Food and drink flights are the culinary experience du jour right now. Sure, beer and wine tasting flights have been a thing. (Fun fact: “flight” means "group of.") But now even more opportunities to sample a variety of what's good are popping up around the city. From sophisticated to the not-so flights of fancy, Omaha embraces the old adage that variety is the spice of life.
What is it that has us all excited about a selection of the same type of thing?
• One, food enhances any experience–so it’s already got that going for it.
• Two, a flight offers opportunities for conversation: “Oh this one is really good! You must try this one!”
• Three, it’s just something special, and who doesn’t like something special?
• Four, a flight gives you the chance to broaden your culinary horizons in one fell swoop.
Ready for takeoff?
Let’s get crazy and have dessert first.
Graley’s Creamery serves their homemade ice cream, pies and confections in a Victorian-style soda fountain. Their ice cream flights include seven flavors, from Blue Moon and Butter Cake to Lemon Bar and Coffee–take your pick. Omaha went crazy for The Brownie Bar’s brownie flights when the sweet business first opened in 2019. Start with three “naked” brownies (traditional, blonde and dark chocolate) and top with eight homemade frostings and toppings like fudge sauce, butter mint frosting and peanut butter frosting. Mix and match how you please! Gift idea: Their sauces are available by the bottle. No need to worry about what baked good to choose at The Bubbly Tart; their dessert flight offers eight options. Bonus: Enjoy it with friends on their outdoor patio. Now you can have your cake, cookie, brownie, French macaron… and eat it too.
Liven things up with caffeine – and keep it coming.
Coffee flights alone deserve their own paragraph. Take the flight of your coffee dreams at Zen Coffee Company, where you select four iced or hot drinks from a menu of 50+ beverages to create a personalized in-store coffee flight experience. Drink options like Belgian Waffle and S’mores keep things exciting. Reservations are required. Karma Koffee offers five-drink flights, each served on a custom-made flight board. Choose one drink from a group of similar beverages for each flight option: drip coffee, mocha, traditional, signature drink, and tea/seasonal/non-caffeinated. Now that’s variety! The Table Coffee Co. downtown offers up three different iced flights (don’t worry, they’ll warm up options for fall). One is a “Table Faves Flight” including their signature drinks like rosemary white mocha latte, lavender vanilla latte, pomegranate lime refresher, and Irish cream cold brew.
More refreshing beverages.
From brunch to lunch to a nightcap, there’s a flight for that. The cheery-colored mimosa flights at 1912 aren’t just pleasing to the eye–they’re downright tasty. Bonus: a mimosa flight at 1912 is only enhanced on their rooftop bar complete with views of the historic Benson neighborhood. Local Vietnamese favorite The Banh Mi Shop launched boba flights this summer to great fanfare; four drinks of your choice (plus one topping) come with straws in a cup carrier perfect for takeout. Back to libations, The WestEnd offers the WestEnd Flight: Your choice of any four signature martinis (or upgrade to signature cocktails), each served in a 5 oz. rocks glass. Cheers to that!
Snack on this.
If you have a stomach for the spicy, El Rancho Grande’s five-salsa flight will delight. Moving more towards the trendier side of things, Copal’s more modest three-salsa flight with chips offers mouth-watering options like spicy habanero, morita and green. And many meals aren’t complete without French fries. Chef-driven 712 Eat + Drink has made one of America’s favorite eats available with their potato-focused “Fry Flight” with fries and tots. From Mexican to American to Indian, Curry in a Hurry just rolled out their “Flight of Curries,” an ultimate way to try various curries which comes with four curries, basmati rice, and garlic naan; available Saturdays for dine-in only.
Omaha demonstrates its meat know-how.
If savory sampling is more your culinary style, beef, chicken and pork get the golden flight-touch. The “When Pigs Fly” at Early Bird is a sampling of each of the all-day brunch hotspot’s bacons: braised pork belly, candied bacon, corn cob smoked, and pecan wood smoked shoulder bacon. The Blackstone Meatball, known for their made-from-scratch meatballs and sauces, offers a–you guessed it–Meatball Flight. Jeremy on Instagram says the flight is “absolutely a must if you visit this place.” Every few months, Copps Pizza offers a four-sauce variety chicken wing flight deck with a pound of fries that patrons go crazy over.
If this tempted your taste buds, see what else Omaha’s food scene has going on at VisitOmaha.com (and be prepared to get hungry).