 5, and arrived at the lounge entrance after traveling between terminals on a free inter-airport section of the Heathrow Express.
We first were led to a table in the small restaurant and ordered from the menu.
As on previous visits, the service was great and the food was delicious.
We both started with the Dim Sum Basket. We had skipped dinner on the previous night’s flight and this was our first meal of the day. We obviously could have enjoyed a couple more baskets, but these were tasty morsels.
Brian chose a pan-fried Miso Salmon and Kathy a Vegetable Hot and Sour Soup. Still feeling peckish, as the British put it, we topped off our meals with Dan Dan Noodles.
Fully fortified, we lounged some more before making the 10-15 minute trek to our gate, where we boarded our British Airways A350 flight to Vancouver.
A highlight of this journey was the time we spent in one of the world’s most attractive lounges in one of the world’s (dare we say it?) least attractive major airports.
