At 35,000 feet, dining has often been treated as a necessity rather than an experience. United is looking to change that. This August, the airline will unveil an ambitious new chapter for United Polaris international business class, introducing a collection of chef-curated menus created in collaboration with Chef’s Table, the brand behind the Emmy Award-winning Netflix series.
Launching on 1st August, the partnership brings together 11 globally recognised chefs from four continents to create a new inflight dining programme inspired by the cities they call home. Designed specifically for the realities of travel, the menus translate the soul of some of the world’s most exciting culinary destinations into dishes created to be enjoyed in the air.
From Los Angeles and London to São Paulo and Tokyo, the collaboration celebrates the idea that food can tell the story of a place long before a traveller arrives.
“At its core, this collaboration with Chef’s Table is rooted in a shared ambition to redefine what inflight dining can be,” said Aaron McMillan, United’s Managing Director of Hospitality Programs. “Because our leading global network reaches into the world’s greatest food cities, we’re able to work hand-in-hand with world-class chefs and translate their points of view into dishes intentionally designed for the realities of travel and inspired by destinations we serve.”
The new collection will debut with 30 dishes, including appetisers, salads and entrées, served on select long-haul United Polaris international business class flights. Each chef has created a multi-course meal experience that reflects their culinary identity and the city that shaped them, from seasonal California cooking and modern American fine dining to contemporary European technique, Brazilian vibrancy and Japanese precision.
For travellers, it marks a more considered vision of inflight dining: one where the meal is not only part of the journey, but part of the destination.
A Global Culinary Line-Up
The collaboration draws from United’s seven U.S. hub cities as well as key international gateways including London, São Paulo and Tokyo. Among the featured chefs are Nancy Silverton of Osteria Mozza in Los Angeles, Jenner Tomaska of Esmé, Petite Edith and The Alston in Chicago, Tomos Parry of London’s Mountain and Brat, and Tashi Gyamtso of Jimgu and Enowa Yufuin in Japan.
Chef Nancy Silverton brings the spirit of Los Angeles to the table with dishes including burrata with braised leeks, mustard vinaigrette and breadcrumbs, a shaved Brussels sprouts salad with mint, almonds and pecorino Romano, and beef brasato with garlic mash potatoes, salsa verde and horseradish gremolata. A James Beard Award-winning chef, baker, restaurateur and author, Silverton is widely regarded as the figure who helped bring burrata into the American culinary imagination.
From Newark, Chef Fariyal Abdullahi of Hav & Mar offers a menu rooted in her Ethiopian heritage and global culinary perspective. Her dishes include chilled tomato soup with jumbo lump crab meat, baby gem and endive with berbere-spiced pepitas, dried cranberries, pecorino Romano and creamy anchovy vinaigrette, and Ethiopian-coffee glazed short ribs with purple mashed potatoes, sautéed Thumbelina carrots and charred scallions.
Chicago is represented by Chef Jenner Tomaska, whose work spans Michelin-starred fine dining, French-Midwestern bistro cooking and elevated steakhouse cuisine. His menu includes braised leeks with citrus and charred scallion vinaigrette, arugula with endive and shaved radish, and halibut with sauce matelote, smoked onion and bacon lardons.
From Houston, James Beard Award winner Chef Justin Yu brings a relaxed fine-dining sensibility shaped by French inspiration and Texas flavour. His dishes include deviled eggs with white soy, aged cheddar and chives, chicory salad with spiced bacon, chickpeas, cucumber, onion and oregano mustard vinaigrette, and braised Texas short rib with mushroom ragout, red miso and black-eyed peas.
Denver native Chef Penelope Wong, the force behind Yuan Wonton, has created a menu that honours her Asian American upbringing and the diversity of the city’s culinary landscape. Her dishes include shokupan bread with smoked trout, lemongrass, Chinese celery and trout roe, kale salad with fresh cherries, golden beets, grana Padano and honey ginger vinaigrette, and five-spice duck wontons with duck brodo, Swiss chard and chilli oil.
San Francisco’s Chef David Barzelay, known for the two-Michelin-starred Lazy Bear as well as JouJou and True Laurel, brings approachable American fine dining to the skies. His menu features a hashbrown with pickled relish and cured trout roe, peach panzanella with sourdough croutons, Vela dry jack cheese, wild arugula and Napa Cabernet vinaigrette, and black cod broiled in tomato tare with gold rice grits, smoky tomato raisins, peppers and basil.
Washington, D.C. is represented by Chefs Isabel Coss and Matt Conroy, whose work at Lutèce, Pascual and Maison Bar À Vins blends French technique with Mexican influence. Their menu includes melon and burrata salad with chorizo vinaigrette and opal basil, quinoa salad with currants, butternut squash, kale and banyuls vinaigrette, and braised chicken breast in vadouvan coconut curry.
From São Paulo, Chef Manu Buffara brings the expressive, vibrant spirit of Brazilian cuisine. Known for her commitment to responsible agriculture and modern interpretations of Brazilian flavour, Buffara has created dishes including a collard green roll filled with shrimp and fresh heart of palm with passion fruit citrus sauce, white bean and celery salad with goat cheese, cheese bread croutons and orange segments, and Brazilian shrimp stew with coconut rice, cashew nut farofa and sautéed okra.
London’s Chef Tomos Parry, founder and co-owner of Mountain, Brat and Brat x Climpson’s Arch, brings his open-fire cooking style and Welsh-Celtic roots to United Polaris. His dishes include grilled beef fillet with thyme, beetroots, Caerphilly cheese and mustard, lobster with grilled peach, tomato and fennel herb, and slow-roasted lamb with smoked potatoes, grilled broccoli and green sauce.
Tokyo is represented by Chef Tashi Gyamtso, acclaimed head chef of Jimgu, a farm-driven restaurant where menus are shaped entirely by what the land provides. His menu includes poached scallop with yuzu-ginger glaze and edamame purée, Napa cabbage and mizuna crunch with shaved carrots, toasted sesame seeds and rice wine vinegar, and miso-marinated sea bass with Koshihikari rice and shiitake mushrooms.
The challenge of translating restaurant-level cooking into an inflight environment is significant. Altitude changes the way flavour is perceived, while service, timing and space all demand a different kind of precision. For this reason, the dishes have not simply been adapted from restaurant menus, but developed specifically for the aircraft cabin.
“This collaboration is about fundamentally redefining inflight dining, bringing the culinary expertise of Chef’s Table to passengers,” said Justin Connor, President of Chef’s Table Projects. “In our collaboration with United, we are elevating the onboard experience. Our 11 featured chefs have crafted menus specifically engineered for 35,000 feet, ensuring ingredients and flavors remain exceptional despite the altitude.”
The result is a menu programme that considers not only taste, but narrative, geography and atmosphere. Each dish is intended to reflect the city from which the flight departs, allowing passengers to begin their journey with a sense of place.
The menus will be served from 1st August through September 2026, with a new line-up of dishes from the same 11 chefs set to launch in October and rotate seasonally into 2027.
United Polaris international business class travellers will be able to pre-order the Chef’s Table meals through United.com or the United app. Customers can view and select their preferred meals from five days before departure until 24 hours before flying.
The collaboration extends beyond the menu. Also launching on 1st August, United and Chef’s Table will debut a collection of exclusive original branded content on the airline’s inflight entertainment system, offering passengers a behind-the-scenes look at how the menus were created.
The series will follow the journey from local markets to United’s test kitchens, revealing the artistry, regional inspiration and practical development behind the new dishes. It will document the collaboration between the airline and the chefs, from initial menu concepts and ingredient sourcing to recipe testing and final preparation.
The content will also explore each chef’s personal story, tracing how their roots, memories and regional traditions shaped the dishes now being served on board.
Beginning 1st July, United will also bring selected video podcast episodes from Chef’s Table: Talks to inflight entertainment seatback screens. Hosted by David Gelb, creator and director of Chef’s Table, the podcast features conversations with chefs and celebrities about formative meals, food memories and the experiences that shaped their creative lives.
Chef’s Table first premiered on Netflix in 2015 and has since become one of the defining food documentary series of the streaming era. Known for its cinematic style and intimate portraits of extraordinary chefs, the series has changed the way audiences think about restaurants, creativity and the emotional power of food.
For United, the collaboration reflects a broader ambition to elevate the passenger experience across its global network. With U.S. hubs in Chicago, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, New York/Newark, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., alongside routes into some of the world’s most celebrated food cities, the airline is using its scale to connect travel, storytelling and cuisine in a more meaningful way.
In the best restaurants, a meal is never just a meal. It is place, memory, craft and point of view. With Chef’s Table, United is bringing that philosophy into the cabin, inviting travellers to experience a dish not simply as something served during a flight, but as part of the emotional architecture of the journey.
At a time when luxury travel is increasingly defined by personalisation, provenance and story, this new Polaris dining programme feels like a fitting evolution. It brings the world to the tray table with greater ambition, greater care and a sense of culinary theatre rarely associated with the sky.
From burrata inspired by Los Angeles to Brazilian shrimp stew from São Paulo, from open-fire London lamb to miso-marinated sea bass from Tokyo, United’s collaboration with Chef’s Table offers a more vivid way to travel: one where the journey begins not at landing, but with the first course.
