Smart traveller: Our guide to famous chef partnerships in the air

Over the years airlines have partnered with chefs from Michelin-starred restaurants and TV shows to treat their passengers on board. Here we round up some of the programmes on offer across various cabins.

Air France

The airline has a long tradition of working with chefs with Michelin-starred restaurants for its on-board menus. Last year Air France worked with 19 chefs, focusing on fresh, seasonal and local produce with a vegetarian dish in all travel cabins.

Most recently, Emmanuel Renaut has been entrusted with menus for La Première (first class) on flights departing Paris, with passengers able to expect dishes such as farmhouse chicken confit with mushrooms and vegetable millefeuille, followed by a mango, citrus and cognac baba from pastry chef Angelo Musa.

Anne-Sophie Pic, meanwhile, is behind the long-haul business class cabin, with dishes such as chicken supreme with sake, followed by Philippe Urraca’s opera, black forest and yuzu entremet cake.

The airline is also offering dishes by Jean-Charles Brédas for business class cabins on flights departing from Pointe à Pitre, Fort-de-France, Saint Martin and Cayenne, as well as on flights on the airline’s regional Caribbean network. These include a creamy risotto with coconut milk, pigeon peas, almond and giraumon (Turban squash), or a roasted grouper fillet served with papaya sauerkraut and green sauce.

Premium economy customers on long-haul flights departing Paris can enjoy dishes from French chef Frédéric Simonin. Dishes include salmon risotto with orzo pasta, wild dill and lemon sauce, or trofie pasta bake with porcini mushrooms and hazelnuts.

All Nippon Airways

The Japanese carrier works with many famous chefs in its The Connoisseurs programme, including Toru Okuda, Yoshihiro Takahashi, Ryuta Iizuka, Masayasu Yonemura and Hideki Takayama.

First class passengers on routes from Narita/Haneda to North America and Europe (excluding late night flights) can enjoy dishes such as grilled Japanese wagyu beef with miso and chopped shiitake mushrooms, accompanied by shrimp-filled fried crunchy lotus roots this winter.

Business class passengers, meanwhile, are offered different dishes on routes from Narita/Haneda to North America, Europe (excluding Honolulu, Vladivostok), Mexico and Oceania. Examples include a main of lotus root tofu, kneaded with kudzu starch, grilled and served with lightly cooked Japanese Black wagyu beef in a thick wasabi-flavoured sauce.

British Airways

The British flag carrier has partnered with chef Tom Kerridge to create a gourmet range for the airline’s High Life Café.

The menu is offered to short-haul economy customers (Euro Traveller) and can be pre-ordered via BA’s inflight retail High Life shop website. Since April the carrier has also rolled out the option to purchase the products on flights over three hours.

Products include a vegan sweet and spicy falafel wrap, and ham hock and smoked cheddar sandwich.

Brussels Airlines

The airline’s Belgian Star Chefs menu features a different Belgian chef from a Michelin-starred restaurant every year. The three-course menus (or express dining option) are on offer to business class customers on long-haul flights.

Michael Vrijmoed of the two-Michelin-starred Ghent restaurant Vrijmoed, well-known for its focus on vegetables, joined in October 2023.

His menu showcases Belgian vegetables and rotates every three months “to make the most of seasonal produce”. The menu is also accompanied by Belgian beers and regional wines.

February dish examples include mains of braised beef jaw with root parsley, parsnip, roasting gravy and candied potatoes or beetroot baked in salt crust with pearl onion, bordelaise mushroom sauce and parsley potatoes.

The dessert course includes the option between a Belgian cheese platter, fruit or a dessert.

Cathay Pacific

Cathay Pacific has partnered with a number of Hong Kong establishments for its inflight dining service, including last year’s collaboration with Michelin-starred Hong Kong restaurant Duddell’s for first and business class passengers on select flights departing Hong Kong.

Its most recent partnerships include a collaboration with vegetarian restaurant Veda, offering a total of 16 dishes, comprising six appetisers and ten mains, for economy and premium economy passengers on selected long-haul and ultra-long-haul routes departing from Hong Kong. Dishes include a cherry tomato, quinoa salad and a creamy South Indian coconut curry.

The airline has also partnered with Italian restaurant Pirata for a menu for passengers in premium economy on long-haul and medium-haul flights departing from Hong Kong. Dish examples include pork saltimbocca with mushroom jus, or Calabrian-style orecchiette pasta with Italian sausage, ‘nduja and cherry tomatoes. Meals are served with a glass of DOCG Prosecco from the hillside vineyards of Italy’s Veneto region.

China Airlines

The airline launched a new menu in October 2023 with premium Cantonese cuisine by three Michelin-starred Le Palais restaurant in Taiwan, served to travellers in all cabins on long-haul flights departing Taiwan for Europe and North America.

• Premium Business: ma po tofu lobster with rice.
• Premium Economy: Beef lo mein with seasonal vegetables and black bean spare rib clay pot rice
• Economy: Singapore-style rice noodles with shrimp and pork as well as curry shrimp and fish egg noodles

Premium Business and business class passengers on all Japanese routes, meanwhile, will be served a Japanese-style banquet named “Autumn Beauty”, designed by Tokyo’s famous Toutouan restaurant using seasonal ingredients from Taiwan.

• Example: Mains of grilled salmon with yellow chives and Wagyu beef and sesame seed teriyaki, accompanied by steamed rice cooked with mushrooms and shiitake. Desserts include banana mousse and poached apple in red wine

China Airlines has also partnered with Michelin-starred restaurant Yangming Spring to introduce plant-based cuisine, such as truffle black pepper vegan steak, to its inflight dining menus.

When it comes to desserts, Le Ruban Pâtisserie has created a series of exclusive co-branded desserts of the airlines, such as grapefruit mousse and lemon Chantilly, which are on offer in Premium Business and business class flights to Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka and Fukuoka in Japan.

Delta Air Lines

The airline has partnered with chefs for its first class and Delta One (business class) passengers on select routes.

Delta One customers on transcontinental flights from Los Angeles can experience Italian-American fare from chefs Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo, with previous dishes including cacio e pepe lasagne with bechamel, or braised meatballs with Bianco Di Napoli marinara.

First class customers departing from Atlanta on domestic flights over 900 miles can also enjoy Southern classics from chef Mashama Bailey, including curried chicken salad and a dessert of southern chess pie bar, served with Chantilly cream and pie crust crumble.

Delta One customers flying to and from China can opt for a Chinese rather than western meal, curated by chef Jereme Leung. Previous dish examples include poached chicken with preserved Szechuan pickles for starter, followed by a pork broth with Chinese yam, red dates and crispy rice.

Japan Airlines

The airline’s Sky Auberge BEDD by JAL ‘restaurant in the sky’ features well-known chefs including Hideki Ishikawa, Kouji Koizumo, Shuzo Kishida, Jun Mishina, Shinobu Namae, Daisuke Hayashi, Ryuji Teshima, and Yuya Yamanaka.

First class passengers travelling from Tokyo to New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, London and Paris can enjoy delicacies from chef Ishikawa Hideki, known for his Tokyo restaurant Ishikawa, and chef Koizumi of restaurant Kohaku, both of which have three Michelin stars.

Owner/chef of Roketsu in London, Daisuke Hayashi, is also responsible for the first class and business class menus on routes from London, Paris, Helsinki, and Frankfurt to Japan.

SWISS

The airline’s Taste of Switzerland concept has featured 82 guest chefs from all 26 Swiss cantons since its debut in 2002, with menus for first class, business class and premium economy passengers on long-haul flights departing Switzerland.

Menus change every three months and showcase regional and seasonal specialties are designed by chefs whose restaurants have received Michelin stars and Gault-Millau points. The meals are also accompanied by wines and cheeses from the region concerned.

This winter the airline is offering its first and business class passengers dishes from the kitchen of the Kempinski Palace Engelberg in the canton of Obwalden, created by the hotel’s executive chef Michéle Müller. Premium economy passengers will also be offered a three-course meal inspired by the Obwalden region.

Dishes in business class include roast beef with pickled vegetables, rapeseed oil mayonnaise and chimichurri for starter, followed by beef tenderloin with za’atar, date jus, mashed potato with harissa, carrots and romanesco or pike perch with red onion marmalade and saffron sauce, accompanied by turned potatoes, glazed courgette and aubergine caviar. Dessert, meanwhile, is a carrot cake with mascarpone cream and carrot gel.

First class starters, meanwhile, include a ham hock jelly with horseradish mousse and pickled carrots, sourdough bread and chive butter, or cream of parsnip soup with pear chutney. Mains include veal fillet with jus, rösti, mushroom purée, sautéed king oyster mushroom and pearl onions, or salmon trout with beurre noisette and smoked almond cream, parsley potatoes, cauliflower, romanesco and baby carrot. This will be finished off with Müller’s take on an oven-baked apple and pecan crumble with vanilla sauce and raisin ice cream.

The next instalment will be announced at the beginning of March.

Qantas

The airline has been collaborating with restauranteur Neil Perry AM since 1997 to design an a la carte menu and tasting menu for first class customers on international flights, with the tasting menu on select services. The menu also includes plant-based options. On previous flights dishes have included Calvisius Caviar tartlet with cauliflower cream and Ma Hor caramelised pork, prawn, pineapple and cashews.

Singapore Airlines

The Singaporean flag carrier has its very own International Culinary Panel, made up of seven award-winning chefs from around the world: Carlo Cracco (Italy), Georges Blanc (France), Matthew Moran (Australia), Sanjeev Kapoor (India), Suzanne Goin (US), Yoshihiro Murata (Japan), and Zhu Jun (China).

TAP Air Portugal

The airline’s ‘Local Stars’ initiative sees 12 local chefs prepare menus highlighting a “star ingredient” from their choice of region in Portugal, with the menu rotating every two months until April 2025. The menu is on offer to business class passengers on long-haul flights.

Chef Oscar Geadas from Braganca is the Local Star chef for January and February, with a menu paying tribute to the chestnut ingredient. Passengers will be served a starter of fresh water fish, beetroot and orange salad, a main course of stewed veal, chestnut purée and mushrooms, and a dessert of almond pudding with Montesinho honey.

Thai Airways

The flag carrier has an inflight menu curated by chef Duangporn (Bo) Songvisava, Asia’s Best Female Chef of 2013 who also appeared in Netflix’s Chef’s Table.

The menu features local ingredients and is available on Royal First and Royal Silk (business class) cabins on flights to Europe, Australia and Japan.

The menu is split into various sections – from “the roll” and “the pie” to the “Ochazuke breakfast”and “the heritage” series.

Pictured from “the roll” series is: grilled honey pork with holy basil and chilli in a sweet potato bun, topped with a soft-boiled egg and fried chilli.

• The menu: two main dishes – lamb cutlets in red curry with green banana, served with Thai jasmine rice, five-spice braised soft-boiled egg, stir-fried green beans, and Thai grilled sweetcorn; Prawns in red curry with pineapple (gaeng khua), served with Thai jasmine rice, Thai turnip omelette, and stir-fried aubergines with sweet basil.

For more information on airline catering, see our feature:

Airline catering: Inflight appetite