Sunday marked an important date in JetBlue history: the inaugural flight featuring their brand new Mint product, aka JetBlue First Class. Like all things JetBlue, Mint isn’t your typical premium cabin. While other travel bloggers can fill you in about the flight experience itself, I’m here to tell you about the food and it’s unlike anything other airlines are doing. JetBlue already has a pretty intimate relationship with JFK (anybody that’s been to the airport’s Terminal 5 can attest to that) but now their inflight Mint meals reflect their association with New York as well.
The airline has partnered with NY restaurant Saxon + Parole to create a menu of a la carte small plates (they’re calling it tapas, but that’s really a misnomer since none of the dishes fall within the Spanish canon) that you mix and match to create a full meal. Saxon + Parole Marketing Director Marion Emmanuelle says that the partnership works because it’s wholly authentic. “We’re very sort of Downtown,” she says. “We really capture the energy of Downtown without being that cliche of Meatpacking District restaurants.” She goes on to say that the guests at Saxon + Parole are really the same type of target audience that JetBlue goes after.
I was able to get an advance preview of a few of the Saxon + Parole small plates and I definitely came away impressed. These are bold dishes with big flavors, crafted specifically to counterbalance the taste loss you experience in the air. Instead of pandering to the lowest common denominator of filet and potatoes or frozen pizzas, the options are much more sophisticated. I sadly didn’t get to try any of the hot dishes, but I was truly wowed by the portobello mushroom mousse with truffles and whiskey jelly.
The chilled carrot and ginger soup with an Aleppo pepper-spiced marshmallow was also a nice touch.
The way it works is simple. There are five choices from which to choose. You pick three, along with a small appetizer “taste” (the soup) and dessert. Think of it like an Air Tasting Menu. You also get a really refreshing welcome cocktail, the RefreshMint, a sparkling vodka mint lemonade that beats champagne in my book any day — mostly because I don’t love champagne.
The menu is seasonal and, based on the initial release, seems like it’ll change every two months or so (the current one is June/July). Here’s a look at the current menus for breakfast and lunch/dinner:
BREAKFAST/BRUNCH
 LUNCH/DINNER
If you’ve made it onto a JetBlue flight and experienced Mint, I’d love to hear about your experience. Fill me in with a comment below.
The concept of a collection of small plates to make a meal is something new for premium seat air travel. In time, JB will figure out what is popular and what is less so. The first round of menu items DOES look interesting. I’d also suspect that the on-board galley activity is a bit more than the usual work load for a first class cabin. I hope that the FAs don’t riot in protest. I’m also reasonably sure that during the early weeks, JB will have sufficient catering aboard to satisfy the curious and interested pax. Then what? “I’m sorry, we’re out of that,” is not an acceptable response in first class, but with an increased list of available dishes, though in smaller portions, they cannot possibly satisfy the requests for the small plates that turn out to be the most popular. I hope that they pay extremely close attention each offering’s number of portions ‘sold,’ How many first class seats are they flying on their A321s, a dozen? Catering a wide selection of small plates for a dozen, mostly unpredictable pax is a nearly impossible task. I wonder what level they have established as satisfactory. If fifty percent of pax get the “I’m sorry,” line, they have flunked. If 25% get that line for one or more small plates, is that good enough for them? We’ll never know what their standards are but over time pax reports will shed some light. What about the semi-regular JB trans-con flyer who takes a liking to one small plate offering and decides to make a full meal of ONE dish, requesting two or three small plate portions? Is the JB FA going to tell him/her, “NO. I cannot do that?” “No,” is not a satisfactory response to a passenger paying that hefty fare for JB’s Mint, Trans-Con service and it just won’t fly if it happens often.
At first glance, I really like the multiple small plates idea, but from the catering and in-flight service view, I question JB’s ability to pull it off over the longer term. While I believe that they can afford to cater that program sufficiently, I don’t believe that they will. With a , my advice to the serious airplane food junkie who wants to try this unique approach to first class meal service is to TRY IT SOON. I just don’t see how JB can sustain it with sufficient numbers to keep the “I’m so sorry…” responses to a minimum. I do wish them well! I’m looking for an excuse to try it myself, but…
Addendum: I see from the embedded flight report that JB’s A321 Mint cabins offer 16 seats, not the dozen that I had guessed. That may slightly increase the odds of obtaining one’s preferred menu selections, but I still see some potential problems. Neither report said anything about JB’s east-bound service. I’ve not looked at the schedule, but even if these flights are genuine red-eyes, the front cabin should be offered something more than JB’s “Famous Snacks.” We’ll just have to remember that this is JB’s first venture into premium cabin seats, catering and service. These two routes (four if counting the returns) already have competition, some of it serious. The other players try to compete on service, thus avoiding a revenue-busing price war. JB has traditionally thrived on price wars, but with their first, First Class cabin, they have to deliver on both fronts. I hope they can do it – and sustain it. All else considered, they do seem to be nice, friendly and helpful folks. I hope we see comments from those who have flown JB’s Mint service.
Has anyone flown Mint yet? Can you weigh in here? Cook makes some great points and I’d love to know what the reality is in terms of availability.