American Will Serve Beef Wellington, Caviar, And More, For 100th Anniversary

2026 marks American Airlines’ 100th anniversary, and the airline is doing several things to celebrate the occasion. Among those is that American has just announced that it’ll be introducing special catering in premium cabins for a limited time, including some dishes that may turn heads…

American’s special centennial‑themed inflight dining

American is celebrating its 100th anniversary with a new series of centennial-themed inflight dining offerings. Starting February 9, 2026, customers can preorder these dishes ahead of their flights. The menus will debut in March for international and transcontinental Flagship First and Flagship Business flights, followed by an April debut for domestic first class. They’ll be available through August in all eligible markets.

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As it’s described, the new dishes are inspired by the flavors and culinary trends of the 1920s, the decade in which American first took flight.

In international and premium transcontinental first and business class, we’ll see “a refined menu inspired by the sophistication of 1920s hotel dining.” In March, the appetizer course will include a classic prawn cocktail and a crisp Waldorf salad, while in April, the appetizer course will include caviar, blinis, and a deviled egg with creme fraiche.

Main course options will include Beef Wellington with bearnaise sauce and roasted vegetables, and Chicken Florentine roulade served with mashed potatoes and mushroom sauce.

Meanwhile in domestic first class, menus will include modern interpretations of dishes from the 1920s, including a crisp Waldorf salad, Boursin cream cheese dip, Beef Wellington with roasted vegetables and asparagus with bearnaise sauce, and a pecan tart for dessert.

Here’s how Rhonda Crawford, American’s SVP of Customer Experience Design and Strategy, describes this:

“Our centennial year is a chance to reflect on how far we’ve come while continuing to elevate the experience for our customers. These menus celebrate the flavors that defined the early days of American Airlines in a way that feels special and memorable for today’s travelers.”

Kudos, this is a cute, creative concept

I give American credit for the creativity behind this initiative, as I find this to be a really fun concept.

Now, my guess is that the caviar will be along the lines of what American served briefly on select routes in international first class around a decade ago, where there was a little caviar amuse bouche. I doubt this will be like Qatar Airways or Thai Airways, where you get a small tin worth of caviar.

I’m curious how much American is investing in this special catering. One of the issues with airlines is that they often try to serve fancy-sounding dishes, while having such a small budget per meal. Obviously that makes execution difficult (which says nothing of the challenges with preparing dishes for airplanes, beyond cost).

Beef Wellington of course sounds great, but I hope the airline invests more in that on a per dish basis than it does in the chicken dish that was being served the other day on a Flagship Business flight…

Bottom line

In celebration of its 100th anniversary, American Airlines is introducing special dining in first and business class on flights between March and August 2026. On international and premium domestic flights, you can expect caviar, prawn cocktails, and more, while on domestic flights, you can expect Beef Wellington and pecan tarts, among other things.

This is a fun initiative, so it’ll be interesting to see what the execution is like…

What do you make of American’s centennial-themed dining?