Modern Indian meals, vegan options: BTS with Air India as it reinvents its menu

Nothing makes your stomach grumble like when flight attendants start the food service. Whether it’s business or leisure travel, flyers today gravitate towards airlines that don’t just give them a bang for their buck but also add value to the experience. This is why inflight dining has assumed a bigger role, winning customers with the promise of an appealing, hot meal. 

Air India, India’s national carrier, has been on a journey to reinvent itself—modernising its fleet, adding more destinations, and also redefining the entire inflight dining experience for its travellers. 

Over the last year, the legacy airline has curated new menus that feature an assortment of gourmet meals, delectable appetisers, and mouth-watering desserts. The dishes selected for domestic routes showcase India’s locally sourced culinary influence imbued with a dash of contemporary elements in line with global trends. 

Starting April 1, the airline has also updated menus across international flights (exiting India), taking into account the feedback of their team members and frequent flyers. 

YS Life was invited by Air India for an exclusive tour of its flight kitchen at Ambassador’s Sky Chef, New Delhi to see what goes on behind the scenes, with a special focus on the airline’s new menus. 

Quality is priority 

While the taste of food on flights depends on several factors like background noise, pressurised cabin, and dry air, Air India has stringent protocols in place to ensure the freshness and quality of food and drinks served. In the kitchen, chefs and employees have to wear protective clothing—we also had to wear a white coat and secure our hair with a net cap. 

The raw ingredients are first evaluated at the receiving docks for freshness and quality. After being cleaned thoroughly, they are sorted into different baskets and then moved to the blast chillers. 

In the Process Wing, the raw materials are prepared for various dishes. Vegetables and fruits are peeled, cut, checked for final weight, and their nutritional values are recorded. Non-vegetarian items such as seafood, fish, lamb, and chicken are processed separately to prevent cross-contamination. 

The main kitchen is divided into sections: Hot Kitchen, Cold Kitchen, Bakery, and Confectionery. Hot food, once cooked, is rapidly cooled using blast chillers and shifted to cold rooms kept at temperatures below 4°C. 

Moving on to the Operations Wing of the flight kitchen where food is apportioned and set in the trays with cutlery and crockery, as laid down by Air India’s guidelines for uplift on different flights. Thereafter, the trays are finally loaded onto meal carts and dispatched to the aircraft after being rigorously checked by Air India’s Catering and Security teams. 

The food that reaches passengers is monitored at every stage for quality control and random checks at the in-house NABL-approved Quality Assurance and Laboratory by a dedicated team.

Finding the balance 

Air India is upping the game when it comes to finding the right balance between experimentation and comfort. Its new domestic menu includes an eclectic mix of international and modern Indian dishes, with both vegetarian and non-vegetarian options on offer. 

From smoothies and sandwiches to salads and scrumptious desserts—there’s something for everyone. While the dishes are primarily Indian, the airline is making efforts to integrate Asian and continental dishes that are suited to Indian tastes. 

These thoughtfully crafted meals are paired with a curated selection of cold-pressed juices, sparkling water, aerated beverages, and a range of teas.

Some of the new offerings on Air India’s domestic flights include sugar-free Dark Chocolate Oatmeal Muffins, Cheese and Truffle Oil Scrambled Eggs with Chives, Cheese Mushroom Omelette, Mustard Cream-coated Chicken Sausage, Dry Jeera Aloo Wedges, Medu Vada, Chicken Chettinad, and Grilled Sliced Pesto Chicken Sandwich, among other options. 

Air India’s Head Chef Abhijit (who goes by his first name) tells YS Life that the airline is ensuring there’s no fatigue in the menu. Seasonality plays an equally important role to make sure that the meals are prepared from fresh produce that’s locally sourced. 

“Health also plays an important role today. Every meal has a vegan alternative, particularly for the business class flyer,” he adds. 

From a sustainability perspective, Air India is also cognizant of the new trends in the food business, with millets being an integral part of its menu. 

“Currently, we want to focus on comfort and acceptability, and at the same time, bring excitement in the food (we make) for travellers,” explains Chef Abhijit. 

Air India’s vegan international travellers flying first and business classes can choose from a selection of delicious, plant-based meal options like Subz Seekh Kebab, Thai Red Curry with Tofu and Vegetables, Broccoli and Millet Steak, and Lemon Sevaiyan Upma, Medu Vada, and Masala Uttapam. 

The international flights also have a curated bar menu, offering Laurent-Perrier La Cuvée Brut champagne as well as wines from the renowned vineyards of Château de l'Hestrange, Les Oliviers, Chateau Milon, and Piedmont region of Northern Italy. 

The new beverage menu also features a range of whiskeys, gin, vodka, and beers of premium brands. 

What’s next? 

While Air India looks ready to own the skies with its reinvented menu, Chef Abhijit says there’s some ground left to cover. The kitchen has been taking constant feedback from teams and travellers, and at the same time, learning from its competitors. 

Air India was once called the ‘Maharaja’ during the golden age of travel when its inflight meals were a model for fine dining. Looks like history is repeating itself and the undisputed king of the skies is ready to reclaim the title.