CATHAY PACIFIC AND MANDARIN ORIENTAL HOTEL GROUP ANNOUNCE INTERNATIONAL PARTNERSHIP FOR INFLIGHT DINING
Cathay Pacific Airways and Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group today announced their first-ever international partnership for crafting unique inflight menus for the airline over the coming 12 months. Top chefs from various renowned Mandarin Oriental properties in Hong Kong, London, Paris, New York, San Francisco, Tokyo and Boston will each design menus with their own styles and characteristics. The menus will be offered to First Class passengers travelling on Cathay Pacific flights between Hong Kong and London, Paris, New York, San Francisco, Tokyo and Boston at different seasons throughout the course of 2015.
Cathay Pacific and Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group are both globally recognised, home-grown Hong Kong brands that provide superior services to travellers around the world. To showcase the two brands’ Asian heritage and demonstrate their understanding of travellers’ needs, Cathay Pacific and Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group are working hand in hand to create an inspired food and beverage experience. The latest collaboration follows their successful partnership on the airline’s London route last year.
Cathay Pacific is now working with the top chefs from the Group’s hotels worldwide to bring a local touch to each menu. The newly designed menus are all seasonally inspired, with each chef expressing their passion for the culinary culture of the destinations they represent. Each dish is unique but they all share a common quality: a classical culinary underpinning.
Cathay Pacific General Manager Inflight Services Dominic Perret said: "We are delighted to extend our partnership with Mandarin Oriental this year and are very excited about being able to turn it into a truly international partnership. This is the first time we have worked with chefs from different properties of an award-winning luxury hotel group at the same time to design menus for specific destinations. Cathay Pacific always strives to deliver high-quality products and services to our customers and I am sure our passengers will enjoy these fabulous creations.”
Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group’s Corporate Director of Food and Beverage David Nicholls said: “Mandarin Oriental hotels have long been renowned for their excellence and innovation in food and beverage, and our dedicated culinary teams aim to offer stimulating and exciting dining experiences for guests around the world on a daily basis. We are delighted to continue our partnership with Cathay Pacific in order to extend these exceptional culinary experiences to the skies.”
The new menus will be served throughout 2015 on a monthly basis. Each menu will incorporate seasonal produce, prepared and cooked in both contemporary and traditional ways – from the wizardry of molecular gastronomy to the patience of low and slow cooking.
In the first wave of menus offered, winter dishes by Executive Chef Uwe Opocensky, from the Mandarin Oriental, Hong Kong, and Executive Chef and Culinary Director Thierry Marx, from the Mandarin Oriental, Paris, will be featured on flights from Hong Kong to London and Paris to Hong Kong, respectively, from 1 to 31 January. In February, passengers travelling from Hong Kong to Paris and New York to Hong Kong will be able to enjoy a selection ofdishes created by Executive Chef Uwe Opocensky and Executive Chef Christian Pratsch, from the Mandarin Oriental, New York, respectively.
Among the highlights of the first wave of menus is a full-bodied consommé with a specially prepared tea bag of dried flower petals and gold flake, created by Hong Kong’s innovative
Chef Uwe Opocensky. Paris-based Chef Thierry Marx, one of the most celebrated chefs in France, who excels at giving modern and classical French cuisine a twist, offers a traditional presse of chicken, mushrooms and foie gras, delicately infused with a hint of five spices. New York’s Chef Christian Pratsch was inspired by his journey through the United States to create a soup of slow-roasted tomatoes with miniature grilled cheese sandwiches.