What do you do with chefs while their restaurants are being relocated? Well, if you’re a diversified company with many irons in the fire, you give them special projects to work on.
That’s what Union Square Hospitality Group is doing with Union Square Cafe executive chef and partner Carmen Quagliata. He’s the latest chef from Danny Meyer’s restaurant company to design the menus for Delta Airline’s first class passengers, The New York Times reports.
Union Square Cafe closed in December, when its lease ran out, and is in the process of relocating. It’s scheduled to reopen in the spring.
USHG has been working with Delta since 2013 to prepare food for the Delta One cabin on international flights from New York’s Kennedy International Airport, starting with Mark Maynard-Parisi’s barbecued meat from Blue Smoke, and continuing with Italian food from Marta.
Quagliata’s meals, which will be served starting March 1, include a heated signature nut mix, salads and appetizers, including carpaccio topped with sunchokes that are roasted, rather than fried as they are in the restaurant, and various main courses.
Stephanie Strom reports in the Times that other airlines also team up with chefs, including Air France with Alain Ducasse and United Airlines with Charlie Trotter. Trotter, the legendary Chicago chef, died in 2013, but the United deal continues through through the non-profit organization founded in his name, The Trotter Project, which mentors young chefs. Members of the organization also work with United to develop menu items for the airline’s p.s. Premium Service on transcontinental flights.
Conde Nast Traveler reported last year reported that food developed by the group also is available for purchase in economy class.
These airline-restaurant collaborations have been going on for years, and not just with high-profile chefs or high-end restaurants.
The now-defunct Midwest Airlines worked with Mader’s, a landmark restaurant in the airline’s hub city of Milwaukee, starting in 2005.
United Airlines has worked with several chefs and restaurants. In 2009 it started selling Boston Market sandwiches and salads on its planes for $10 apiece, and in 2011 it started serving food by celebrity chef and restaurateur Richard Sandoval in the premium class cabin for flights between the United States and Europe, Asia and Latin America. Meanwhile, food developed by Marcus Samuelsson was available for purchase in economy class.
Both of those programs have since been discontinued.
Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected].
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