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Food

At Petrossian LAX, more caviar in your cocktails (and $1,500 of caviar to fly with you)

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The High Society cocktail at Petrossian: gin, green Chartreuse, St-Germain elderflower liqueur, rose water and caviar powder.  (Betty Hallock / Los Angeles Times)
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The Petrossian caviar and Champagne bar at LAX, decorated with what look like bubbles.  (Betty Hallock / Los Angeles Times)
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Petrossian’s “Caviar in the Air,” a to-go package you can take with you on your flight, can cost more than $1,500, depending on the type of caviar you choose.  (Betty Hallock / Los Angeles Times)
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Deviled eggs from chef Giselle Wellman, topped with caviar.  (Betty Hallock / Los Angeles Times)
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Smoked trout and creme fraiche topped with trout roe.   (Betty Hallock / Los Angeles Times)
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Caviar-topped blini.  (Betty Hallock / Los Angeles Times)
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A caviar martini garnished with pressed caviar, cocktail onion and caviar-filled olive.  (Betty Hallock / Los Angeles Times)
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Caviar powder is dried caviar beads that can be ground.   (Betty Hallock / Los Angeles Times)
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Tins of caviar for sale at Petrossian in the Tom Bradley International Terminal.  (Betty Hallock / Los Angeles Times)
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Travelers at Petrossian’s caviar bar.  (Betty Hallock / Los Angeles Times)
By Betty HallockDeputy Food Editor 
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Waiting at LAX to board your transcontinental flight has gotten much classier since Petrossian’s caviar-and-bubbles bar at the newly renovated Tom Bradley International Terminal opened in December.

News that your flight has been delayed a couple of hours goes down that much more easily with a caviar-topped blini and a glass of 2004 Dom Perignon Brut -- make that a bottle. The bar even looks bubbly, with swanky copper sphere light fixtures and hanging glass orbs.

The Petrossian martini is garnished with a cube of pressed caviar, cocktail onion and a caviar-stuffed olive ($18). A new cocktail, dubbed the High Society, mixes gin with green Chartreuse, St-Germain elderflower liqueur, rose water and lemon juice. It’s garnished with a lemon peel topped with Petrossian’s caviar “powder” -- dried beads of caviar that can be ground the way you would peppercorns. The ground caviar powder also rims the glass. (It costs $24.)

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On a recent weekday afternoon a mother and daughter shared the smoked salmon bagel with cream cheese, lemon, red onion, capers, chives and arugula salad with Transmontanus caviar ($36), and a group of Scandinavians drank Belgian beers and Champagne.

If you want to take caviar with you for your in-flight meal, Petrossian sells “Caviar in the Air” packages, from $205.50 to $1,581.50. So the cost of your “Caviar in the Air” package might be as much as the price of your ticket to Madrid.

It includes caviar, creme fraiche, toast points, smoked salmon and a mother of pearl spoon in a Petrossian insulated bag, along with 30 grams to 125 grams of your choice of caviar (in order of expensiveness): Royal Transmontanus, Alverta President Transmontanus, Tsar Imperial Siberian, Tsar Imperial Shassetra, Tsar Imperial Ossetra and Tsar Imperial Kaluga.

Petrossian at Los Angeles International Airport is the 94-year-old company’s first U.S. airport location. Expect more; managing director Alexandre Petrossian said that there were plans to open at more U.S. airports.

Tom Bradley International Terminal, 380 World Way, Los Angeles, www.petrossian.com.

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Betty Hallock

Betty Hallock is deputy Food editor at the Los Angeles Times. She has co-written four cookbooks, including “Bäco: Vivid Recipes from the Heart of Los Angeles,” “Amá: A Modern Tex-Mex Kitchen” and “Baking at République.” She started her journalism career at the Wall Street Journal and Scientific American in New York, worked on the L.A. Times’ Business desk, and was interim food editor at Los Angeles Magazine. Hallock also helped launch a food and nutrition vertical for wellness app RoundGlass. She’s a graduate of UCLA and New York University.

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