Garuda revamps inflight dining

Garuda revamps inflight dining
By admin


Garuda Indonesia’s fresh new menus for Economy, Business and First class was launched yesterday, bringing a vibrant new approach to inflight dining.

The dining concept was based around the idea of making food more like a five star hotel, with inspiration coming from Indonesian, Japanese and modern European cuisines.

Garuda invited members of the travel industry to sample a variety of First Class dishes, which ranged from Japanese delicacies from the degustation menu, to marinated lamb and a coconut ice-cream for dessert, all prepared by executive in-flight chef Ade Kurniawan.

“As an Indonesian airline, we have to feature Indonesian food, but we have also included options like Japanese Kaiseki, modern European and a la carte options,” vice president of in-flight service Lou D’Alessio said at the launch.

“Every long-haul flight will now have our world-class chefs on board.”

And the airline isn’t lying, with recent headhunting taking the company as far as the UAE to seek out the top Indonesian chefs working in five-star hotels, and bringing them home for this new venture.

Each chef was required to have five or more years’ experience as a sous chef in five-star hotels, with 125 new chefs brought back from the Middle East, before receiving additional training as cabin crew.

Following the recent Skytrax Best Crew 2014 award, Garuda is working to close the gap between dining on land and dining in the air.

“It doesn’t look like an aeroplane,” D’Alessio said. “We wanted to break all the rules airlines have, like equipment should be tiny and plastic.”

Garuda’s team handpicked glassware, cutlery and plates from destinations like Japan to be used in its new dining concept, with chefs on board each long-haul flight over five hours to plate up the dishes.

“We felt that we had to have real chefs to put it all together inflight,” D'Alessio said.

“These chefs are extremely passionate. Indonesian hospitality is fantastic, so it has been a pleasure to bring this to our passengers.”

"FullSizeRender.jpg"

"10306758_832523786799335_7965280704387639565_n.jpg"

"10624579_832523736799340_6978841526843351051_n.jpg"

"10734018_832523760132671_1374174486332755246_n.jpg"

"10806444_832523713466009_6509365709368161604_n-1.jpg"

Email the Travel Weekly team at traveldesk@travelweekly.com.au

Latest News

  • Cruise

P&O rescues Rotary volunteers after collapse of Air Vanuatu

P&O Cruises Australia has answered a plea for help from a group of young Australian Rotary volunteers, stranded in Vanuatu following the collapse of Air Vanuatu. The students, many of them teenagers from Albury, NSW, were volunteering for a youth project run by the Hive Rotary Club Australia when the airline abruptly cancelled all flights, […]

  • Destinations

Intrepid continues expansions with launch of first DMC in Jordan

Intrepid has increased its presence in the Middle East with the opening of its first destination management company in Jordan. Based in Amman, the local team will operate Intrepid’s range of nine experiential small group tours in Jordan from this summer, with a view to expanding the range for 2025 and beyond. Zina Bencheikh, managing […]

  • Appointments

Minor hotels appoints Puneet Dhawan to key Asia role

Global hotel owner and operator Minor Hotels has appointed Puneet Dhawan as head of Asia as the group plots its growth in Asia and India. From July, Dhawan will be responsible for the performance of all Minor Hotels properties in Asia, working in close collaboration with the Minor Hotels senior leadership team and will report […]

  • Appointments

Abercrombie & Kent and Crystal appoint Evon Ler to director of sales, Asia

Abercrombie & Kent Travel Group have announced that Evon Ler will join them in the new role of director of sales, Asia. She will work closely with Tony Archbold (VP, Sales, APAC, Crystal) and Susan Haberle (VP, Sales & Partnerships, APAC, A&K) with trade support across the region. Ler comes to the A&K family with more […]