A Fresh Start: Japan Airlines and Delta Announce New Culinary Partnerships

APEX Insight: Well-known chefs and airlines have been teaming up for decades to provide meals that make passengers’ taste buds take off. Japan Airlines and Delta Air Lines are the latest to announce fresh chef-restaurant partnerships, favoring local and seasonal ingredients.

With food serving as a major differentiator between airline carriers these days, the race is on to offer the highest possible level of culinary service to passengers in all cabins. One tactic involves recruiting chefs that flyers know and love.

As of March 1, Tokyo’s Jun Kurogi will be the latest addition to the list of impressive chefs that have contributed to Japan Airlines’ “restaurant in the sky” concept, which favors local produce and ingredients. Kurogi’s washoku style focuses on simple seasoning to bring out the natural flavors of the ingredients. Meals offered in flight will include a sesame tofu from the chef’s eponymous restaurant, Kurogi, and a miso soup made with spring onion from Kyoto and sea lettuce from the Shimanto River in the Kōchi prefecture.

Delta has raised the sky chef bar by partnering not only with a big name, but with an entire restaurant group. Meals served in Delta’s premium cabin, Delta One, aren’t just stamped with a chef’s name – they’re inspired by the award-winning restaurants of Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group (USHG).

The latest iteration of the partnership will showcase the cuisine of Carmen Quagliata, executive chef of the group’s flagship restaurant, Union Square Cafe. Quagliata’s menus will be served on board Delta’s JFK-to-Europe flights starting March 1 and they look so good that passengers may resist disembarkation upon arrival at their destination. Expect dishes such as roasted tenderloin carpaccio with sunchokes, gulf shrimp on Meyer lemon-infused polenta and hearty short rib stracotto with horseradish mashed potatoes and root vegetable slaw. Not quite your standard air-fare, is it?

A point of emphasis in the Delta-USHG partnership is a commitment to using the freshest ingredients possible. That’s why the names of farms local to Union Square Cafe will appear on the menu – some products even come directly from a farmer’s market located just steps from the restaurant’s front door. “Incorporating local suppliers and purveyors plays a vital role in Delta’s approach to offering fresh, local and seasonal food to its customers,” says Catherine Sirna, manager of Corporate Communications for Delta.

“Incorporating local suppliers and purveyors plays a vital role in Delta’s approach to offering fresh, local and seasonal food to its customers.” – Catherine Sirna, manager of Corporate Communications for Delta

While Delta’s arrangement with USHG is certainly ambitious in the world of in-flight catering, it’s not entirely unique. JetBlue has shared its geographic roots with passengers by featuring a number of New York restaurant brands in its premium Mint cabin. The innovative small plates menu comes from East Village restaurant Saxon + Parole while dessert is courtesy of Blue Marble Ice Cream and Mah Ze Dahr Bakery, both just a subway ride from JFK airport.

Local and seasonal food has long captivated diners on the ground and now that the concept is literally taking flight, it’s changing the way passengers eat on carriers across the globe. With the addition of chefs and full-on restaurant groups to airline catering rosters, it may not be long before people are booking flights just to eat a great meal, bringing new meaning to the term “airline reservations.”