I Ordered American Airlines’ Centennial Beef Wellington, And It Wasn’t Awful

This might just be a function of my low expectations, but I feel American Airlines deserves some credit here…

American is serving special meals for its 100th anniversary

A few months ago I covered how American is serving special centennial‑themed inflight meals in premium cabins, to celebrate its 100th anniversary. Many of these are only available for pre-order, given that American allows that up to 20 hours before departure.

In domestic first class, the most common special meal being served is the Beef Wellington with roasted vegetables and asparagus with bearnaise sauce. This comes with a Waldorf Salad as the appetizer, and a pecan tart as the dessert.

So when I saw this available for pre-order on my recent flight, I couldn’t help but order. Not because this is something I’d ordinarily be interested in on a plane, but instead, because I was curious about the execution (the same reason I ordered American’s sliders & fries).

Well, below you can see what the dish looked like…

This first class dish was better than I was expecting!

In the past I’ve shared my general approach to ordering airplane food. The idea is that airline catering budgets are really low (especially for domestic first class), so I try to order the thing that I think can both be best executed on a budget, and also that reheats well (given the realities of preparing airplane food).

Ordinarily, a beef filet wouldn’t really check either of those boxes — I’m not a huge meat eater, but when I do eat it, I enjoy a higher quality piece of meat, and ideally not one that’s reheated.

Back in the day I had tried American’s “steak” in domestic first class, and I can’t say it was great. My worry was that the piece of meat here would be even lower quality, since I imagine other components of the dish cost more than normal, so you’d assume there would be even more budget control.

So while I don’t want to exaggerate and suggest this was some amazing meal that I would’ve been delighted to be served in a restaurant, it was better than I was expecting. I’m not a huge Waldorf Salad fan, but the Beef Wellington pastry had a good texture, the veggies were crisp, and the beef at least wasn’t lower quality than usual (so it was just your typical hockey puck). Meanwhile the pecan tart was excellent.

Personally I probably wouldn’t order this again, but if you do like airplane beef, then you’ll probably be pretty happy ordering this.

Bottom line

I had my first chance to try one of American Airlines’ centennial-themed dishes, as the Beef Wellington was on the pre-order menu for my domestic flight. I was a little skeptical as to how bad the execution would be, given tight catering budgets. But it was better than I was expecting — that’s not to say it was something you’d expect to be served in a nice restaurant, but for what it is, I can’t complain!

If you’ve dared to order American’s Beef Wellington, what did you think?