Singapore Airlines has announced a new partnership with Cordis Hong Kong’s two-Michelin-starred restaurant, Ming Court. The collaboration will see a new “Wellness Selection” menu introduced for all passengers on flights from Hong Kong to Singapore and San Francisco, starting from October 30 until April 30 next year.

The new menu will use nutritious Chinese ingredients that focus on wellness. These include: cordycep flower, which is purported to help supplement the spleen and soothe digestion; ginseng, which helps energise the body; and wolfberry, claimed to help improve clarity of vision.

Shane Pateman, managing director of Cordis Hong Kong, said: “Cordis was born a year ago. As a new brand, it was built around two principles – heartfelt service and wellbeing. We are looking after travellers in our hotel business, and thinking about every aspect of every different type of traveller’s wellbeing. This is a fundamental part of how we build this brand. That’s something we find the easiest and most obvious when we talk about Chinese cuisine. It is a historic cuisine having wellness and health nutrition, which Ming Court can offer.

“When Singapore Airlines was working on the menu, which takes care of customer wellness, it made perfect sense and we were absolutely happy to enter into a joint venture with them.”

The featured menu is as follows:

Suites / First class

Double-boiled pork shank with Chinese yam and wolfberry

Spanish Iberico pork with Shanxi aged vinegar

Morel mushroom gingki rice quinet

Chilled papaya soup with snow fungus and wolfberry

Business class

Truffle marinated roast duck with cordycep flower

Sautéed prawns in hot bean sauce

Premium economy class

Steamed ginseng with minced pork

Economy class

Braised e-fu noodles with enoki mushrooms and roast duck meat

Wellness ingredients can often be subtle and the flavour of dishes containing them may not always be particularly strong. When asked about how to trigger people’s taste buds at a high attitude, Mango Tsang Chiu Lit, executive chef of Ming Court, explained: “Most dishes do not give a strong flavour. To trigger the taste buds, we will increase the savoury and sweet taste, that’s why we added naturally sweet ingredients such as wolfberry to some of our dishes. In addition, as the humidity in the cabin is low, we added a nourishing and nutritious dessert, chilled papaya soup with snow fungus and wolfberry, to alleviate dryness.”

The collaboration with Ming Court marks the first partnership of the carrier with a Hong Kong restaurant. Betty Wong, divisional vice president of customer experience of the airline, said the carrier would listen to comments from customers. If they receive good responses, they may think of applying the “Wellness Selection” on additional routes, partnering with other local restaurants in the future.

singaporeair.com