Polaris Chef's Table...

So odd that on the very same day the United's CEO said he never eats the food on a long flight (because "hyyyyyydraaaation and sleeeeeeep") they also announce a partnership with Chef's Table to bring legendary chefs' cooking to Polaris. 

Of course my former-Californian soul jumped for joy when it heard the name Nancy Silverton, but then I remembered the old Anthony Bourdain quote "There's almost never a good reason to eat on a plane… Much better to show up in a new place and be hungry and eat at even a little street stall than arrive gassy and bloated, full, flatulent, hungover." And while I generally agree with that, ANA First exists as proof it can be done. 

This has been tried many times before, both in the 'celebrity chef as airline chef' format and in the 'we'll bring you a Shake Shack burger in the sky' format. I'm absolutely convinced that Nancy and her peers could design something delicious for in-flight dining, but so much can go wrong between her design and your mouth. A long tarmac delay, turbulence causing the food to cook way longer than it should, distracted staff not doing the prep correctly, etc. 

Furthermore, United doesn't use high-end catering companies like Do&Co, so I feel like whatever the Chef's Table folks do for the executive and focus group tastings will inevitably be made from vastly cheaper ingredients (and with vastly less attention to detail) once we get to eat it.

Any talk of leveling up in-flight dining make me flash back to our first 787 fight back in 2014. Everyone was still very excited about how these modern carbon-fiber aircraft would support steam ovens and higher cabin pressures and humidity which in turn would make the food actually taste better. Unfortunately, the theme of the ensuing decade has been enshittifcation, so most airlines have been finding ways to spend ever-less on their food costs rather than reaching for new culinary heights. Seriously, remember when Polaris launched and there were on board wine tastings? Bloody mary and mimosa carts? Remember the freshly-baked chocolate chip cookie in PS?!

So is the pendulum swinging back from enshittifcation to actual improvements to the passenger experience? Given the current state of our economy and goverment, my gut says no. United definitely wants to create some kind of marketing halo around Polaris food, but actually delivering something good doesn't matter much. In short, they're paying high end chefs to loan them some luxury clout. 

To be totally fair, United has actually started serving better wine the past few years – like they have real Champagne on board now. Upgrades like that seem a lot more sure-fire than catering upgrades because there's way fewer things that can go wrong. It also feels like caviar might be something difficult to screw up, but caviar only feels special when the whole rest of the experience feels special, and United is never going to be able to make that happen. (While my #1 luxury request is on board espresso, I've seen how often the flight attendants tell passengers "the machine is broken" even on high-end Asian airlines, so for now I'll just be content with United's canned cold brew.)

One way or the other, I'm glad they're at least trying to make some noise about making Polaris nicer. I'm very interested to see what this looks like once it trickles down to my plate.