Earlier this year, United Airlines announced some pretty sweet upgrades to the complimentary food menu in its airport lounges. Not that it had a choice, with Delta also enhancing its club food, but to United’s credit the new offerings have been a real improvement thus far.
I was in the United Club last week at LAX and enjoyed the following spread for breakfast–
From the berries to the yogurt to the scones — everything was tasty.
But last week United shuffled the menu. Here’s a look at the Autumn menu:
Today we’re beginning a seasonal rotation of the United Club complimentary fresh food menus at our hubs. The menu launching today features more autumnal produce, hearty soups, and other seasonal items. We continue to progressively introduce a version of the previous menu at our line stations, and starting next year we’ll be introducing a new menu at all clubs with each season.
Here’s what you might see in our hub locations in the new rotation:
Morning:
- Greek vanilla yogurt with fruit salad featuring pineapple chunks, sweet honeydew and cantaloupe chunks, and crisp red seedless grapes
- Sliced hard boiled eggs with assorted toppings including bacon bits, minced red onion and capers
- Cream of rice with golden and dark raisins
- Assorted croissants and pound cakes
Afternoon:
- Salami nuggets, sweet capicola, panino meats and assorted cheeses including gouda, Muenster and Swiss
- Monthly soup rotation with assorted artisan bread and wheat crackers:
- Corn chowder with chicken
- Butternut squash
- Tuscan style white bean with chicken
- Fresh cut zucchini, yellow squash, cherry tomato medley
- Monthly fresh leafy greens salad rotation with assorted artisan bread and wheat crackers
- Dressed kale leaf salad with carrots and raspberry vinaigrette
- Dressed spinach leaf salad
- De-constructed wedge salad
My thoughts are this is quite a downgrade for breakfast, though the afternoon items sound nice.
When people say airport lounge food will always be only airport lounge food, I would respectfully disagree — look no further than the American Express Centurion Lounges.
Breakfast at the American Express Centurion Lounge in SFO
These upgraded lounge menus for the legacies still do not approach that level of quality food and drink, but they are a step in the right direction. Let’s hope that United is not taking a step back with its latest seasonal menu, slowly lurching back to the dark days of cheese cubes and carrot sticks.
No forks at either food station at United Club ORD F gates on Thursday for over an hour around 1-2 PM, Pita chips so ccrumbled as to be not usable for dip scooping. Rolls at only 1 of 2 food stations and rock hard anyhow.
Wish they had had that when I was there last time….
At DEN this morning, the new menu. Fruit definitely cheaper than the berries they had before. No sign of the eggs at all, even though they were listed on menu boards, with the notation”for a limited time” was the limit already reached?