Lufthansa Business Class, Short Haul, Europe

Update Review, May 2024 Travel

Flight Details:

• Route: UA 8766 / LH 1622, Munich to Krakow
• Departure: 11:25am
• Arrival: 12:45pm
• Seat: 1A
• Aircraft: A321

Standard inter-Europe flight, first class with middle seat blocked out, short flight, but still full meal service. Nothing notable or out of the ordinary. Note: no wifi available.

Food & Drink

Meal Tray.

I was seated in the first row, and had a meal tray in front of me within moments of when the FA could stand up.  No choice given, just, the tray.  On it was the main dish and dessert.  She very efficiently served the small cabin their trays, then came back with a bread basket, and then a cart for drinks.  The entire process was done in <3 minutes.  It was very impressive.

Main Dish.

The main dish was some kind of sliced meat (roast beef?), with a beet puree, roast beets, and creamy kraut.  Some mustard in there too.

The meat was tender, and even had a bit of pink, but I didn't care for the flavor.  Maybe it was veal?  

The rest was fine, very very flavorful components.  I brought a salad with me, and I mixed the kraut and beet puree in, and that was actually pretty satisfying.  Not an exciting meal, but it worked.  *** beet elements/kraut, ** meat.

No salt and pepper provided to go with, which I really wanted for my salad (luckily, I had my own of course).  Basic, a bit odd, but reasonably interesting and tasty.

Roll.

The bread basket contained a few different kinds of bread.  It was presented without tongs to get the bread, I was supposed to just reach in to grab one.  I was glad I was the first guest served?  I went for one that turned out to be cheesy and seedy.  It was warm.  It was fine, but not special.  **+.

Dessert.

The dessert was a bundt cake, with some kind of red fruit puree, and a bit of cream.  The cake was not particularly flavorful, but it was moist.  A blank canvas really.  I think the fruit may have been plum?  But completely pureed, no bits of fruit.  It was not too sweet.  The cream was fine.

Overall, not my style of dessert really, but nothing wrong with it.  **+ due to my own preferences, but it probably was a *** for most.

Original Review, September 2022

My first trip on Lufthansa, short haul business class.  It was a good experience. They blow domestic US airlines out of the water.

Flight Details:

• LH109, MUC-FRA
• Departure: 2pm (actual: 2:30pm)
• Arrival: 3pm (actual: 3:15pm)
• Class: Business

With a flight time of just 40 minutes, I absolutely did not expect a meal tray! The moment they could stand up, our flight attendants sprang into motion delivering trays within seconds. It was impressive, really.

Menu.

Our trays came with a cold snack-ish savory platter and a dessert, along with a menu card, advertising the "Tasting" featuring cuisine from Frankfurt. This is part of Lufthansa's new business class catering, featuring what is supposed to be local cuisine from different cities.

The menu came in several languages, including English, but I still wasn't quite sure what I had.

Meal.

"Smoked Tenderloin of Beef accompanied by buttered Wholemeal Spelt Bread with pickled Vegetables, Spundekas Quenelle and Pretzel Crouton."

This was a mixed bag. I love pickles, but the white pickled things on top were way too strongly pickled for me. I'm not sure what they were. The tiny baby zucchini was not pickled, and was fine, but mostly just a small baby cold cooked zucchini. Eh. The white thing also on top was crisp, tart (I assume pickled?) but I'm also not sure what it was. Fascinating stuff.

The beef was actually not bad, tender, sorta like corned beef. I liked the pretzel croutons, even though they were a bit soft. The flavor was good. The bread was kinda stale tasting, a kinda hard slice of spelt bread, that I didn't particularly care for. And buttered, with the beef? That was odd. Mayo, mustard, anything like that would have made more sense.

Then there was a lump that looked at first like tuna salad, but I realized was the Spundekas. I couldn't identify it at all. It sorta tasted like cottage cheese without curds, but, was strangely orange. I later looked it up to find out that it is quark with paprika. Ah. Anyway, I wasn't really into the flavor, but I liked the crunch from the seeds on top.

So, not awful, but not actually very good. The Swiss Airlines savory open faced breads on the same length flight (Zurich to Munich) were considerably better.

***.

"Frankfurter Kranz Kuppel with Almond Brittle".

Then there was dessert-ish.

Yes, this was the English translation. And no, there was no almond brittle anywhere in sight. I have no idea what this was really. It was decent, a mousse, fairly creamy, sweet. On top though was ... torn bread? Stewed plums? Definitely not almond brittle, that is all I know.

This was kinda enjoyable, even if not identifiable. That said, the little pudding I had on the similarly short Swiss airlines flight from Zurich to Munich was much better. I also learned that "Frankfurter Kranz Kuppel" is a Frankfort "Crown Cake", a crown shaped bundt cake with cream filling, which explains the "torn bread", I guess that was the cake. It was light and airy, and I didn't actually like it much. Maybe the pudding was supposed to be like the buttercream usually found in the layers of the cake? Was this a deconstructed version? And the stuff that looked like stewed plum wasn't ... it was just a fruity gel.

So, definitely odd. I liked the mousse, the rest though ... eh.

***.