Croatia Airlines’ new business class menu presented
12th June 2019, Zagreb
Croatia Airlines, the Croatian national carrier and a member of Star Alliance, today presented its new business class menu in Zagreb, thus promoting Croatia’s tourist and culinary offer even more powerfully.
The new culinary offer aboard Croatia Airlines’ flights has been created by the celebrated Croatian chef Dino Galvagno and Leopold Botteri’s Uje Oil Bar, together with whom Croatia Airlines launched the Inspired by Croatia project at the end of 2016, within the framework of which business class passengers are served meals that are prepared using autochthonous recipes and ingredients of coastal and continental Croatia.
The novelty is also new business class menu, which is introduced on 19th June this year, has been motivated, first and foremost, by dishes typical of a Zagreb-based cuisine, such as ham, roast turkey with mlinci (dried and then boiled flatbread), kale stew with pan-fried ground beef patties, the not-to-be-missed homemade štrukli (cooked or baked cheese-filled pastry made of pasta-like dough) and other dishes, which are prepared by using autochthonous local ingredients, which have been used in these regions for centuries, and which are found in all Croatian cookbooks.
– While choosing meals for a Zagreb-based menu, I was guided by the idea of recreating the atmosphere of a typical Zagreb family lunch from the beginning to the middle of the 20th century, bearing in mind the strong influence of the Austro-Hungarian cuisine and the richness of ingredients offered by nearby small family farms. Zagreb families used to buy the ingredients for these dishes from our menu at Zagreb’s Dolac open-air farmers’ market and used to enjoy them almost daily. We’re hoping to have the tastes and smells of these dishes accompany Croatia Airlines’ passengers at their new destination - said Dino Galvagno at the presentation of the new menu.
Apart from a Zagreb-based cuisine, the new business class menu also promotes local foods and ingredients from Croatia’s other regions, such as anchovies, bacon, cuttlefish and fava beans. Also, the dishes on the new menu contain more vegetables and are prepared by using traditional cooking methods that change the character of the ingredients used minimally. Synchronising several catering service providers at Croatian airports – namely, in Zagreb, Split and Dubrovnik – has been a special challenge in this project, and this with a view to achieving uniformity of taste and quality.
This year’s novelty in Croatia Airlines’ culinary offer is, at the same time, an introduction to a new project called Croatia Airlines Full of Taste, which is being prepared in collaboration with the Croatian Tourist Board and which is expected to be launched in April 2020.
– Croatia Airlines Full of Taste is a project aiming to present Croatia aboard our flights in terms of its foods and wines, whose values will be felt by both business and economic class passengers. The project will be executed in collaboration with renowned Croatian chefs, restaurants, wineries, sommeliers, oil producers and other Croatian producers of autochthonous Croatian products. Every six months, that is for each summer and winter timetable, we’ll change the menus and their visual presentation completely and in line with the different concepts of Croatia’s culinary map, and this with a view to increasing the level of passenger satisfaction aboard our flights – said Jasmin Bajić, President and CEO of Croatia Airlines.
Croatia Airlines, as the Croatian flag carrier and a company that continuously strives to improve its service, is looking to create added value for its passengers within the framework of the said projects, and to bring the gastronomic wealth of Croatia closer to its passengers through taste, smell and colour.