From Shake Shack to Magnolia Bakery, airlines are serving fan favorites in the sky

The sky's the limit when it comes to new venues for your favorite restaurants.

You may be used to seeing restaurant brands and chains expanding to new cities and venues like sports arenas or even airports. However, eateries are showing up more often in a rarer setting these days: in the front cabin at 35,000 feet.

Airlines and restaurants are not exactly new bedfellows — for years, airlines have leveraged famous restaurants and restaurateurs to elevate their brand credentials, sometimes with the gimmick of fine dining in the skies. Often, partnerships have focused on celebrity or celebrated chefs who are tapped to design bespoke menus for carriers to serve in premium cabins.

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The trend in recent years, however, has been less about creating a unique, haute cuisine experience and more about recreating familiar tastes from the ground. Fewer airlines have been channeling Danny Meyer's Gramercy Tavern and are instead opting for Shake Shack.

That's partly due to the changing nature of inflight service. Meals have all but vanished from the domestic economy cabin. Service in first class has been more about simply having a good meal rather than offering a fine dining experience that's elevated from what's offered in coach. It's still important for the food to be good, but Michelin stars are not the expectation these days.

It's different in international business class, where meals are still offered in coach — at least to a degree. A focus on more refined dining still exists in many places, even as airlines have struggled to return to their prepandemic offerings.

Ultimately, restaurant partnerships may offer airlines a ready-made meal or dish, outsourced to the experts on the ground; some partnerships also offer a bit of publicity and offer a fun shake-up of what's on board.

Right now, a few different treats from the ground are being served on board. Read on to find out what they are.

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Delta Air Lines: Shake Shack cheeseburger

Delta Air Lines kicked off a new restaurant partnership last month when it began offering Shake Shake's famous burgers as a meal option on board. In what the airline dubbed a "first-of-its-kind" collaboration, the airline began offering Shake Shack-branded entrees in first class this month on flights over 900 miles departing from Boston Logan International Airport (BOS). The airline says it will expand the partnership to other hubs throughout 2025.

Shake Shack may be fast-casual, but the chain has roots in fine dining. It was originally started as a hot dog cart serving dishes out of Danny Meyer's Eleven Madison Park as part of an effort to revitalize the eponymous park in New York City. It grew into a permanent kiosk and exploded in popularity, leading to a massive expansion throughout New York — then across the country and overseas — throughout the 2010s.

Passengers will get a Shake Shack cheeseburger with fixings — lettuce, tomato, onions, pickles and "Shack Sauce" — on the side. It's served with a bag of potato chips and a Caesar salad, along with a dark chocolate Shake Shack brownie for dessert.

We hopped on a Delta flight recently to try the burger for ourselves and see whether it's just a branding gimmick or the real deal. We're happy to report that the burger does, in fact, hold up. Whether due to thorough testing or some sort of sorcery, Delta and Shake Shack manage to serve a burger that tastes exactly as good as it does on the ground fresh from the griddle.

Keep in mind that the burger is only available on board if you preorder at least 24 hours in advance.

Be sure to check out our full review.

United Airlines: Magnolia Bakery banana pudding

Magnolia Bakery is another modern-day New York City institution that's seen a huge expansion in recent years. The brand's original location in Manhattan's West Village has since expanded throughout the city, as well as to other cities in the U.S. and globally.

While the chain is best known in New York, it has become increasingly well known outside the city, partly due to a few pop culture shout-outs in the 2000s. Magnolia's signature cupcakes received a nod from Andy Samberg and Chris Parnell in 2005's "Lazy Sunday" short on "Saturday Night Live" — a video that went viral before "viral" was a thing. The brand was featured on "Sex and the City" and in the film "The Devil Wears Prada."

While it was originally best known for its cupcakes, Magnolia's outrageously delicious banana pudding has become famous in its own right. It's airy and thick at the same time. It's creamy and sweet without being cloying. And it's just simply delicious.

United Airlines evidently agrees. As of last month, United serves Magnolia's banana pudding for dessert in first class on flights longer than 901 miles. It's a slightly different recipe than the original — United is serving a frozen-to-thaw version of the treat that Magnolia calls "Banana Pudding Wafer Cookie Bits." But it's unmistakably the pudding that people around the world have come to love.

TPG flew United in first class from Denver to Boston in late December to give the pudding a try. It lived up to expectations, even if it tasted very slightly lighter than the version you'll get on the ground.

Of course, United's overall catering has been somewhat hit-or-miss since the pandemic started, so as good as the dessert is, the rest of the meal can be harder to predict.

The kale and romaine salad with toasted chickpeas I ordered was on the weaker side, with chickpeas that were far from toasted and, in fact, probably straight from a can. Plus, the dish really was just a few bites' worth, even with the optional chicken on the side. (The Caesar salad Delta serves as a side with the Shake Shack burger is more substantial than my main was here.)

Even so, it beats flying in coach, where you're limited to a handful of snack boxes and other items for sale. And the dessert really was a pleasant upgrade.

JetBlue: Delicious Hospitality Group and Dig Inn

When JetBlue launched its long-awaited transatlantic service in 2021, it created a lot of buzz with its economy cabin (or, as the airline calls it, "Core") meal experience.

The airline partnered with New York restaurant chain Dig Inn — a lunch staple in Manhattan — to develop customizable, ground-quality meals.

The idea behind Dig is that you can create your own meal by choosing from a variety of mains and sides, mixing and matching to create the perfect plate. This is instead of the usual model where you choose a main that's plopped on a tray with a uniform salad, roll and dessert.

It worked remarkably well, but JetBlue has since scaled back the offering somewhat. Now, while the airline still offers dishes from Dig in economy, the selections are more limited, and the entrees are all cold dishes rather than hot.

Even so, passengers have reported that the dishes remain delicious despite the temperature downgrade. This is good news considering that the unique onboard dining experience was a key differentiator in the airline's transatlantic offering.

Up in the Mint business-class cabin, however, hot meals remain. JetBlue is showing off its partnership with New York City restauranteurs Delicious Hospitality Group.

Delicious owns trendy restaurants like Pasquale Jones, Legacy Records and Bar Pasquale. It partnered with JetBlue for the airline's menu on Mint flights, including transatlantic flights, transcontinental flights, and flights to the Caribbean and Canada.

The current menu is a collaboration with Bar Pasquale. It includes dishes like orecchiette with spicy vodka sauce, a square slice of Sicilian pizza, pan-roasted chicken with porcini, baked rigatoni and a chicory salad.

There's also an onboard cocktail menu and wine list curated in partnership with Ada's Place, a Delicious Hospitality Group-owned cocktail lounge, and Parcelle, a wine bar and shop in Manhattan.

Bottom line

The classic joke may ask, "What's the deal with airplane food?" But as it turns out, there's a lot going on in the skies. Some food may not be the best, while some food continues to shine bright.

But when airlines partner with restaurants to create dishes and meals to serve on board, it's no gimmick: Sometimes, you'll get to enjoy the exact taste you'd get on the ground. And that can be a dual win, providing marketing for both the airline and the restaurant, while also serving passengers a treat.

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