Todd English’s Bonfire

Ok, I realize I’m eating at an airport restaurant, but geez, this food was awful even for an airport.
I ordered a hamburger cooked to medium (they don’t do medium rare). It took over 30 minutes to get it and it was cooked to medium well++. I can understand food coming out late if they are getting killed with orders but the restaurant was quite empty the night I was there. It seemed to me that the cooks were more interested in chatting up the wait staff than they were cooking a proper hamburger. Mark that down as a disadvantage of a restaurant having an open kitchen.
The awful food with an over priced bill for an hamburger that’s had the life cooked out of it and an average beer will have you jumping on first flight to anywhere to escape the 37 buck joke that Todd English has played on you.
I’d take my name off of this abomination if I was Todd English. ZERO fucking stars…

Wow. That was a disappointment. I ordered a breakfast quesadilla. The tomatoes were old. The smoked salmon questionable and the tortilla greasy. Kinda afraid to eat it.
Lovely waiter though. Not his fault

I would like to give zero stars… I ordered the steak lettuce wraps. An appetizer that took over 30 min! When it arrived it was wet, bland and falling apart. I had to wait about another 20 minutes until my waiter finally came back (the restaurant was not busy) I told him I didn’t like it and I was sending it back. The manager came over to ask me what the problem was. I told him the same thing I told the waiter. His response? «Well it’s filet mignon so I don’t understand how that’s possible». Well you destroyed a perfectly delicious cut of steak then sir. Shame on you. Avoid this place at all cost! Go to the McDonald’s in the food court instead. It will be faster, cheaper, and have more flavour.

I’m probably too familiar with JFK’s Terminal 7 since I use United a lot when I go to New York, and while there looks to be a lot of eating options in the food court, they are mostly substandard fast food. The one sit-​down place that’s almost worthwhile is this place. Todd English is a chef mostly known for his tabloid headlines — drunk driving in the Hamptons (…watch out, Ina!), broken engagement with a woman who hit him with his own wristwatch, getting photographed with topless girls in a hot tub, shuttered restaurants with unpaid debts — and he has that self-​satisfied, smirky manner that makes me switch the channel when he’s on TV. Regardless, he has one of his many restaurants in the food court here, and it’s called rather appropriately Bonfire.
It stands out only because you get waited on here, but otherwise, it didn’t make much of an impression on me. The menu is new jack American which appears to be his specialty, so i ordered the $ 14.95 Caesar Salad, which was one of the oddest presentations I’ve ever seen of this standard-​issue dish. It was a whole Romaine heart uncut and doused completely in dressing with shards of Parmesan, three small triangle-​shaped crostini and three little piles of capers (photo:
). It was a mess waiting to happen because it was thoroughly challenging to cut into without having it splatter everywhere. It tasted decently enough once I got it under control, but seriously, why was the overly artful presentation such a priority for travelers with planes to catch?
FOOD — 3 stars… why not dismantle a Caesar?
AMBIANCE — 3 stars… it’s the airport, what do you expect?
SERVICE — 2.5 stars… seemed a bit preoccupied
TOTAL — 3 stars… what price art, Todd… a splattered shirt, I guess

I can’t comment on the food, as I’ve been at the bar at this airport restaurant waiting a half hour for mine, but the staff seem far more interested in, well, everything than helping me. I’ve never had to ask a bartender three times for a food menu. Croque Monsieur across the way next time.

For Hoegaarden on tap at a terminal for regional jets, this place was acceptable. (Did not serve the Hoegaarden in hexagonal glass which cost them a star.) Decent décor, uncrowded and Vasili, the waiter, was funny and attentive.
Observing patrons around me I have to say service is slow. Another person ordered nachos and waited 45 minutes for her food. Unless Todd English is in the back personally baking the tortilla chips from scratch 45 minutes for nachos is ridiculous.

65 bucks for 2 mediocre salads, chicken fingers and slow service? Go elsewhere!

The food here is ridiculously overpriced and the waitresses were not attentive.
The food isn’t bad to be honest, but tonight as I was going through all my receipts I saw that they changed my 15% tip to a 33% tip. Bunch of crooks working at this place. I’m submitting my dispute as I type this!
Keep your credit cards away or bring briefcases full of cash. (check out Bob L’s review too!)

Surprisingly pretty good for airport food but maybe shouldn’t be too surprising given that it’s a Todd English restaurant. The French onion soup was tasty, had lots of cheese as not as much bread which is the way I like it. The steak tips in lettuce wraps with pico de gallo and avocado were also were flavorful, though a little wet which is typical of lettuce wraps.

I stopped in for a beer, but neglected to easily figure out that I couldn’t bring outside food into the restaurant. My bad.
The beer was just what I needed. What I didn’t need was the disengaged service. The Olympics were on the TV and the Bar Keep was not to be diverted from watching the swimming competition. So I patiently waited until the event was over to ask for service. And after a deliberate «how dare you» scowl, I got my beer. Interestingly enough, She was much faster afterwards telling me about the scofflaw sandwich I brought into the restaurant.

Was here on July 7^th 2012. Food was ok going from Cleveland to Shannon Ireland .
Paid with credit card. Big mistake. They have Some one inside who copied magnetic strip on the card. By the time I got to Ireland card was used 3 times at 25^th street CVS for $ 800,$ 400 and $ 200. I don’t live in N Y and was the only place I used the card.
Ruined my vacation
Suggest stay away and if not pay only in cash!
Bob L

Half the menu was not available.
I ordered guacamole and chips because that was the only choice left to me as a vegetarian, and I thought it should be pretty hard to mess up. I was wrong.
The chips were not crisp (someone left them open to the air for a couple of days?) And the (underseasoned) avocadoes in the guacamole tasted faintly aged. Now im wondering if i will be sick on my flight if i finish this disgusting plate.

Would give «0» stars, but their staff were nice and hardworking.
Food SUCKED. Fried calamari were tough to eat. Shaved Asparagus salad was just okay. The asparagus stalks were tough. We are in NYC. Who still get chewy and tough calamaris anymore???
Needless to say these dishes were not high quality, even with the name «Todd English» slapped on it. Yes, this is only an airport restaurant and not one of his fancy pants restaurants. But Todd, this restaurant still bears your name.
Goes to show, good looks do not make great food.

Here’s the deal:
(1) It’s in an airport.
(2) It’s a syndicated version of a celebrity chef’s restaurant creation.
(3) It is seriously overpriced for the quality of food that is delivered to you.
(4) The service is mediocre at best.
Look, you are trapped in the worst (possibly) airport in the United States with a layout designed by a 3-​year. You have limited dining options that are not «fast food», and you are essentially trapped while on layover because you cannot get into the City and back to the airport before your connecting flight.
In essence, you are screwed. And this just might be your best worst option. They’re all bad (Legends, Todd English, Chili’s Too), but this might be the best of the worst.

The Skinny: mediocre overpriced food (1) service: do not eat here unless you want to miss your flight! (0), value: $ 44 pretax for a plate of fish tacos, chicken tacos, chips and salsa plus shitty service… this place gets a 0.
I admit. I should have read the reviews for this place on Unilocal.If we had, we would have never ventured into this venus flytrap otherwise known as Bonfire Grill.
Yes, we were allured by the Todd English name. He should be frankly embarassed to put his name on this horrible establishment.
First, let’s start off with the state of non-​service in this supposedly fully service restaurant.
Our waiter came by and took our orders (which we had to repeat twice to make sure he got it right). We never saw him again until 30 minutes later when he finally got around to bring glasses of water. Perhaps he dawdled to entice us to sample the unopened bottles of water on the table so he could bump up the tab. I don’t know. After that, it took nearly an hour from the time we sat down to receive any food — and this is at an airport restaurant! I also noted many others had to leave food behind or had to pack it up to go because of how slow this place is. Finally when we were able to flag him to down for the cheque, he took care of another person’s cheque first… even though we asked for ours first. It literally took us 1.5 hours to get out of this gong show.
As if the service wasn’t bad enough, the food was just as horrific. Although placed prettily on a plate, this place has some mighty balls to proclaim that they have a «taqueria» as there is nothing here with the flavourings of onion, cilantro or lime.
The chips and salsa ($ 8) seems like an easy enough dish. The chips were served cold and sugar was clearly added to salsa to give it a ketchup like taste.
The fish tacos ($ 17) were amazingly bland with a clump of sauerkraut like substance thrown on top instead of a slaw as promised. The chicken in the chicken tacos ($ 15) were smothered with the subpar pico de gallo described above while the protein was tough. As they say, «No es bueno!»
Overall, this experience was absolutely terrible. I think the Wendy’s next door offers better eats. At least they wouldn’t make you wait 1 hour for your food.

Eek. Way overpriced and surprisingly sad food. It all sounded great on the menu and even looked relatively pretty on the plate… but the burger and fries were BLAND. How do you mess up a burger and fries? A $ 20 burger and fries WITH BACON??? It’s amazing how boring that burger was.
Luckily, the skirt steak tacos we ordered were tasty and the meal was paid for with Delta vouchers. Otherwise, we would have been really pissed.

I’m with Jeremy M — this place is almost 4 stars for being at JFK airport. Sure it’s waaaaaay overpriced for what you get, but so are the $ 4 candy bars they sell at the airport news stand. The food is actually not that bad. I had a flank steak that was served on a bed (a large bed — see pics) of tortilla chips. It was arguably the best presented airport food I’ve ever had, although I must admit if you get your steak on the rarer side the tortilla chips get a bit soggy with blood — yes less than idea to eat bloody tortilla chips.
Portions were good, service was as friendly as you’ll get at JFK. Your best bet for food at JFK terminal 7.

i was at the airport way too early for my flight. after binge eating approximately one million food items over the past 3 days on my NYC FOODSTRAVAGANZA, i hadn’t eaten a single thing that day until i reached the airport at 4pm.
i was told NEVER to get mexican in NY since i come from SF where there is an endless supply of great mexican food. Mexico is too far from NY for there to be great authentic mexican in NY, you see. take that however you want to. you know what i mean.
but Todd English is a pretty well known chef, so i wrongfully assumed that his restaurant might provide some great nachos. they were pretty «meh.» the guacamole looked like green liquid. WTF? it could have been ninja turtle slime for all i knew. (just kidding, it just made me think of ninja turtles for some reason, so i had to throw that in there some how) oh well. the nachos weren’t horrible, they just weren’t great. the burgers looked good though.

Recently had a two-​hour layover at JFK and wanted a place to sit and have a cocktail. (It was my 15^th wedding anniversary, we were starting our vacation, and I wanted to splurge.)
Good thing we’d already situated ourselves at the bar before I looked up the Unilocal reviews. Yes, it’s pricey — just about any airport restaurant with table service will be, especially in NY, NY. But surprise, surprise, the food was really good! I ordered a margarita rocks, and my husband had a Stella draft. We split the «Medusa» guacamole and chips (see my photo) along with the burger and fries. The guac was freshly made and very tasty, with big chunks of avocado and more than a hint of spice. The burger was well cooked, nice and cheesy and topped with caramelized onions. We found that adding the guacamole to the burger further improved the taste sensation. Our bartender was friendly and efficient, and we made it to our gate in ample time.

This is one of those times I’m glad I didn’t check Unilocal before I ate somewhere. My experience was a bit different than most reviewers. I came in this afternoon, waited 5 minutes to be seated b/​c it was packed. When I was seated I placed my order skirt steak tacos since I had been checking out the menu while waiting.
8 minutes later I had my entrée. It was excellent by airport food standards. Like most airport food, it was overpriced/​expensive, but compared to other airport grub I’ve had, this was a cut above. Thomas, my server got me in and out of there in 24 minutes.
If I’m back in the Terminal 2/​Delta terminal of JFK around Gate 22 — I’ll absolutely be exploring more of the menu at Bonfire.