At Capital One Landing in Washington National airport, the food that gets people talking is the José Andrés menu — the steak, the garlic shrimp, the Spanish ham. But the quiet star of the lounge sits behind the pastry case: the xuixos, cream-filled fried pastries that have sent at least one frequent flyer back to the counter for seconds.
A xuixo is not a lounge croissant with better branding. It hails from Girona in Catalonia, dates back to 1918, and is essentially a cross between a fried croissant and a filled doughnut. Custard goes in before frying, sugar coats the outside, and you end up with a crisp shell giving way to warm cream. Finding a genuinely good one beside the American Airlines gates at DCA is not something anyone would have predicted.
On recent visits the lounge was running three varieties. The flagship is labelled vanilla, citrus and cinnamon — smaller print reveals it is a crema catalana filling, the classic custard that first drew attention to the pastry here. Alongside it there is a passionfruit cream with lime zest and a chocolate cream version, which tends to get replenished after the morning rush wipes it out. (Capital One spells it "xuxo" on the labels; "xuixo" is the standard Catalan spelling, plural xuixos. Same pastry, either way.)
What is surprising is how little buzz these have generated. The writer behind View from the Wing has been evangelising them for a while — one visit ended with a second crema catalana pastry ordered and demolished; on another, the crema catalana was sold out, and he still put away one and a half of the alternatives. His verdict for sceptics worried about the calorie count: you are wrong.
Beyond the pastries, the lounge itself holds up well. The afternoon spread is the stronger of the two dayparts, but breakfast deserves a mention — it is rated among the better lounge breakfasts around, in a category that usually means sad scrambled eggs and a fruit bowl. Between the José Andrés savoury dishes and a bakery case worth queueing for, Capital One Landing has quietly become one of the more compelling reasons to arrive early at National.
For travellers: if you hold a Capital One card with lounge access or can otherwise get in, this is a pre-flight stop worth planning around, not an afterthought. Skip the usual grab-and-go at the terminal, head straight for the pastry counter, and if you see the crema catalana version, take two — it has a track record of selling out. Even the chocolate one apparently requires a second trip to the counter to catch fresh.
