Review Encalm lounge, New Delhi airport: if you must otherwise avoid it

New Delhi International Airport is home to Asia's second Centurion Lounge, the first is in Hong Kong. Unfortunately, however, it is located in the domestic flight area of T3, while the international terminal is the one most used by Italian passengers, both because this is where ITA flies, but also because it is what all the other airlines such as Emirates, Etihad, Lufthansa, and Air France use.

There are only two lounges in this area of the terminal, this Encalm and the lounge of Air India, Star Alliance airline, and hostess.

Location

The lounge is located on the upper floor than in the stores, as soon as you go through security and exit the duty free you have to turn left and take the escalator. You will pass the Air India lounge and arrive at the entrance to this VIP lounge.

Every time I passed by there was a fixed queue at the entrance. Queue due to the large turnout, but mostly due to passengers who line up even without having a title, or rather they have one but don't know with which credit card and so they try with all the credit cards in their wallets, yet there are screens showing the allowed methods and prints as big as houses.

Access

The modes are endless, or almost, but for us Italians the magic word is always the same Priority Pass. I have the Prestige card, included in the annual fee of my Amex Platinum that in addition to giving me unlimited access to lounges around the world, even 10 lounges on the same day, Allows me to bring a guest for free as often as I want to. The guest can also be a stranger, who does not travel with me. In addition to this I feel it is only fair to mention that with each Platinum you can have two PPs, for a total of 4 free accesses at a time.

The lounge

It is a huge open space overlooking the terminal. One cannot speak of a view even though the glass wall runs along the walkway leading to the terminal food court. There are sofas in the front row, toward the glass wall while in the middle is the classic bar setup.

Then there are areas with sofas and other types of seating, but there is no relaxation area and the lounge is very, very, noisy. Let's say that the chaos that is in the rest of the airport is replicated here, with the added factor of food.

At the opposite end from the entrance is a TV area, but it doesn't compare to other lounges I've visited in my life, because they are simply TVs on in front of couches showing advertisements and news all the time.

The worst thing about the lounge I think is just the noise.

Food & Beverage

There is a cold buffet and an open kitchen area. The quality of the offerings is very questionable.

I passed by a couple of times and the chef prepared 100 omelets per minute, a machine not a human being.

There is then a hot buffet portion with typical Indian cuisine, read SPICY.

There is a nice bar counter, almost looks like a real bar and serves alcohol in profusion, opposite is a second smaller counter dedicated to hot drinks.

Here we say that to understand the level of food preservation one only needs to see how the "ladles" of Masala Chai are tanned and how the same is prepared. Stuff that a HACCP manager dies every time an Indian orders a glass of this drink typical Indian, or maybe it is we Europeans who have too many rules to follow.

In conclusion

You could say either eat this soup or jump out the window. What can I say, there are chairs, power outlets, if you look for nothing else it will be a good experience, however, better bring earplugs.

• Priority Pass