My Experience at United’s Secret Restaurant “Classified”

My mileage run ended up giving me three hours to kill at EWR. I was pleasantly surprised when earlier this week, I was emailed an invite to dine at United’s invitation-only dining location near gate 120 at EWR.

Called, Classified, I read about it when it opened, but was never given an invite to attend before now. I was led to believe it was for 1K and GS members of Mileage Plus, but they apparently are dipping down into Platinums like me. I had nothing to lose and made a reservation.

Making a reservation time based upon a plane landing on time is a little trick, but I allowed 30 minutes from the scheduled time. Turned out we land a little early AND didn’t have to wait half an hour for the plane wranglers to get in into the gate. Although the reservation said it was near Gate 120, it wasn’t obvious from standing in front of that gate where it was. Reading further, it said to go to the restaurant Saisson and tell the host that you had a reservation for Classified.

After mentioning Classified to the host (should I have whispered it?), he led me back a long path.

Inside was a long narrow dining area. Basically, a dozen table with one aisle to serve. Smart use of what was probably back-of-the-house space that wasn’t making any money. There was a nice waitress who seated me and then explained how to use the tablet ordering system.

They had a full restaurant menu and were serving brunch since it was Sunday. The server recommended the burger, but I decided to go for something that I rarely have anywhere – a lobster roll. Added a beer and I was done.

One nice thing is that if you use your Chase United card, you get 20% off. Since the prices are normal for airport food, that pretty nice. As you can see, I got 7 bucks off. You do have an option to pay with miles, but that’s very poor value, less than a penny a mile.

The beer can a couple of minutes later and the meal within ten minutes.

Now, was this the best lobster I had ever had? No, but certainly good and meaty.

I should mention that for AvGeeks, you do get a nice view of the ramp. Unfortunately, heavy rains made it a poor day for sightseeing (and bumpy flying).

One thing that was really interesting is that they told me that once I had dined here, I did not need a future invite. Just go to the reservation site and book next time I am in EWR. I think I’ll bring the wife next time I have extra time at EWR.