Delta Is Bringing Back Hot Meals - With Dishes From Some of LA's Top Chefs

Hot meals on Delta Air Lines are ready to be served for passengers flying Delta One and First Class on select domestic routes starting this week.

Travelers flying out of Los Angeles can get a taste of local fare onboard with menus from Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo, the chefs behind some of the city's most popular eateries including Animal, Son of a Gun, and Jon & Vinny's. Their Delta menu includes Italian-American standards like marinara-braised meatballs and chicken parmesan, made with local, fresh and seasonal ingredients.

Premium class passengers flying Boston and New York-JFK to and from Seattle, Los Angeles, and San Francisco will see hot meals returning to the cabin on June 15.

The onboard menu will include options for breakfast, lunch, and dinner like lemon ricotta pancakes with blueberry thyme syrup, a smoked salmon plate with bagel chips, and beef short ribs with whipped potatoes. Passengers can also enjoy locally sourced sourdough bread and batch-churned, slow-cultured butter from Atlanta's Banner Butter.

Delta food
Delta food

Courtesy of Delta Air Lines

"The new meals are the latest in an ongoing series of enhancements we've been making to our offerings in flight," Delta's Chief Customer Experience Officer Allison Ausband said in a statement. "Delta continues to take an intentional approach to the return of our onboard food and beverage program to ensure service is coming back safely and even better than before."

Later this summer, Delta One and First Class passengers on routes longer than 1,500 miles within North America, the Caribbean and Latin America will have menu options like a superfood grain bowl, strawberry salad with seared chicken and Italian prosciutto and fresh mozzarella sandwich.

The food rollout was developed in partnership with the Mayo Clinic. The process has been tested multiple times and undergone onboard simulations to ensure safe delivery.

This week, Delta is also bringing back its complimentary snack box - with options like Kind Energy bars, potato chips and cookies - for Delta One, First Class and Comfort passengers on domestic, longer-haul flights.

Delta began bringing back limited meal service in all cabins in mid-April.

Cailey Rizzo is a contributing writer for Travel + Leisure, currently based in Brooklyn. You can find her on Twitter, Instagram, or at caileyrizzo.com.