Recent news that Air France had enlisted famed chef Daniel Boulud to create restaurant-worthy dishes for business-class passengers had us flying high.
In a conversation with Boulud, creator of Café Boulud at the Four Seasons Hotel in Toronto, the Ritz-Carlton Montreal’s Maison Boulud and Daniel, his eponymous Michelin two-star restaurant in NYC, where he is now based, we learned that the partnership marks the first time the airline has commissioned a French chef who resides off the European continent to create signature meals for its return flights.
"Often, when I fly out of Paris to a destination in Asia or America, there are dishes by chefs from different parts of France—Guy Martin, Michel Roth and Anne-Sophie Pic, among others—offered," he explained. "This is somewhat of a novely, to have a French chef from the U.S. or Canada doing the signed entrées on the return."
That said, business-cabin passengers flying one of Air France’s 33 weekly flights from Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal to Paris-Charles de Gaulle can now enjoy a new main meal by Boulud each month. Among the mouthwatering options: salmon with fennel, chickpea and sumac; chicken Basquaise with chorizo, peppers and saffron rice and braised lamb with spring root veg.
In terms of insights into how culinary creativity differs when it’s meant to be served 40,000 feet up, the chef said, "In the regular kitchen you have a team. The mise en place that happens in a traditional restaurant is missing on an airplane. But I have tried very hard to find ingredients and create food that carries well into the sky, so that the taste, the texture, the flavours are as beautiful as they would be on the ground."
As for Boulud’s own most-memorable in-flight meals? "The ones that are most authentic," he said. "I remember flying from Hong Kong to Bali and I was served a nasi goreng with all sorts of spices and shrimp. It was just delicious—soulful, fresh, light, healthy and also excellent reheated. If it tastes good the second time you warm it up, that to me is truly the mark of a great meal!" —Noa Nichol
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