Originally Posted by
Microbiology
Very true BE is not first class. It’s more like EC. Maybe it’s because I always fly first class. But, I remember in the 80’s and early 90’s Lufthansa in first class had a chef in complete chef clothing with white hat carving roast beef and placing it on the plate to eat. The food tasted as if I was in a five star restaurant. Things have changed since then but the food is still five stars!
I'm sorry, but it is not five stars by any stretch. Maybe it was 20 years ago, when we had much lower standards for our restaurants, but not today.
It is that divergence that makes the price premium for F so laughable. The market price for a true top-notch restaurant experience is right around $300 (roughly the price at Per Se and noma). The food and service will be so markedly better than what you receive, even on the best carriers, that I can't believe we are even having this discussion. You will get chefs that know what they are doing. That are at the forefront of new techniques. That take an obsessive interest in ingredients. That are obsessive in details of presentation (watch the use of tweezers at the plating station). You will be served by waitstaff knowledgeable about the food (at noma, Rene Redzepi will often serve dishes himself) and you can have a dialogue and engagement. The wine will be stewarded by a sommelier that can tailor the selection to the menu and your tastes.
In F, you will be served by an FA that has much different responsibilities and hasn't dedicated their life to food and food service. They may do a good job, but they simply aren't at the same level of a top restaurant. They can't be, because being a great chef or a great waiter is a full-time job and requires talent and drive.
In F, you get "name" ingredients and "name" wines. I once laughed when I was making this same point and someone said "but they serve balik salmon", as if that is what great restaurants served. But great food and great restaurants aren't defined by serving caviar or Krug. If they were, then anyone could get 3 Michelin stars. F is country club class, not restaurant class.
And yet you are going to pay a $5k premium for food and service that will be not 1/10th as good as what you would get at a great restaurant for $300. F is great, don't get me wrong, but rationalizing the price premium on F&B is crazy.
Originally Posted by
formeraa
In the 80's, UA had carved beef at your seat on transcon flights.
This ain't the '80s. I'd have trouble not laughing if a restaurant did tableside carving today. Maybe if I was at Next and it was all part of a period recreation. Or perhaps if it was done ironically by some hipster chef in Brooklyn. But if I was at a top-notch restaurant today and it was on the menu, I'd laugh. I might order it, because it would take cajones to put it on the menu and I'd be curious to see what was done to make it worthy of the restaurant, but if they just came out and sliced some roast beef, I'd laugh.