Paul Mason, Head of Culinary Excellence at Alpha LSG, is responsible for a team of 120 chefs who provide top-class restaurant quality food to passengers travelling with many of the world’s leading airlines.
Appointed in 2013 to take charge of Alpha LSG’s ground-breaking Culinary Academy, created within a state-of-the-art £10 million Premium Kitchen facility at Heston, Middlesex, Paul is in charge of the leading airline caterer’s culinary innovation and technical inspiration.
His extensive knowledge of specialist ingredients, molecular gastronomy and taste profiling has enhanced Alpha LSG’s offering to its customers, thanks to his depth of experience and knowledge – gained from working in Michelin star environments including Michel Roux’s Le Gavroche and working alongside of one of Britain’s leading chefs, Tom Aikens.
For Open Kitchen Live 2015 being staged in Uxbridge on November 24th, 2015, Paul has selected an innovative dish of ‘Charred Cobia, Shichimi pepper, Black Yuzu and Iced Cucumber’ which he recently presented to one of Alpha LSG’s five-star airline clients, and will be flying in March of next year.
Says Paul: “When we get a brief by an airline to provide a bespoke solution for First Class, my advice to the team is always to ensure they include a combination of modern techniques, exciting flavours and global food trends. This allows the chefs enough freedom and encouragement to create dishes with the wow factor.”
Paul adds: “At Alpha LSG we are lucky enough to have an incredible development team with a mixture of fine dining chefs, trend watching technologists and even a food scientist. Having this level of culinary experience and scientific expertise puts Alpha LSG in the best possible position to truly enhance passengers’ experience in the sky.
“This can come in many forms from recommending ingredients that are better suited to hydrating the body, leaving passengers better rested and focused when they land, to proposing additional elements that improve the sensory experience in the cabin.
“Developing dishes for airlines historically has been very restrictive as some dishes/techniques simply do not work in the air, we have had to work hard to create solutions for seemingly simple dishes such as perfectly creamy scrambled eggs, crispy batter and smoked hollandaise which are all relatively simple to produce in a restaurant, but we are not in a restaurant and have to remember that they all need to be cooked, chilled, portioned, refrigerated, transported (all in under 12hours) reheated and plated by someone who has other important tasks to oversee, such as your safety and wellbeing and may not be as attentive to my scrambled eggs as I might want them to be. Not to mention the oven that has settings that may as well read ‘Luke Warm’ and ‘Nuclear’. Luckily for me things have moved on, ovens are far more accurate and we are able to invite crew into our training facility where we can engage them on our food values and produce detailed plating guides. There is a still lot to do but at least there is little risk of a dull day!”
Paul, aged 32, says food was always at the heart of all family occasions thanks to his mother, who holds a diploma from Le Corden Bleu, being able to create incredible family dinners and show-stopping desserts was the inspiration behind him pursuing a culinary career.
Of his work with Alpha LSG, Paul says: “I love the diversity of the role, from writing first class food menus to innovation sessions with the chefs in the Culinary Academy and the development of retail brands. The greatest challenge is to change perception, to be able to innovate in an area that is so tightly controlled by cost and time and which really pushes you to be very creative.”
And Paul’s personal favourite dish?
“My wife’s chicken soup…hard to admit but it is better than mine!”
We very much look forward to seeing Paul in action preparing his ‘Charred Cobia, Shichimi pepper, Black Yuzu and Iced Cucumber’.
If you would like to join us and taste all the dishes as well as much more menu experimentation and collaboration with your peers on the day Register Here.
About Alpha LSG Ltd
Alpha LSG Ltd was created on October 1, 2012 as a UK-only joint venture by Alpha Flight Group and LSG Sky Chefs. The business has combined revenues of more than £250 million and employs around 3,100 people who provide catering services from facilities located at 16 airports through the United Kingdom – London-Heathrow, London-Gatwick, Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow, Edinburgh, East Midlands, London-Stansted, Newcastle, Bristol, Cardiff, Doncaster, Luton, Leeds-Bradford, Aberdeen and Belfast.
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