Delta opens Boston Delta One Lounge with a unique dining style

Boston Delta One Lounge

In essence, the only people who can use Delta One lounges are those flying in business class with Delta or one of its SkyTeam alliance codeshare partners. That means there are no participating rights for credit cardholders or elite members. The only exception is Delta 360 membership – which grants invite-only status above the Diamond Medallion.

Like other Delta One lounges, you can access:

Layout and design

The Delta One lounge in Boston is a “lounge within a lounge” concept, rather than an entirely separate space.

When you enter Delta One Lounge, the atmosphere is certainly different, with a darker, more intimate feel, although the overall aesthetic is an organic continuation of the wider Sky Club, with elements nautical to create a subtle theme flow throughout the lounge.

Like the main lobby, the space is spaciously shaped like the cabin of a luxury ship, long and slightly narrow. Other highlights include brass accents throughout, including the long ship-shaped bar and railings that run the length of the lounge.

The lounge includes a variety of dining tables, from two-top tables to longer eight-seat tables, with a large circular bar and a central kitchen area with surrounding bar stools.

The open kitchen is where every dish will be cooked and stand out as a unique and premium highlight.

Another thing that stands out immediately is that while the affiliated Sky Club is huge, at 21,000 square feet with a capacity of 400 people, the Delta One Lounge is actually a fairly small space at 6,700 square feet, with seating only. for 121 passengers at the same time.

That partly reflects Boston’s position in Delta. Although it is an important hub and a key point-to-point connection city in the airport network, the long-haul business class presence here is smaller than at most other international gateways.

So, combined with the space that Delta had to design for two lounges, the airline opted for a “lounge within a lounge” instead of building a completely separate space. Delta One Lounge will primarily be an upscale dining room and bar, rather than a combined lounge/office/spa/bathroom space, Roussel, Delta’s head of lounges, told TPG.

“We pay a lot of attention to food and beverage here, and focus as much on the quality of ingredients as on the quality of service,” Roussel said.

The dining room emphasizes a high-altitude, sit-down dining experience, Roussel said, noting that most long-haul flights from the Boston area are actually fairly short transatlantic red-eye flights, only seven or eight hours long. That means passengers often like to eat before a flight. The Delta One lounge is designed to provide a three-course meal in just one hour, allowing passengers to sleep right after their flight departs.

“Because the flights from here will be so short, it’s important to us that the dining experience really hits on all cylinders,” Roussel said.

The rear portion of the Sky Club, which currently has a variety of seating options along with several soundproof phone booths, will be converted into a “living room” exclusively for Delta One passengers, Roussel said.

“You have a great living room on the other side and this dedicated dining room here,” he said.

With the focus on dining, there aren’t really any dedicated amenities for guests at Delta One Lounge. The lounge has its own bathroom, but the shower suite is shared with the Sky Club and there are no special spa services.

Luckily, since Terminal E Sky Club opened last year, it’s rarely been particularly crowded, so the restrooms should have plenty of room.

Eat and drink

Like at JFK and LAX, Delta One passengers in Boston can expect a full a la carte and made-to-order dining experience, as opposed to buffets at Sky Clubs.

Sticking to local flair, the Boston menu, crafted by renowned chef Ed Brown, leans heavily toward seafood, though there are plenty of other options, too.

Delta One Lounge opens later in the day than Sky Club — at 2 p.m., before the first long-haul Delta departure of the day — so the menu is primed for dinner.

During Monday’s preview, a set menu provided a preview of specific dishes and a general sense of what will be available in the lounge.

The “breaded seafood soup” is perhaps the most direct example of local flavor, and it works. Perfectly salty and creamy with fresh ground pepper on top, along with clams, oysters and lobster, this is as good an example of a New England classic as you’ll find anywhere. In this Boston resident’s opinion, it’s nearly perfect.

Likewise, the lobster roll is a great example of a quintessential New England dish, with a buttery roll and perfectly cooked lobster.

The real difference is that everything is cooked to order in the highly visible kitchen adjacent to the bar area. Passengers sitting at the bar will see their food being prepared and cooked in a pan, a remarkable feature considering the many challenges involved in operating even the simplest of airport kitchens — Knife and flame restrictions, ventilation requirements, etc

The octopus carpaccio was one of the more unusual dishes, but it was completely successful and excellent, while the lumache pasta was a simpler dish but equally well prepared.

Grilled fish a la plancha will be the rotating catch of the day – during the tasting, it was Maine halibut, cooked to perfection right in front of us.

Desserts include Boston cream pie and cannoli, two Boston staples, along with a few other options.

The menu will likely change several times a year, Delta executives said, and dishes can be modified to some degree because everything is made to order.

There’s a long list of free drinks available, all of which are a step above what comes with the Sky Club. Bartenders can mix up pretty much anything beyond the specialty cocktails listed, with a wide range of spirits including 10 types of scotch and whiskey.

There’s also a premium wine and spirits list available at an additional cost, something that has caused controversy in the first two lounges. It’s worth noting that this drinks list includes the likes of a half bottle of Taittinger Champagne and a glass of Macallan 18 scotch, which are often considered exceptionally premium.

Bottom line

Delta is taking an individual approach to its Delta One lounges, designing each lounge specifically based on location, available space and even the network and available routes from the airports. specifically.

In Boston, the lounge will focus on serving meals exclusively to business class passengers before short transatlantic flights, allowing passengers to enjoy a five-star meal before bed right on the plane.

If Monday’s preview reflects the current quality of the food, Boston-based Delta Flyers has something quite exciting.

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