For a southerner wandering the vast expanse of New York’s JFK International Airport on a snowy, freezing day, nothing says home like a warm plate of shrimp and grits.
And when it’s shrimp and grits from Sapphire Grill owner Chris Nason and his executive chef, Carl Mace, it’s bound to wow even the staunchest, grits-hating Yankee.
Such was the case last week as the Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport hosted a Lowcountry breakfast reception in JFK’s Terminal 5 before JetBlue’s inaugural flight to Savannah.
While a full-blown Southern breakfast buffet is something of a rarity in a New York airport, catering to the jet set is nothing new for Nason and Mace, whose Sapphire Grill In-Flight Catering handled more than 500 jobs last year for such high-flying clients as Gulfstream Aerospace, Sheltair Aviation and Signature Flight Support.
“We’ve been dabbling in this for 15 years, doing jobs here and there,” Nason said this week. “But we just started doing it on a regular basis about four years ago. Now, it’s a strategic part of our business.
Nason, an award-winning working chef for more than two decades, has catered special meals for private aircraft ranging from small planes to such luxurious high-end business jets as the Gulfstream G650 and Bombardier’s Global Express.
“It’s been a wonderful experience, one that has allowed us to really stretch our creativity and learn to prepare everything from Middle Eastern to Chinese fare.”
It also helps that Nason and Mace run a full-service restaurant.
“The advantage we have over a full-time caterer is that we already have prime items available,” he said. “We don’t have to order lamb or filets, for example, because we serve those things on a daily basis.”
That said, Sapphire Grill’s mantra has always been “market fresh” cuisine, a concept that carries over to its extensive catering menu, which changes with the seasons and features such options as
pancetta and white cheddar brioche for breakfast, arugula and Chevre-stuffed chicken with wok-seared vegetables for lunch and cornmeal-encrusted local swordfish with jasmine rice and seasonal vegetables with and sesame paint and soy for dinner. The dessert menu features such choices as miniature cocoa gateau with berries and double cream, while canapés include smoked salmon with blinis, crème fraiche and Sevruga or Beluga caviar.
They also offer popular “tasting plates,” which feature bite-sized portions of many different items on a single plate.
Not that Nason and Mace limit themselves to their menu.
“Whatever a client wants, we find it and make it available,” Mace said. “We are catering to very discriminating tastes and we stay successful by staying client-centric.”
Nason agreed.
“We have dealt with every popular diet and dietary restriction and have learned to prepare almost every kind of ethnic cuisine,” he said.
While they don’t fly with the aircraft, they do service the plane themselves, loading the freshly plated meals and other accompaniments just before takeoff.
“We do complete meals, which can be challenging on long flights,” Nason said, adding that a Gulfstream G650 can be in the air for up to 16 hours.
“That means three separate meals.”
Last week’s on-the-ground breakfast at JFK posed its own set of challenges, Nason said, not the least of which was getting fresh items into an airport nearly socked in by weather.
“As it turned out, we worked closely with the airport’s caterer, providing them with some items and sharing recipes and menus,” he said.
“It was a big deal for us and we were happy with the way it turned out.”