Luscious Restaurant Quality Italian Dishes Are Now On board American Airlines – Forbes

Sarah Grueneberg, executive chef of Chicago’s Monteverde Restaurant & Pastificio and a 2017 James Beard Award winner for Best Chef: Great Lakes is the latest to take to the air through a new partnership between the James Beard Foundation and American Airlines that will feature a roster of the organization’s award winning chefs. As a frequent flyer (top tier status on American, she points out), she has too often encountered food that she didn’t want to eat in the air. Now she has the opportunity to create what she, and others, would want.

The dishes are Italian, as they are in the restaurant, and not transformed by injecting a lot of salt as is often the case with other airline food. “I thought about what I would want to eat when flying and kept it about simple, ingredient-focused dishes with fresh flavors and not a lot on the plate,” she says.

She presented 30 dishes to the airline’s food and beverage team for consideration; of those six were chosen, many of them light but vibrant and vegetable-forward. Started earlier this month, in First and Business Class from the U.S. to Europe and South America and transcontinental between Los Angeles/San Francisco and JFK, passengers can select artichoke ravioli with blistered cherry tomato sauce and green olive pistachio pesto or hand rolled spinach and ricotta Rotolo with pomodoro sauce and basil pesto. We tasted these on the ground and they were so fresh and vibrant that it seems likely they’ll remain so once the high altitude taste bud decline begins. Dishes can be pre-ordered on aa.com starting 30 days before a booked flight up to 24 hours before departure.

Grueneberg’s contributions begin before fliers take to the air as well. Four other dishes were just introduced to First Class flyers in the airline’s Flagship First Dining Room in the JFK, Los Angeles, Miami and Dallas-Ft. Worth lounges. Those include grilled Roman-style artichokes with black truffles, Cremini and Porcini Mushroom Bolognese that tasted so meaty that no one will miss the beef and a dark chocolate budino pudding with candied citrus, mandarin olive oil and a feuilletine chocolate crunch. “I thought about creating more of a restaurant experience,” she says. And perhaps, depending upon where they’re flying, getting passengers ready for the flavors to follow.

” readability=”47.6380387258″>

Major airlines frequently experiment with their meal offerings in the premium cabins, linking with world class chefs to produce top of the line dishes that can survive microwave oven reheating and the inevitable dulling of passengers’ taste buds at 30,000 feet. It’s a real challenge; some chefs succeed, others, no matter the number of Michelin stars, don’t. Chef Sarah Grueneberg, executive chef of Chicago’s Monteverde Restaurant & Pastificio and a 2017 James Beard Award winner for Best Chef: Great Lakes is the latest to take to the air through a new partnership between the James Beard Foundation and American Airlines that will feature a roster of the organization’s award winning chefs. As a frequent flyer (top tier status on American, she points out), she has too often encountered food that she didn’t want to eat in the air. Now she has the opportunity to create what she, and others, would want.

The dishes are Italian, as they are in the restaurant, and not transformed by injecting a lot of salt as is often the case with other airline food. “I thought about what I would want to eat when flying and kept it about simple, ingredient-focused dishes with fresh flavors and not a lot on the plate,” she says.

She presented 30 dishes to the airline’s food and beverage team for consideration; of those six were chosen, many of them light but vibrant and vegetable-forward. Started earlier this month, in First and Business Class from the U.S. to Europe and South America and transcontinental between Los Angeles/San Francisco and JFK, passengers can select artichoke ravioli with blistered cherry tomato sauce and green olive pistachio pesto or hand rolled spinach and ricotta Rotolo with pomodoro sauce and basil pesto. We tasted these on the ground and they were so fresh and vibrant that it seems likely they’ll remain so once the high altitude taste bud decline begins. Dishes can be pre-ordered on aa.com starting 30 days before a booked flight up to 24 hours before departure.

Grueneberg’s contributions begin before fliers take to the air as well. Four other dishes were just introduced to First Class flyers in the airline’s Flagship First Dining Room in the JFK, Los Angeles, Miami and Dallas-Ft. Worth lounges. Those include grilled Roman-style artichokes with black truffles, Cremini and Porcini Mushroom Bolognese that tasted so meaty that no one will miss the beef and a dark chocolate budino pudding with candied citrus, mandarin olive oil and a feuilletine chocolate crunch. “I thought about creating more of a restaurant experience,” she says. And perhaps, depending upon where they’re flying, getting passengers ready for the flavors to follow.