For this special edition of “Flying For Food,” we review the Typhoon restaurant at the Santa Monica Airport (SMO) in California. I didn’t fly into SMO for a meal, I visited the airport during my West Coast road trip vacation this past August. I just so happened to be at SMO around lunchtime…

A beautiful Cirrus sitting on the ramp at KSMO with the control tower on the opposite side of the airfield!

Typhoon offered a diverse menu and a beautiful view of the airfield from the dining room (as well as from the outdoor seating area). Typically these reviews start with a portion about the flight into the airport where the restaurant is based. Since I drove to Santa Monica, I don’t have a flight story to tell…

The Santa Monica Airport has been an interesting story in the news. Essentially it boils down to the City of Santa Monica not wanting to have an airport, because blah, blah, blah, any reason they can think of to turn the land into more housing or retail space… I don’t want to get into my personal opinions on this, but it’s safe to say I think that the public messages about “safety issues” are grossly overstated… Now that I’ve been to the airport I can say it was not at all what I expected.

The Santa Monica Airport was a bustling aviation economic epicenter. The field was in great conditions and surrounded with an aviation museum, aviation themed restaurant and a park! The airport was packed with a wide array of aircraft from sport aircraft to large corporate jets.

Typhoon is a lunch and dinner restaurant, with an open kitchen and a full bar. I noticed a Hangar 24 Craft Brewery beer on tap at the bar, such a great tap handle!

We ate in the dining room, but there was an outside seating area with an exceptional view of the entire airfield!

The menu was jam packed with variety and I decided on the Pad Thai and a side order of Dumplings. The Asian menu options were very good looking and the taste matched the look! The Pad Thai was very fresh and flavorful. The Dumplings were even better, freshly cooked and extremely flavorful.

The table in the restaurant had a great view over the airfield. We weren’t on the window, but there was no one between our table and the window as they had a small stage set up for some live music planned for later that particular evening. At one point between the light aircraft coming and going from Runway 21, a beautiful Gulfstream IV touched down seemingly right in front of us; the restaurant’s view was truly amplified by this large corporate jet.

The dining room., complete with wrap-around windows overlooking the ramp and runway!

If you’re flying around Southern California and looking for a great airport and a great place to eat drop into the Santa Monica Airport and Typhoon. The portions are generous and the entire staff was beyond great. I really wish there was a place like this that I could fly to in Massachusetts!

-Fly Safe, @MTElia1B9