Best airline food: Neil Perry, Matt Moran, Georges Blanc treat passengers
As the competition for luxury airline passengers heats up, so too do the gourmet meals by world-famous chefs.
Celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain never eats aircraft food, apparently. “I don’t eat on planes. I like to arrive hungry,” the gastro-guru told Bon Appetit magazine last week. “I think people only eat (airline food) because they’re bored.”
Or because they’re hungry. If Bourdain were based in Australia perhaps he wouldn’t be so picky about what’s on his plate — fasting for 14 hours in the air is no fun. The other striking off-note about his remarks is that they sound so out of date.
For at least a decade top carriers have invested big money in big names and prime produce to turn first and business class cabins into what they hope might resemble restaurants in the sky. They’ve figured the surest way to high-paying passengers’ hearts (and hopefully their loyalties, too) is through their stomachs.
Rockpool restaurateur Neil Perry has been in charge of Qantas’s premium menus now for 19 years. Fellow Australian chef Matt Moran has been on the Singapore Airlines culinary panel, alongside the likes of three Michelin-starred French chef Georges Blanc, for 13 years. Even Luke Mangan, a relative newcomer to high-altitude kitchen consulting, has been assembling Virgin Australia’s business menus since 2010.
Perry is now dishing up Rockpool favourites such as Fraser Island spanner crab and Cape Grim beef to appreciative passengers. It’s what he calls “producer to plane” cuisine.
“Qantas and Rockpool have changed the in-flight dining experience,” Perry says. “We literally cook and blanch in-flight and don’t simply reheat like other airlines.”
The Rockpool relationship has been such a boon for both parties that the restaurant group’s wine experts and “mixologists” now select all the drinks served on Qantas flights and in lounges, which is no small responsibility given the airline is the third largest buyer of Australian wine.
It’s part of a wave of initiatives by top carriers designed to lend a sense of luxury and indulgence to in-flight dining.
Qantas codeshare partner Emirates has just partnered with Dom Perignon to introduce a champagne-pairing menu in first class. Passengers can nibble on a choice of canapes, including cured duck with saffron-poached peach and sesame-coated tuna with wasabi mayo, while quaffing the current 2005 Dom vintage and the 2003 rose.
Of course, flyers may prefer to stick with the Emirates-farmed Yasa caviar from the regular menu. And those keen to whet their appetites pre-departure can enter their flight number and date on the Emirates website to see what food and drinks they’ll be served on-board, across all classes.
The Dubai-based carrier takes its drinks seriously; last year the airline spent $190 million buying more than 13 million bottles of wine. Emirates claims to have the largest cellar of any airline, made up of 2.2 million bottles maturing gently in Bordeaux, some of which won’t be ready to serve to discerning passengers until 2025.
There has also been some cross-cultural culinary exchange between the partner airlines. Mezze plates are now served upfront in Qantas cabins, and Neil Perry’s steak sandwiches and chicken schnitzels are offered to Emirates’ premium passengers.
British Airways head chef and menu designer Mark Tazzioli has a name for the type of food that needs to be served at 30,000 feet. He calls it “height cuisine” — the different flavours and preparations needed to compensate for dulled palates (our tastebuds lose about a third of their vigour at flying altitude) and galley constraints.
Tazzioli workshops menu ideas with the chefs who prepare BA meals in each port the airline serves. Hence all vegetables served aboard are marinated so they actually taste of something, and main courses tend to be big on flavour too. Present menu options at the front of the plane include wild mushroom and truffle mousse with a shimeji mushroom salad, and spicy Sichuan-style chicken with fried beans and steamed rice.
Increasingly, the in-flight dining experience is going off-menu.
Virgin Australia announced yesterday that business class passengers would be offered champagne cocktails and edamame, nuts and olives to snack on before their meals. There’s also a bar on board (likewise on Etihad, Emirates, Virgin Atlantic, Qatar and Korean, among others) for socialising, working or just for drinking, with snacks such as mezze plates and toasted sandwiches from the dedicated bar menu.
On Virgin, as with an increasing number of airlines, its deluxe passengers can eat whenever they’re hungry rather than having to wait for the trolley to trundle by.
At the ever-innovative Etihad, the first-class experience is akin to dining in a restaurant. Abu Dhabi’s national carrier employs almost 250 chefs to be on board with first class passengers and prepare listed menu items such as pan-seared tuna or Gulf lamb biryani, or to cook completely a la minute, whipping up whatever flyers desire using on-board pantries stocked with fresh produce.
Etihad says it benchmarks its in-flight dining against the best earthbound restaurants, hence the 500 food and beverage managers overseeing operations in its business class cabins. To underscore its gastronomic credentials, the airline has just signed on as sponsor of 15 Taste festivals internationally, including Sydney, Melbourne and Paris.
Qatar Airways, which began new daily direct A350 flights between Adelaide and Doha this month, is banking on celebrity pulling power with its on-board dining. Its consultant chefs include a man so famous he’s known by his nickname, Nobu. He and Indian chef Vineet Bhatia have cooked up the carrier’s business and first class menus, complete with some signature dishes such as Bhatia’s tasty breakfast offering of mushroom paratha with egg bhurji.
Since in-flight catering became a key battleground between airlines vying for the hearts and wallets of premium passengers, the push for more palatable food at 30,000 feet has started to trickle down to economy seats. For example, Qantas’s new domestic menus, introduced this month, feature such on-trend ingredients as quinoa, Israeli couscous and pulled pork with Mexican slaw and chipotle mayonnaise. And last month, Singapore Airlines introduced a range of healthy options for customers across all cabin classes.
Dubbed “Deliciously Wholesome”, the new dishes include citrus-steamed sea bass with lettuce puree (conceived by celebrity Italian chef Carlo Cracco) served at the front of the plane. In economy and premium economy, flyers can go gluten- and meat-free with quinoa, ratatouille and chickpeas, a meal the airline touts as being “high in protein, antioxidants and essential amino acids”. Similarly, steamed fish in wolfberry sauce is “rich in omega 3, vitamin C, iron and fibre”.
The airline even has a consultant nutritionist, Mayura Mohta, who says the new meal choices are “designed to restore and rejuvenate the body, especially on long-haul flights”. Surely it’s only a matter of time before juice stations and supplements appear on in-flight menus.
For all the flash produce and presentation going on in 21st century airline cabins, the most popular dish ordered by first class flyers is still a steak.
In Qantas first class, it’s the Rockpool steak sandwich with tomato and chilli relish. On British Airways, it’s a slab of Aberdeen Angus. Because for airline passengers these days, only the finest food will do.