Lufthansa offers a new slant on British cuisine

British chef Chris Staines will provide the culinary introduction to the new year for Lufthansa passengers, creating innovative menus for First and Business Class passengers on long-haul flights during the months of January and February.

Passengers travelling in First Class will have a chance to sample his rabbit terrine with English mustard sauce and cucumber relish as a starter, and choose, for example, between fish & chips (fried cod with sauce remoulade, mushy peas and potatoes) and fillet of beef Wellington with truffle jus, carrots and broccoli as a main dish.

In Business Class, Staines will treat passengers to a varied menu including fruity chicken salad with Stilton cream and almonds as an hors d’oeuvre, followed, for instance, by fettucine pasta with creamy mushroom sauce and white Cheddar.

“I am very happy that Chris Staines is to become the first UK chef to join the growing number of Lufthansa’s Star Chefs. He will be showcasing the best of British cuisine to our long-haul passengers every day as they cross the oceans and mountains of the world. It is fitting that food from the home country of our European headquarters is now being recognised in this way,” says Karsten Benz, Lufthansa’s Vice President Sales & Services Europe.

For several years now, British cuisine, which in the past did not always receive the recognition it deserves, has succeeded in casting off its more negative image and now enjoys an excellent reputation. This change in image is due largely to a new generation of young, British chefs – with Chris Staines leading the way. As head chef at Foliage restaurant in the Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park Hotel, London, he also took over the existing Michelin star, and at 27 thus became one of the youngest star chefs ever. For the past six years, he has retained his star and in the luxurious ambience of the five-star hotel.

Staines himself attributes his success to his overriding ambition – awakened at an early age – to become a chef. Even when he was still at school, he worked as a kitchen boy in restaurants, watching imaginative dishes being created from simple ingredients. During that period and his later training under such renowned top chefs as Nico Ladenis and Marco Pierre White, he learned to recreate typical British dishes, which had rarely been reinterpreted, in an entirely novel way and to perfectly combine traditional tastes with modern cooking methods.