It’s like dining a la carte 34,000 feet above sea level. That’s the “Book the Cook” experience that you get when you fly Singapore Airlines. It’s an exclusive advance inflight meal-ordering service that allows passengers in Suites, First Class, Business Class and Premium Economy Class to pre-select a gourmet dish of their choice before their flight.
“It’s a departure from our regular meal service,” says Hermann Freidanck, food and beverage, inflight services manager. “You get to order your main course from a wide selection in a specially prepared menu up to 24 hours before your flight. Now you won’t have to settle for a dish that is not your choice.”
At the exclusive meal presentation before local media recently at Singapore Airline’s new-concept Silver Kris Lounge in NAIA3, we got to experience firsthand what this was like. A couple of days before the event, we were sent a special menu to choose from, which included beef tenderloin steak, roasted rack of lamb, slow-cooked marinated duck leg with mushroom risotto, marinated free-range chicken, and baked herb-marinated salmon.
The sit-down meal included an appetizer of marinated lobster with Mediterranean vegetable salad and balsamic dressing, as well as roasted pumpkin soup or snow fungus chicken soup with Chinese mushroom and quail egg. The salad was spinach and green frisée garnished with cherry tomatoes and olives with a choice of balsamic vinegar and extra-virgin olive oil or honey-mustard dressing, while dessert was a choice of either chocolate and banana cake with vanilla ice cream and raspberry coulis or fresh mango tiramisu with verbena mango compote and biscotti by three-Michelin-starred chef Georges Blanc.
As part of the Book the Cook service, passengers can choose from a menu of ICP dishes. “These are dishes created by Singapore Airline’s esteemed International Culinary Panel (ICP), which is a team of celebrated Michelin chefs who have restaurants or groups of restaurants in our main destinations in Europe, America and Asia,” Freidanck explains. “They work closely with our own chefs to develop unique dishes that we serve on board.” The panel includes Alfred Portale (United States), Carlo Cracco (Italy), Goerges Blanc (France), Matt Moran (Australia), Sanjeev Kapoor (India), Suzanne Goin (United States), Yoshihiro Murata (Japan), and Zhu Jun (China).
“Our menus are planned four to five months ahead of time, on a four-month cycle. First Class and Business Class have four different main courses, while Premium Economy Class has a third choice in addition to the usual two choices,” Freidanck shares. “The way we do our menus is what we call ‘destination-specific.’ If you are going to Frankfurt, for example, you’ll have a German dish. In First Class and Business Class, you will always have an ICP dish. Seasonal ingredients would also affect which dishes would be available. The Japanese, as well as the Chinese dishes, go by the seasons. A bestseller is the Maine lobster, but not every country has it. It is difficult to get lamb, for instance, but because you can order in advance, you are guaranteed your main course.”
“And then we have the Asian dishes. We look at the passenger profile, and if it’s predominantly Singaporean, for example, we try to put a Singaporean dish. We emphasize that we must represent the cuisine properly. It always has to be authentic. It must be traditional,” Freidanck adds. ‘There are also what we call the special meals which address certain conditions of the passenger, either due to religious beliefs, dietary or allergy restrictions. You can order them and we will serve you according to what you order. It’s not like other airlines where one menu fits all.”
Singapore Airlines also launched a new “Deliciously Wholesome” program catering to the needs of an increasing number of health-conscious travelers.
Preservation of freshness is an important consideration. Dishes are cooked with the reheating process in mind. “There is a fine line because we have to follow the hygiene regulations,” Freidanck explains. “Steak, for instance, has to be seared from the outside, so when it’s reheated on board, it’s just right. Sushi has to either be grilled or pickled or smoked. Nothing is raw. Oysters have to be cooked, following hygiene regulations.” Certain dishes can be a challenge. “Not impossible, but difficult,” Freidanck says. Dim sum, like pasta, does not reheat very well. The texture of risotto can be less appealing when overdone.
The dishes are cooked in the kitchen, then kept in the chiller below 10 degrees so no bacteria can thrive, until it goes on board. The dishes are deconstructed and put into different containers. On board, it goes in the oven where the heat is calibrated to a certain temperature. “There is a training center in Singapore where the crew learn to do this. It’s very specific. There’s a lot of details which they have to go through,” Freidanck says. The crew gets a plating guide, which they must follow when they assemble the dishes. First Class passengers get their meals served on real plates with fine cutlery.
“Complementing Singapore Airline’s World Gourmet Cuisine is a selection of the finest wines from the very best vineyards, selected by some of the world’s most educated and sought-after palates. These wines are handpicked by world-renowned wine experts and blind-tasted under simulated cabin pressure, since our taste buds are affected by the cabin pressure,” notes Carol Ong, Singapore Airlines general manager for the Philippines, Guam and USTT. The Singapore Airlines Wine consultants include three Masters of Wine: Michael Hill-Smith, Jeannie Cho-Lee, and Oz Clarke.
“So, you have just flown First Class, basically,” Freidanck says, addressing the intimate media group of happy diners at the end of the meal. The only thing missing was the altitude.
The survey showed that quality is even more important than price in Asia Pacific, as passengers are prepared to pay more for a quality service. Some 72% of flyers in Asia Pacific would prefer not to use broadband that is of poor quality with 62% stating they would pay more for faster in-flight broadband