The American Airlines Admirals Club in Austin was serving ‘Sicilian Roasted Beef Brisket Bites’ and ‘Arrabiatta Parmesan Pasta’ this week.
- Someone thought that brisket in Texas made sense. But in Central Texas, serving ‘Sicilian’ brisket isn’t fusion cuisine. It’s confusion cuisine. And trying it was like flying basic economy: bland, disappointing, and leaving you questioning your life choices.
- Meanwhile ‘Arrabiatta Parmesan Pasta’ translates roughly as ‘angry pasta,’ named after passengers who taste it.
I have a simple rule. You should never serve food that cannot plausibly be described by someone as tasty, or at a minimum, ‘tasty for what it is.’
When American Airlines and Citibank announced updates and a higher annual fee for their premium AAdvantage cobrand credit card that comes with lounge membership, they promised better food. And their ‘premium push’ across the airline has highlighted a drive to improve lounge food further. And… this. It’s a choice. Someone actually had to choose to serve this.
While the kitchen facilities in the Austin Admirals Club don’t mirror those of the finest restaurants, the food here isn’t meaningfully worse than at other Admirals Clubs either.
I’ve said that I’ll believe the premium push is real when Devon May starts signing off on real capital expenses. But I think the better tell is actually the food and beverage program. American launched a Bollinger champagne partnership. That’s great – I actually think Bollinger works better in the air than either Laurent-Perrier (United) or Taittinger (Delta). It’s bigge, Pinot-driven and toasty. It has more depth than the others and also works with creamy oversauced dishes, chicken, pork and salty snacks.
However, champagne was where American needed the least work. Over the summer my Dallas – Venice flight served Nicolas Feuillatte. Perfectly fine! Yet the wines they serve are genuinely atrocious. They’re a box-checking exercise, giving a (de minimis) budget to a supplier like Intervine and taking whatever excess dreck they ship.
For too many years no middle manager has advanced at American Airlines by sweating the details of product, working to get the best experience for the money. They’ve advanced by making sure there’s wine, or food in the clubs, and that it meets budget. What that wine or food actually is has become an afterthought. It’s also not a place that has attracted people who think and care deeply about these things.
The ones who do and are still there have had speaking up beaten out of them by the finance department and by a CEO whose first instruction to employees upon taking the role was to ‘never spend a dollar more than they need to’.
And that’s one of the many reasons that a ‘premium push’ is going to take so much work. It’s not a matter of ticking through problem areas like coffee, champagne, and food for sale in economy. It’s also not only a matter of articulating a vision and explaining how small changes are part of a large whole they’re building – and selling employees on it.
It’s about the culture of middle management, and how they’re rewarded – for sweating the small details of product and getting the most out of every dollar they spend – and recruiting the kind of people who care deeply about how all the pieces fit together for something bigger than any individual item on the buffet.
What’s the story they’re crafting? Because getting ‘Sicilian’ brisket in Central Texas, where brisket at most comes with sauce for dipping because you don’t want sauce to hide the flavor of the meat just makes absolutely no sense.
Here, the meat’s flavor could have used hiding – this version, though, didn’t do the trick.
FFS man, you didn’t like two dishes at a lounge, and you conflate that to some overarching corporate leadership issue? I don’t like Delta sky club cheese cubes, should I short their stock?
Are Italians now the out-group? Uh oh, @Michael Mainello, look what they’ve done to your culture! Quick, put out some higher quality cacio e pepe to make up for this, Admirals Club! How dare they… (actually, the chicken cacciatore at LGA TB is pretty good. I don’t understand why JFK T8 AC gets no love.)
@Mantis — Yes, always a good idea to short-Delta. Make @Tim Dunn pay!
For the generic wonderbread crackers in their shorts and baseball caps that usually frequent the “clubs” in middle America airports these choices are on par with what they think is “premium”.
All above comments: ditto!
Though some of those choices may not sit well on a long flight.
I actually think this is a great article. Because when it comes to corporate culture, the devil is always in the details. You can’t mandate that employees not “spend a dollar [they] don’t have to” on one earnings call only to proclaim a “pivot to premium” a year or so later. That kind of messaging is contradictory, and it leaves employees feeling both confused and powerless. The food selections cited in this post are excellent symbols of both. Unless and until shareholders overhaul the BOD at American, we can expect a whole lot more in the way of angry pasta and angry people surrounding this terribly bemused and mismanaged organization.
Why do people join the airline clubs and continue to complain? The money spent on fees could be used to have a nice meal at a restaurant before arriving at a airport.
NGL, feels a little racist to translate the native name for a classic dish into English as means to denigrate it.
Gary, you seem like an insufferable person in a lot of your recent posts. Maybe the food wasn’t great, but all brisket served in Texas doesn’t have to be BBQ. Just enjoy it for what it is instead of milling it for complaint content.
Mike Hunt is correct. The employees and passengers are not seeing any “aha” situations. The devil is in the details….How about making at least 50% of electrical plugs work in The Admirals Club in ORD where they are battling UAL ?? Easy start….
Haha I actually like the Arrabbiata pasta at the AUS club tbh and hoping they still have it on my next trip out of Austin. As for the other issues, you are spot on Gary. The champaign wasn’t the problem, their wines and other areas of the soft product need investment and still feels too “reimagined” from when they came out of the pandemic. If I were there at corporate and had the power/influence, I’d suggest a whole new/better wine program for Flagship Business (at least serve $40+ bottles?) with the former wines going to premium economy (stop serving the mini bottles/etc there too!)….
@Mike Hunt, @Scottino — I donno fellas, the Admirals Clubs with the guac stations aren’t too bad. And, have either of you made it to Chelsea, Soho, or even Greenwich at JFK T8 yet? Haven’t made it to PHL’s new Flagship yet, but if it’s similarly designed, even the AC at DCA is pretty decent, no? Gotta love those faux-fireplaces. Ahh…
@Retard (1990) – Ew. Go away.
@Mike Hunt — You’re missing out…
JoeY, Curious, Max….spot on.
Think the ~ Angry ~ author rose on either wrong side of the bed this morning. Sophomoric article, and that’s being generous.
Arrabiata, done properly, can be a wonderful dish.
Haven’t tried AA’s version.
Of course it’s an exercise in futility to think you’ll receive quality food in airplanes, or even airport lounges for that matter.
They had to cover the brisket in sauce to mask the taste of the select grade horse meat it likely is
((remembers the days when the United Red Carpet Clubs served only small packets of cheese and the same snack mix on the plane))
These food wars in the clubs are a bit strange. Especially when you consider that Alaska Airlines added their “famous” pancake presses years before others added food. And thankfully, Alaska hasn’t gotten rid of them yet.
Why can’t we just have edible, decent munchie foods before our flights? Is that really too much to ask for? Now when I go into the Alaska N lounge in SeaTac, I have to wonder which version of Panda Express they’re going to be serving, and if the salad bar is even intact (last time it wasn’t – no salad in sight, just a variety of sauced-soaked options). A recent “club hopping” in Miami to the Turkish, Aviana, and LATAM lounges was definitely full of “what the hell is this?” – with Avianca winning only because of the donut tower. (couldn’t get into Delta – line was too long)
@segmentKing, was in the IAD Turkish lounge recently and I thought the food was great. But it was ridiculously crowded
As one said, Gary is insufferable. The menu is system wide. And I thought it was pretty good. Why has Gary not mentioned Bollinger served on AA flights now? Kvetching is about all he does. That and potty posts and of course gross feet articles.
Nomenclature aside, doesn’t look too bad. Looks like something I’d go for seconds for. Speaking of Arrabiata, missing those SkyClub Arrabiata meatballs.
Why do I think that lounges plan food based on what I won’t like?
@This comes to mind — Next time you route from CMH to NYC, maybe try the new C1 lounges at JFK or LGA (soon)!
As long as it’s cheap and subpar AMERICAN is serving it at a club near you,
@Pilot93434 – “Why has Gary not mentioned Bollinger served on AA flights now?”
1) I have
2) I was the first to write that AA would be doing a branded champagne deal
3) And I even complimented the nicolas feuillatte brut they were serving previously – that AA already had good champagne onboard.