The Odette chef renews his partnership with Air France, creating elevated menus that transform a long-haul flight into a showcase of contemporary French cuisine
Linen is laid with the same precision one might expect at a three-Michelin-starred restaurant. Wine is poured by a sommelier, and a plate of sea bass and prawn bouillabaisse emerges from the galley, its saffron-laced sauce carefully spooned tableside. The dish is by Julien Royer, the Auvergne-born chef behind Odette, Singapore’s three-Michelin-starred dining destination.
This is the kind of ultra-luxury treatment passengers can expect when flying from Singapore to Paris in Air France’s La Première cabin, a first-class experience conceived as a high-end journey on the ground and in the air, rather than simply a larger seat at the front of the aircraft.
At a private media tasting, Royer’s sea bass dish was, like much of his cooking, faultless. The fillet was delicately sweet, complemented by briny prawns, while tender potatoes provided the perfect foil to the piquant saffron sauce, which lifted the dish without overwhelming it. Royer notes that the seasoning is intentionally more pronounced for service in the air, as altitude dulls perception and flavours that feel balanced at 35,000 feet require greater intensity than those served at ground level.
Since 2019, Royer has been bringing a distinctly Franco-Asian sensibility to Air France flights departing Singapore, crafting menus that sit as comfortably alongside references to chicken rice as they do classic French sauces. As chef-owner of Odette, housed within Singapore’s National Gallery, Royer has become one of the city-state’s defining culinary voices. He is a natural choice for an airline capable of transforming a 13-hour flight into a culinary snapshot of contemporary French taste.
This year, Air France renewed its exclusive partnership with Royer for a further seven years. The latest La Première and Business Class menus rotate through ten dishes across the year. Among them are Provençal lamb shoulder with Niçoise olive jus and boulangère potatoes; miso-marinated cod with yuzu beurre blanc and pilaf rice; sea bass and prawn bouillabaisse with saffron rouille, fennel and melt-in-the-mouth potatoes; and ravioli of Fourme d’Ambert with spiced figs and walnut crumble.
Business Class passengers, meanwhile, receive a more relaxed but no less thoughtful interpretation of Royer’s cooking. Braised beef short ribs with carrot mousseline and grilled onions, coconut-poached cod with Niigata rice and vadouvan, and Chilean sea bass with Kyoto white miso and sake beurre blanc tread the line between comfort food and chef’s-table ambition. Even a mushroom dumpling with maitake and kabocha pumpkin arrives in a sweet-and-sour broth that pays homage to Asia as much as it does to France.
For Air France, the collaboration is as much about brand identity as it is about in-flight dining. On the ground, La Première has been repositioned as an expression of French art de vivre, from suites that feel like private railway carriages to menus by Alain Ducasse in the Paris lounge. In the air, chefs such as Royer serve as culinary ambassadors, translating that philosophy for different cities and cultures: Singapore’s cosmopolitan palate, Japanese seasonality from Tokyo, or the African-French influences that shape menus departing Abidjan.
