orbitmic

And that's in j! Yes it does make a real difference on OS notably when the onboard chef prepares your fresh fried eggs in the morning! (I personally think that while food on TK is also superb, the chef is more "decorative" there). I think tg f used to also have onboard chefs but this is not from experience. Note that on OS and TK, food is not Michelin star designed but do&co and vastly superior to AF IMHO.

Sadly, AF will stick to their supplier servair which motto should be "distinctedly average". You are right that AF could have come up with an entirely different food service for f but I fear it will be servair doing servair regardless of whether the menu is designed by ducasse or la cantiniere du coin. At least as usual with servair the desserts (Lenotre designed) will be excellent and it's a great touch that they reintroduce caviar for good.

Zembla

Since a few years the crew in P do get special training on heating and plating dishes. This wasn't the case in the past, and imho the difference shows. Having said that, I think the inflight catering in P is good, but certainly not exceptional.

olivedel

Switching to a complete à la carte dining would be a nice move. Although, in practice, it is more or less the case today, especially if the load is light in the P cabin.

orbitmic

Not only from my own experience but from that of people around me, it definitely shows in terms of presentation. And while, as San Gottardo says, they do not get the special "Ecole hoteliere" training of LX F attendants, I typically find the waiting skills of cabin crew in premium classes in both AF and LX of very high standard. We are talking of people who routinely have the (elegant) common sense to check for microcracks in your glass before serving you and can do a very classy job of it if they want. This is very much an AF asset (and again LX too). As you say, though, it is just the food quality itself which does not entirely wow. As you say, it is consistently good, and you can even clearly see the effort of choosing more premium ingredients than a few years ago, but somehow, AF does not manage to make you 'forget' that it is airline food and it still feels slightly awkward as in something you feel must have been very good when tried on the ground when menu was selected but doesn't quite cut it in the air. I don't really know how to express it other than saying that for whatever reason, on some other airlines like OS, TK, AZ, QR, QF, or EY, even when you only fly J, they managed to prepare the food in a way which makes you wonder for a minute if it might have actually been freshly prepared. Of course, you know it hasn't, but it is close enough that you can get that moment of (positive) hesitation. In my limited experience of AF P (let alone my much less limited experience of AF J) I have never had that hesitation, even though I think that in P (and occasionally in J) you can definitely see "where they are coming from" and what the meal could have tasted like - which is already a good start but not quite the same.

bodory

I am sure the Captain's wife would appreciate that improvement.

olivedel

Not sure if this behaviour is still in place, I have not seen that for a while... Even Frédéric Gagey flew in J during our trip to PVG.

NickB

BD used to have a chef onboard too on its tatl flights. While the food on BD tatl in C was rather good, I am not sure how much of that was attributable to the presence of the onboard chef.

orbitmic

Good point! I wonder too. I'm still missing BD by the way!

bodory

Knowing him a bit personaly, I am not surprised.

San Gottardo

As far as I know the First Class FAs on Swiss do not get hotel school training. It is just a fact that many an FA on LX has been to hotel schools (surprisingly enough even to the prestigious ones in Lausanne, Glion, Geneva - where you wonder why they decide to become FA), but they are not systematically deployed in First Class. It is not a criteria for crewing I believe.

So that "hotel school trained" FA is not a trademark or an integral part of First Class service concept on LX, it is just a matter of pure luck if one of the FAs has that training.

A good premium class FA on Air France is way better than a good premium class FA on Swiss. A bad FA on Air France is much worse than a bad FA on Swiss. The only thing the Swiss FAs consistently do better, especially in First, is to be ultra-thoughtful, proactive and anticipating needs.

Oh yeah...

By the way, I don't get over-excited about them bringing back caviar. It's the kind of thing that is offered to make the product look premium, but neither I nor people that know a thing or two about caviar particularly enjoy the caviar that is served on board (I only know LH's and EK's caviar). Why not give the entire thing a French touch and improve the wine menu which is currently a bad joke for a First Class cabin.

orbitmic

I have no doubt that it will be Caviar d'Aquitaine!

I agree with you that the very best crew I have ever had have been on AF. That said, what I was suggesting that both good AF and good LX crews tend to be well above the European average in terms of waiting skills IMHO (not just in premium classes).

olivedel

For sure, it will not be a "caviar open bar", as I experienced two times on EK

stimpy

I recall after taking BA's Concorde looking up the price of the Caviar tins they were handing out onboard (all you wanted), and I think the price was £125 each.

orbitmic

Ah, but now it is all farmed caviar. If AF are serving the small 'egg' they experimented with recently, that will cost them about €10 bulk price for that serving size and pretty packaging of what is a good quality farmed caviar.

San Gottardo

The two airlines that I am familiar with and that serve caviar do so à volonté (or à discrétion for the Swiss). Think of all the stereotypes you can think of of the kind of people that ask for caviar a second, a third, a fourth, etc. time. The ones that believe that eating is a sign of their social status and thus makes them better persons, the ones that look like doing their once-in-a-lifetime trip in F and want to benefit as much as possible from everything offered (including spending hours in the lounge before departure as if there was no other place on earth where one could have a decent meal or a glass of champagne). They also are usually the ones who eat their caviar by mixing it up into a mash of sour creme, onions, lemon, and lemon and then spread it on a blini like a tartine. I don't know a thing about caviar and I don't particularly like it, but I don't think that this is the way gourmets do it.

But I let others who are more knowledgeable comment and I won't be surprised if it turns out that the real way to have caviar in Russia and Iran has nothing to do with how it is being "taught" in the rest of the world.

Let's see how AF will do it. Whether or not they'll also offer a selection of vodkas with it (LH does that I think)