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Jetters Eat Better
Food Arts - April, 2009
Jetters eat better New York City – Airport food, long and justifiably maligned, is getting a makeover at airports around the world, with famous names such as Gordon Ramsay opening outlets. The most ambitious step in this direction, though, may be JetBlue's new Terminal 5 at New York City's JFK. "We really wanted to create a culinary destination at the airport," explains Michael Coury, concept chef for OTG Management, the Philadelphia-based firm that operates the terminal's restaurants. And to accomplish that, they went after some of the top restaurateurs in New York City.
The pitch was simple: come create a menu along the same lines as your restaurant for the estimated 20 million passengers expected to pass through the terminal each year. One very famous French chef, who must remain nameless, emphatically said no, but everyone sad yes. Mark Ladner of De Posto, with whom Coury had once worked at Lupa, signed on first as the guiding light behind the Italian restaurant AeroNuova. Once that happened, according to Coury, it was easy to sign the others: Michael Schulson, formerly of Buddakan for the sushi/Asian spot Deep Blue; Riad Nasr and Lee Hanson, the executive chefs of Balthazar and Pastis for the bistro La Vie; Alexandra Raij, formerly of Tia Pol for the tapas café Piquillo; and Roberto Santibanez, formerly of Rosa Mexicano for the Mexican restaurant Revolucion. Coury oversees the other major restaurant, the steakhouse 5iveSteak. There is one long kitchen located behind AeroNuova, Piquillo, and 5iveSteak, and each of the restaurants in the front area (five in total) use a section for their individual menu. The other restaurants in the terminal (New York Sports Bar and Grille and Revolucion) each have their own kitchen.
There were no restrictions on menus, according to Coury; every dish the chefs wanted to do made it to the final list. "Prep space is the challenge, but the kitchen designers worked it out," he says. "So Mario Carbone, the executive chef at AeroNuova, has the space to make his pasta." Mindful that customers are especially time conscious in this setting, he sourced specific equipment for some of the restaurants, such as a special infrared broiler at 5iveSteak to reduce the cooking time for a 24 ounce rib eye.
As with all restaurants, there was a shakedown period to get the kinks out, but after several months certain dishes seem to have emerged as the favorites. "The rigatoni with cauliflower ragu and tuna with eggplant puree, candied lemon confit rinds, and olives at AeroNuova are pretty popular. So are the guacamole at Revolucion and the whole menu, really, at Deep Blue," he says. "But our burgers at 5iveSteak…a 10 ounce blend that we devised at Pat LaFrieda with artisan cheeses – Manchego, Grafton Farms cheddar, Maytag or Port Reyes blue. Without question, it's now not only the best airport, we think it's the best burger in New York." - Laurie Werner