Gone are the days when airport food meant snack bars selling hot dogs on rollers or a bland meal in a generic restaurant. The HMSHost Test Kitchen in Bethesda, Md., is a beehive of activity, perfecting the food and beverages passengers will eat this starting in the fall.
The kitchen is led by Chef Jeff Steelman, vice president of food & beverage operations. He came to HMSHost from Boston-based Todd English Enterprises, where he was vice president of culinary. He also did stints at the Hilton Casino in Atlantic City, N.J., and the Mohegan Sun Resort & Casino in Uncasville, Conn. His driving motivation is to deliver the best food to a travel population that has become much more discerning about what they want to eat.
“When I was a corporate chef for Todd English, I consulted with HMSHost on restaurant designs. I was then asked to come on full time,” said Steelman. “They told me to do what I do and bring a team, so I brought on other corporate chefs from Todd English, Chef Bobby Flay and others.”
Steelman’s immediate team includes: James Klewin, the executive chef based at Chicago O’Hare; Richard Leadbetter, corporate chef, culinary standards; and Susumu Shibata, known as Chef Go, the corporate sushi chef. The overall team is comprised of 13 chefs.
“We’ve been challenged to change the industry one restaurant at a time. There’s no cuisine that we can’t do,” said Steelman. “I don’t know how many companies that have the bandwidth and depth that we have. This is a small kitchen. If we can do it here, we can do it anywhere.”
Carson Gray is the director of adult beverage and restaurant development for HMSHost, where he’s charged with creating cocktails and mocktails for the company’s restaurant and bar concepts. He came to HMSHost from the France Family of NASCAR, where he served as director of beverage & front of the house operations for its signature fine dining restaurant in Winter Park Fla., Luma on Park. He is a certified sommelier, BarSmarts certified and a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y. He oversees a team that includes four mixologists, six sommeliers and two cicerones.
The Book & Bourbon, a concept coming to Louisville International Airport, fits the demographic and the region, said Gray. “It will focus on southern cuisine and most importantly, bourbon. We’ve worked with our spirit partners to get the best of the special bourbons in the region,” he said. “Our bourbon cocktails will be full-flavored and strong. They will pack a punch, but that’s to be expected.”
UmaiZushi is a spin-off of the popular Wicker Park Sushi at Chicago O’Hare. Branches are already open in Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental, Hartsfield-Jackson and Honolulu International airports, and a Fort Lauderdale outpost will open next summer. “It features a strong sake program, along with signature cocktails. It’s less beer and wine focused,” said Gray.
At the time of Airport Business magazine’s visit, the test kitchen was working on food and beverage menus on the concepts for Book & Bourbon and UmaiZushi. We were invited to taste some of the items that will appear on the menu.
The first tasting, from Book & Bourbon, was a fried green tomato benedict featuring poached hen eggs, country ham, béarnaise and griddle hash. It was served with a Peach Beam cocktail, peaches and fresh basil muddled in apple juice, shaken with Jim Beam bourbon and strained. The chef also presented a quartet of deviled eggs with flavors including applewood smoked bacon and dijon with toasted pecans.
The next item served was a root vegetable salad with honey-chili carrots, minted turnips, dry-roasted beets, field greens, extra-virgin olive oil and cracked peppercorns. The other salad was kale, with grilled shrimp, grit croutons, aged white cheddar cheese and apple cider vinaigrette. They were accompanied by a cocktail, the Jekyl and Ryed, made with Knob Creek rye, carpano antica formula, a Campari ice cube and orange bitters, garnished with an orange peel.
The menu switched over to sushi prepared by Chef Go, who has been with HMSHost since 2009 and oversees the company’s sushi concepts out of Chicago O’Hare. He delivered a tuna tartare with his version of guacamole on top, served with a fried Vietnamese summer roll skin and Junmaiginjo sake. Other selections included fluke, tuna belly with asparagus, a sushi sampler plate with tuna, Otoro tuna, kampachi and shrimp, and a plate of octopus and red snapper, all served with genuine wasabi and washed down with a lychee mojito.
The food switched back to Book & Bourbon, where the chef served sweet potatoes brava, which were baked and flash fried, tossed with caramelized local honey, jalapenos, whipped avocado and feta cheese. He also served crispy frog legs with a spicy charred pineapple sauce, along with short rib hush puppies.
The sushi menu returned with a beautifully presented Japanese mackerel served sashimi and nigiri style, along with the Umaizushi Tidal Wave roll, made with shrimp tempura, cream cheese, king crab, unagi sauce, honey wasabi mayo and tempura flakes. Chef Jeff presented fresh oysters from Seattle with a black pepper mignonette.
Gray served a cucumber gimlet, composed with Hendricks gin, St. Germain, cucumber water, cane sugar syrup and lime with a thinly sliced cucumber as a garnish. Dessert was a house-made waffle drizzled with a bourbon caramel sauce, white chocolate wafer and a red velvet raspberry crunch.
Jim Schmitz is HMSHost’s vice president of innovation, where he is responsible for exploring and implementing new and innovative solutions across the business, as well as sustainability. Before joining HMSHost, he was vice president, merchandising, planning and distribution for Starboard Cruise Services, a Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton Portfolio Co.
“We needed chefs to drive food and beverage for HMSHost. Chef Jeff has a phenomenal background,” said Schmitz. “He’s done a great job getting his team together, and they’ve gone out and done some great things.”
In the past two years, HMSHost has taken on big initiatives to advocate for consumer experience in an airport environment, said Shayna Iglesias, the company’s director of digital marketing. “For example, in celebration of bringing the James Beard awards to Chicago, we did a 30-minute live cooking contest at O’Hare in our own kitchen stadium,” she said. “Chefs were required to use ingredients from the airport garden. The winner had their item put on the menu at a restaurant at O’Hare. They also got a VIP experience for the James Beard awards gala.”
HMSHost will again be holding airport restaurant month in October, said Iglesias. “It includes seasonal menus and will be plated on one plate for speed of service,” she said.
