Trip Report: Lufthansa Business Class ORD-FRA Boeing 747-8
Boarding the Lufthansa flight at ORD was quite chaotic. It was a tiny area with few places to sit. Furthermore, the ground staff were not clear with instructing us that we needed to get our passport checked again at the gate, leading them to call a bunch of us at a time to cross through this sea of people to line up for their booth for this document check.
I was excited to finally be able to board, not least because I had chosen a seat on the upper deck. It’s been so long since I’ve flown a 747 and walked upstairs!
The seat, with plentiful storage in the side storage bins. I love having my personal item by my side throughout the flight.
I was quite lucky in that I didn’t have anyone sitting next to me. Lufthansa still doesn’t have all aisle-access seats on the vast majority of their planes. And in this particular configuration, the foot area is separated from the neighbor with only a thin, low barrier.
Below the magazine holder, there is a small compartment which looks like it’s for shoes. Strangely, in this compartment they put a bottle of water and amenity kit.
The amenity kit has Porsche Design branding.
Inside there are toiletries from L’Occitane.
Pre-departure drink.
After takeoff, I had a mango-passionfruit drink, which was quite sweet, along with water. These came with some nuts.
For the appetizer, there were three choices. I chose the black-pepper crusted duck breast, which came with potato salad with white truffle oil, and a quail egg. I think because i had just made white truffle mashed potatoes for Christmas, I wanted to try this appetizer. The duck was a bit dry, and I couldn’t detect the white truffle flavor. Overall, this appetizer dish was a bit tasteless.
For the main course, I kind of had a conundrum. None of the choices spoke to me:
Grilled Beef Filet, Cabernet Veal Jus, Balsamic Onion, Sautéed Baby Spinach, green Asparagus grilled, crushed Potato with Olive Oil, Lemon Zest and Parsley
Pan-seared Salmon Filet, Ginger Glaze, spiced Eggplant, Blanched Gai Lan, Steamed Jasmine Rice
Mushroom Agnolotti, Basil Cream Sauce, Plum Tomato Concassée, Sautéed Zucchini Dice
They all seemed a bit dull. Interestingly, I checked the menus prior to my flight, and I was surprised that First Class had the same three choices, plus one that I actually would have been excited to get: a turkey dish! I love turkey. And I saw that turkey was one of the two options in Premium Economy (the other dish being the mushroom agnolotti)! Man, I was thinking of maybe asking for that turkey instead.
I ended up getting the beef. I have to say, it was nicely presented.
The quality of everything was quite good, and you can see that the beef was even medium rare! It was quite tender, too.
I was quite full by now, and had eaten a lot of desserts earlier in the Polaris lounge. Instead of the Pot de Creme with Raspberry dessert, I chose the cheese plate, which came with Dubliner White Cheddar, Camembert Le Conquerant, Rougette Cheese, and garnished with walnut, grape, and lettuce. It was served with a solitary packet of Keebler’s Club crackers, served in its own serving dish. What an elegant way of serving something so humble! I wish I had more crackers, for all of that cheese…
Dinner capped off with some chocolates, which I saved for later.
For breakfast, I was surprised that there was no choice. It was a “Coconut Chia Pudding, stewed Strawberry and Rhubarb, Almond Slices.” I don’t really like sweet breakfasts, and this breakfast was all sweet. Here again, I think I would have preferred the Premium Economy breakfast of cold cuts.
The chia pudding was a thin, rather stiff and dry layer on a plate.
Fruit was okay, but not a big portion.
I did like the cute little glass bottle of Nutella!
I always tend to have a good experience with Lufthansa inflight crew, and this flight was no exception. The gentleman serving my section was great! I was rather disappointed with the food, however. None of the options were very exciting to me, and there was only one cold, sweet option for breakfast. Surprisingly, when I was looking up my menu online (since I don’t have it handy at the moment), I found that the same three appetizer choices and the same three main course choices were also offered in First Class, all the way back in 2018! (Thanks to this trip report from 2018, and also this trip report from 2020.) So I guess the dishes are good enough for First Class?
Still, it was a treat to fly on the upper deck of the beautiful 747!
