BARCELONA – The suitcases are crammed with anchovies, olive oil, chocolate and carquinyolis, those addictive almond-studded biscuits. Dinner the night before was at a buzzy tapas bar at Passeig de Gracia. If you are booked on business class on Singapore Airlines (SIA) for the direct flight from Barcelona to Singapore, the taste of Catalonia continues on board. The airline is collaborating with Catalan chef Nandu Jubany on special menus that launched on May 1 and will change with the seasons. He has designed three courses
– an appetiser, a main course option and a dessert option. Business-class passengers on SIA’s direct flights from Barcelona to Singapore can opt for the chef’s dishes for lunch. The tie-up marks the airline’s 20th anniversary of operations here, and SIA invited journalists from Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines to try the new menu. Chef Jubany is part of an ongoing programme where the airline collaborates with culinary experts. This is meant to complement the work of its in-house chefs, and to “offer customers
greater variety, thoughtful personalisation and a dining experience that blends the flavours of the world with local authenticity”. Other chef collaborators include Heiko Nieder of two-Michelin-starred The Restaurant at The Dolder Grand in Zurich. The partnership goes back to 2022, and his offerings are available in first and business class on flights from Zurich to Singapore. Samoa-born chef and television presenter Monica Galetti’s offerings launched in 2024 and are served in SIA’s suites and first and business class on selected flights from Heathrow, Gatwick and
Manchester airports. Ms Sharina Phua, SIA’s vice-president of inflight services and design, says: “We collaborate with guest chefs across our network to bring their distinctive culinary expertise on board our flights. “These dishes are inspired by the heritage of our guest chefs, as well as specialities from their home countries, resulting in more locally rooted dining options on the flights from these destinations.” Catalonian powerhouse If chef Jubany’s name sounds familiar, it might be because in Singapore, the 55-year-old is a shareholder of FOC Restaurant
in Keong Saik Road and FOC By The Beach in Sentosa. Chef Jubany became head chef of his family’s restaurant, Urbisol, when he was 18. One of his three sisters now runs it. He went on to work in other parts of Spain, including in the Basque Country for leaders of the New Basque Cuisine movement, Juan Mari Arzak and Martin Berasategui. The father of three sons aged 17 to 26 now presides over a food and beverage empire with his wife Anna Orte, 54.
The energetic chef, who grew up wanting to be a race car driver, has 14 restaurants including the 30-year-old flagship, one-Michelin-starred Can Jubany, about an hour by car from Barcelona. He also has restaurants in Barcelona, the Balearic Islands and Andorra. There is an events and catering arm, with venues for weddings and other celebrations; a consultancy business; and a hotel in Osona. Shoppers can buy his fresh and frozen cannelloni and croquetas in supermarkets, and he sells protein and energy bars and protein powder
under the Muchmore brand. At Can Jubany, he tells the journalists that he used to frequently fly on SIA. He would fly business class on the airline to Singapore every two months for FOC, which opened in 2014. He saw the airline’s collaborations with chefs on its in-flight menus. “I thought, I would like to do something like that for the airline some day,” he says. The airline did reach out to him, and the collaboration was to launch in 2020. Chef Jubany had worked
on 40 dishes, with those that would work well on flights making the cut. He says: “Our capacity to smell and taste goes down 30 per cent when flying. But you can’t just use more salt. We used mushrooms, tomatoes, spices and long cooking to bring out the umami in the dishes. “None of this is easy, when the point is to achieve the perfect experience.” The Covid-19 pandemic meant the collaboration had to be put on hold. It was revived when regular direct flights
between Singapore and Barcelona resumed in 2023. Say cheesecake The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and the journalists were able to taste chef Jubany’s dishes the day his menu launched. Zucchini Canelo with Crab, the appetiser, is his take on the Catalan comfort food. Instead of filling pasta tubes with roasted meat and napping them with bechamel sauce, he opts for brightness and crunch to revive tastebuds blunted on board. Thin overlapping slices of zucchini are rolled up to form a tube
and filled with crab, which gets flavour boosts from black garlic sauce, sriracha mayonnaise and tomato salsa. Crunchy green beans and slices of radish are a pleasure to bite into. Catalan-style Bacalla, his contribution to the main course options, is a clear winner. A large portion of salted cod is cooked in a perky tomato sauce, with sweetness from raisins and crunch from toasted pine nuts. The fish flakes beautifully, and reheating has not overcooked it. Somehow, the boiled egg served with the fish is
perfect, with no grey ring around the yolk. The piece de resistance, however, is the Pastis de Formatge, served with raspberry compote. Chef Jubany guards the recipe closely and, when asked, adroitly avoids saying what cheeses he uses in the recipe. It is creamy, yes, but also light. The raspberries pull their weight in offering brightness to offset the richness. Upscale comfort If the main course spells comfort, that is by design. The food served on board has to taste and look good when reheated.
But that upscale comfort vibe – Catalan classics families tuck into on weekends given a Michelin glow-up – also echoes his cuisine at Can Jubany, which has held its Michelin star since 1998. It garnered the accolade three years after opening. Here, diners can walk through a 10,000 sq ft garden which grows herbs, vegetables and fruit used in the kitchen before taking their seats. Multi-course meals at the 50-seat restaurant are priced from €122 (S$181) a person. Snacks include impossibly puffy souffle potatoes and
ethereal Catalan-style spinach meringues that vaporise on the tongue. At lunch, we have peas grown in the garden, shelled and served with pancetta, egg yolk and truffle; and free-range chicken cannelloni, the more classic version, with foie gras and cream. A deeply flavourful paella, cooked with langoustine broth and topped with espardenyes or Spanish sea cucumbers, is then set on the table, and we dig in with spoons. The sweet part of the meal is called Dessert Festival, with five different ones set on the
table for all to share. Among them are floating island with strawberries and red berry sorbet; hazelnut pavlova with stout beer cream; and the very definition of upscale comfort – brioche baba flamed with rum tableside and served with ice cream. In a perfect world, your trip would include a meal at Can Jubany. On the flight to Singapore, relive the experience with the chef’s food. If flying between July and September, you can opt for his Monkfish Suquet With Prawns, a Catalan seafood stew
served with fried baby potatoes. From October to December, there will be Roasted Chicken a La Catalana with Apples, Prunes and Apricots as a main course option, with Creamy Vanilla Flan with Whisky Caramel for dessert. And for winter, January to March 2027, pick Veal Fricando with Mushrooms and Potato Puree, and Crema Catalana with almond biscuits. Refined Catalan comfort food, plus those carquinyolis too.
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