United's Polaris business class food is getting another upgrade. On Nov. 1, United will start serving 30 new dishes from 11 well-known chefs on long-haul international flights, the second round of its partnership with Chef's Table, the brand behind the Emmy-winning Netflix series. The new lineup includes Nancy Silverton's spiral meat lasagna, David Barzelay's rack of lamb and Tomos Parry's roasted pumpkin with rosemary stracciatella. I'm glad to see it, because the last Polaris dinner I ate was a good reminder of why United needed to do something.
My Last Polaris Dinner
On my last Polaris flight, from Newark to Dubai earlier this year and before the first Chef's Table menus launched, dinner started out fine. The salmon and salad starters were respectable, and the bread and its accompaniments were perfectly decent.
The main course was where it fell apart. I had the beef filet, and it arrived sitting in a pool of beef juices mixed with what looked like grease from the rutabaga gratin next to it. It wasn't appetizing to look at, and it didn't win me over once I started eating either. The filet was small and on the tough side, and the best thing on the plate was, surprisingly, the gratin. I'd call the whole tray edible but below what you should expect in business class, especially on a route where Emirates is the competition.
How to Get the New Meals
The Chef's Table dishes aren't served automatically. You have to preorder them on united.com or in the United app, starting five days before your flight and up to 24 hours before departure. If you don't, you'll get the regular Polaris menu, which is what I had.
They're also tied to where you're flying from. Each menu comes from a chef based in one of United's departure cities: Newark, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, London, São Paulo and Tokyo. United says the meals are offered on select long-haul lunch and dinner flights from those cities, so check the preorder option in your booking a few days before you fly.
Will It Fix Polaris Food?
United says it's working so far. More than 60,000 customers have ordered a Chef's Table meal since the first round launched on Aug. 1, and their satisfaction scores are nearly 20 points higher than for United's other preordered meals. The airline says it invested more than $150 million in food and drinks last year and has also expanded meal preorders in economy.
The catch is that a better preorder menu doesn't fix the meal many passengers still get by default. If you forget to order, or the option isn't offered on your flight, you're back to the regular menu, and on my flight that meant a small, tough filet sitting in a puddle. The Chef's Table meals are the clearest sign yet that United knows its business class food has been a weak spot. The next step is making the regular tray worth looking forward to, too.
