Four Italian chefs under a brigade leader will bring their haute cuisine on board La Compagnia flights.
Gastronomic experiences on the Milan-New York-Milan route
La Compagnie’s Chef & Co programme launches this month, a project that brings the creations of Italian chefs, selected season after season, onto the airline’s flights, with each chef invited to interpret the gastronomic experience at 10,000 metres in their own unique way on the Milan-New York-Milan route.
Leading figures from the Italian culinary scene
For this new series of events, under the guidance of Lorenzo Cogo, the brigade leader for this project, La Compagnie has chosen leading figures from the Italian culinary scene: Alessandro Negrini and Fabio Pisani, Lorenzo Cogo, Felix Lo Basso and Richard Abou Zaki. Their recipes are to be featured on the four-course menu served on board alongside the signature dishes created by the airline’s resident chef, who ensures seasonal consistency. With these leading figures in haute cuisine, La Compagnie boosts its 100% business-class offering with an even more exclusive and detail-oriented touch. An original way of bringing the best of Italian cuisine to the skies, one season at a time, and accompanying passengers from Milan to New York and back with a level of care that makes all the difference.
Pisani and Negrini run the historic Il Luogo Aimo e Nadia
Fabio Pisani, born in Molfetta, trained in three-Michelin-starred restaurants like the Grand Véfour in Paris and the Waterside Inn in London. Alessandro Negrini was born in Caspoggio in Valtellina, and moved from the Hotel Palace in St Moritz to Dal Pescatore in Canneto sull’Oglio, where the two met. Since 2005 they have jointly run Il Luogo Aimo e Nadia, a historic Milanese restaurant founded in 1962. For La Compagnie, the duo will be creating the autumn starter, which features the Panzanella by Aimo and Nadia: bluefin tuna, fiaschetto tomatoes from Torre Guaceto, cannellini bean purée with extra virgin olive oil and wild fennel.
Lorenzo Cogo will lead the culinary team
Born in 1986 in Vicenza, Lorenzo Cogo bears a surname which, in the Venetian working dialect, means cook. The son and grandson of chefs, he has worked in Australia, then the United Kingdom and Japan. In 2011, he opened El Coq in Marano Vicentino, becoming Italy’s youngest Michelin-starred chef. For Lorenzo Cogo, this marks a grand return on board: his collaboration with La Compagnie, which began in 2023, takes on an even more central role. As head of the culinary team he oversees the project’s gastronomic direction, selecting the lead chefs, approving their menus and coordinating the development of the dishes, to ensure consistency, quality and continuity in the culinary experience offered on board, season after season. During the winter months, the starter served on board will bear his signature: Potato and vegetable millefeuille with robiola and black truffle
From Calamaro alla pizzaiola to Yellowtail with lemons
Felice Lo Basso was born in Molfetta in 1973 and trained in leading gourmet restaurants in Italy and abroad. In 2011 he was awarded his first Michelin star. In this second collaboration with La Compagnie, the Apulian chef will be serving passengers his starter, Calamaro alla pizzaiola, for the first time this spring. Born in 1996, Richard Abou Zaki trained alongside some of the world’s greatest chefs, including Massimo Bottura, and quickly established himself as one of the rising stars of Italian cuisine. His career led him to open the restaurant Retroscena in Porto San Giorgio, which was awarded a Michelin star in 2021. For the summer menu he will create a starter featuring semi-cooked yellowtail, Adriatic sauce and a trio of lemons.
