Leading chef Marcus Wareing recently declared that British pub food is now worse that airline food and that, “if you want a decent bite to eat, you’d be better off getting on a plane”. Richard DeDomenici finds this a rather environmentally irresponsible thing to say, and has created a far more exciting alternative: a Plane Food Café that sells genuine airline food in plastic trays delivered straight from the airport factories and served at ground level by DeDomenici and his cabin crew.
The cafe is housed in an installation of fixtures and fittings procured from aircraft reclamation yards, complete with on-board entertainment on the wider subject of air travel, which will hopefully provide an immersive, educational experience, to accompany the gastronomic one.
In-flight meals taste different on the ground – pressurised aircraft cabins deaden the taste buds, and the low humidity hinders the ability to smell. Therefore plane food on the ground should theoretically taste spectacular. It is envisaged that Plane Food Café will help to discourage the environmentally conscious and paranoid from further flying, whilst simultaneously enabling the 95% of people in the world who have never travelled by plane to inexpensively experience the delights of aviation cuisine.