Food this week starts in the air. It’s a long time since Girlahead flew Finnair and she was pretty impressed. A brand-new A350 with soft silver-champagne interiors, immaculately groomed slim cabin crew, and sense-of-place food. See the hard-bread, though you sadly cannot see what came with another meal, heavily-smoked local Finnish fish. Well done.
Finnish food on Finnair, but on the ground a product must be more universal. THE PENINSULA HONG KONG, for instance, is on an extensive celebration of French culture and gastronomy. One of the events, on 17th June, will be Une Nuit de Jazz(A Night of Jazz), with sophisticated live music in the famous two-floor lobby to accompany French cuisine and paired wines. The menu includes bouillabaisse with mussels, scallops and scampi; and roast Challans duck breast with charcoal-grilled corn purée, duck praline and jus.
Collectors of fine dining necessities, say carving trolleys and china, will be in their element 21-22 June when THE DORCHESTER in London holds a life+virtual Pro Auction sale of artefacts no longer required by the hotel when its current new-look is finished.
Pro Auction’s Simon Rose this is the perfect opportunity to purchase a piece of the hotel’s history
It’s always a big plus when both a GM and the EAM are foodies, and with two just-arrived Frenchmen at THE BRANDO, that bodes well for the resort, in Tahiti’s Tetiaroa Atoll. Although Brando’s principal home was a gated 1939-vintage estate in California’s Hollywood Hills, he fell in love with Tetiaroa island when film Mutiny on the Bounty in 1966. He bought the island, and about 33 years later he and hotelier Richard Bailey developed what is now a hyper-exclusive resort with 47 villas. (Not relevant but interesting, Omaha NB-born Marlon Brando, 1924-2004, had three wives, the last being Tarita Teriʻipaia, French Polynesian of Chinese descent, and she still alive, at 81.)
The Brando’s GM Etienne Joquin’s background includes Shangri-La. Also new, EAM (also in charge if F&B) Franck Delen was long ago restaurants manager at PAN PACIFIC SINGAPORE but he subsequently spent time with various small and local brands around Cambodia and Vietnam. So, with French foodies in charge, can we expect that the French-Polynesian cuisine at Beachcomber Café will veer more to French style? Les Mutinés fine dining restaurant, by contrast, definitely stresses Polynesian, including vegan. Since it is far too long since Girlahead visited the South Pacific, let’s check what that cuisine actually is. The word according to Alimentarium decrees it is mostly based on seafood and exotic fruit, with French and Chinese influences dishes tend to use relatively few spices and often include coconut milk, ginger, lime, vanilla or tamarind.
Food and much more is very much on the mind of one of today’s stars. Hear what this Dubai-based private jet leader thinks of the entire hospitality experience:
