What the rich eat on their private planes, from Beluga caviar to Keith Richards’ English tea sandwiches

If you prepare food for stars such as Angelina Jolie and Simon Cowell and other multimillionaires while they’re reclining in their private planes, what’s on the plate had better be good and nothing your diners’ palates might desire had better be missing. That slice of lime, wedge of Morbier cheese, tin of Russian caviar or bottle of Dom Perignon has got to be on board before take-off; after all, there are no supermarkets in the sky.

Harry Purut, CEO of Gourmet Inflight Catering based in Wood-Ridge, New Jersey, is well aware of that. The 61-year-old has been working hard for the past 16 years to satisfy the culinary whims and drink requests of the one-percenters whose private carriers fly out of the airports in the metropolitan area.

Purut’s clients are not the passengers, but their companies or managers who hire him to feed their well-heeled travellers. He is in charge of supplying them top-notch snacks, top-end meals and top-shelf liquor. Sometimes an astoundingly large and expensive amount of liquor. Purut recalls one flyer for whom he fetched 16 bottles of Patron Platinum Tequila (US$250 per bottle), six bottles of Cristal Champagne (US$150/bottle) and six bottles of Johnnie Walker Blue (US$200/bottle). The liquor was to be enjoyed on a flight to Atlantic City in New Jersey.

“We have five-star clientele,” says Purut, who was born in Istanbul. “We’re not providing regular airline food.”

Among the dishes Gourmet Inflight is providing: grilled filet mignon with roasted rosemary potatoes, rack of lamb encrusted with herb-flecked parmesan and thinly sliced marinated ostrich with caramelised onions. Flying breakfast time? There’s challah French toast with Vermont maple syrup, a selection of smoked fish with black German bread or crepes stuffed with fresh fruit. Just a light nosh? How about Beluga caviar with crème fraiche?