Airline food reviews rarely get this enthusiastic, but a recent taste test of United Airlines' Italian-style braised short rib has given Chicago departures something to brag about. The dish is served on United flights from Chicago O'Hare to destinations including Los Angeles, and it's part of the airline's regional dish programme — this one celebrating the Windy City's Italian-American food heritage.
Here's the key detail: this is not a meal you can simply hope to find on the cart. The short rib is a preorder exclusive, so you need to select it before your flight. It's offered on lunch and dinner flights of over 900 miles departing Chicago, and it stays in the rotation through the end of December.
The dish itself reads well: braised short rib with giardiniera potato puree, roasted baby sweet peppers, and charred lemon broccolini. The verdict after tasting? Tender, flavourful beef that did exactly what braised short rib is supposed to do at 35,000 feet. That matters because red meat on planes is a gamble — steak often arrives overcooked and tough after reheating, while braised cuts hold up far better in the galley oven. Short rib is the safer bet, and this one delivered.
The sides earned genuine praise too. The broccolini, charred with lemon, and the roasted sweet peppers were sides the reviewer actually wanted to eat rather than push around the tray — a rarer compliment in premium cabin dining than it should be. The one gripe: the giardiniera in the potato puree was too subtle. If you're building a Chicago-branded dish around the city's beloved pickled vegetable mix, it should actually announce itself. Even so, the overall judgement was firmly positive — a meal worth ordering again.
Dessert options have also changed. United has dropped the Magnolia Bakery banana pudding that used to feature on its trays, replacing it with a hot chocolate cheesecake that's considered a more elegant finish, though our taster passed on this occasion.
Why should a traveller care? Because meal preordering is one of the few free upgrades available to many United passengers, and most people skip it. If you're flying out of O'Hare on a longer daytime flight, a few taps during booking could put a genuinely good braised beef dish on your tray instead of whatever leftovers the cart has by the time it reaches your row. It costs nothing extra to plan ahead, and on routes like Chicago to Los Angeles, the difference between preordering and gambling can be the difference between a satisfying dinner and a dry pasta bake.
The practical takeaway: if you're booked on a United lunch or dinner flight over 900 miles from Chicago before the end of December, check the preorder menu and lock in the short rib. Just cross your fingers the kitchen goes heavier on the giardiniera than the tray our reviewer sampled.
