Review: Flying SWISS Business Class from Zurich to Chicago (Part 2)

This is part two of my review of SWISS Business Class from Zurich to Chicago.

Part 1, which looks at the seat and which seat you should choose, is here. My review of the SWISS Business Class lounge at Zurich Airport is here.

IFE

There was a bottle of water and headphones in an alcove underneath the IFE screen and two coat hooks right next to it. The screen was pretty small and wasn’t bright enough to compete with the sunshine when the blinds were open. Even though you could watch movies gate to gate it didn’t work in reality.

The film selection was decent – better than on my outbound Virgin Atlantic flight. I got to watch three movies on this nine hour flight – Captain Marvel, Mary Poppins Returns and Greta.

The seat as a bed

As this was a day flight I didn’t sleep, although I did have a short rest at one point.

This was the seat in bed mode. There were buttons to change the firmness of the mattress which I thought was a nice feature. The pillow was nice and big and the blanket was ok – could’ve been softer but I’ve seen worse.

As you can see in the picture below the foot cubby hole is a good size.  When the seat is in bed mode you are able to wiggle them around without any trouble!

Inside the SWISS business class amenity kit

The contents of the amenity kit were unexciting with the usual socks, eye mask, earplugs, lipbalm, cream, toothbrush and toothpaste.

I loved the bag itself as it had two separate compartments and a hook to hang it up. I’ll definitely be using this on my next trip – or I might turn it into another nappy bag …..

Food and drink in SWISS Business Class

The welcome drink was a choice of water, orange juice or champagne. We were given the food menu with options for our main dish.

After take off we were offered more drinks and spiced almonds:

Lunch

The starter options were:

air dried meat and cheese millefeuille with artichoke puree and pickled vegetables

smoked salmon tartare with horseradish, goat cheese and beetroot

salad with French or Italian dressing

I wish I had pre-ordered a vegetarian meal as dried meat and salmon tartare are off the list during pregnancy.  I therefore ended up having just the salad and two bread rolls.

The main course choices were:

Beef tenderloin with garlic crust, chimichurri juice potato puree, Mediterranean vegetables and cherry tomato confit

Tomato-crusted chicken breast stuffed with olives and and spinach, thyme jus Polenta galette with courgettes

Pikeperch with red wine sauce potato gratin with porcini mushroom, spinach and spring onions

South Indian coconut noodles with date chutney

I had the coconut noodles which were really good.

After the main course we were offered a cheese platter which I chose not to have. A bit later we were served a piece of apricot cake which was really tasty:

Before descending into Chicago we were served a further meal with the choices of:

a caprese salad with olives and prosciutto or

chanterelle ravioli in white wine sauce with cheese and creamed swiss chard

I picked the latter which was delicious.

Conclusion

All in all, I enjoyed my SWISS Business flight. The flight attendants were very friendly and attentive, the seat was comfortable and the quality of the food superb.

The only thing that bothered me was that SWISS seems to be one of the airlines where you do have to pre-order your meal if you require vegetarian food – whereas other airlines always have at least one vegetarian option on their menu.

You also need to keep an eye out for seat selection.  If you want a solo seat, you need to get in early whilst they are still available for free, or risk having to pay €140 for a ‘throne’ seat or share a row with someone else. The current seat is probably also heading towards the end of its natural life, especially with the relatively modest TV screen.

These are very minor quirks, however, and I fully recommend SWISS Business Class for cash (SWISS runs excellent 2-4-1 sales from UK each year) or for a Star Alliance mileage redemption.