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What First-Class ‘Titanic’ Passengers Ate for Lunch the Day Their Ship Hit the Iceberg

The menu included options from a buffet, the grill, and eight different cheeses.

ByKirstin Fawcett|
Main Dining Room of the ‘Titanic.’
Main Dining Room of the ‘Titanic.’ | George Rinhart/GettyImages

On the afternoon of April 14, 1912, first-class Titanic passengers lunched on a sumptuous array of corned beef, Chicken à la Maryland, and fillet of brill. Approximately 12 hours later, the “unsinkable” ship collided with an iceberg; a mere three hours after that, it sank into the Atlantic.

Among the 705 survivors, a lifeboat filled with wealthy voyagers remained. One of its individuals had saved the menu from the previous day’s afternoon meal. One hundred and three years after the Titanic’s sinking, the rare document went up for online auction. Its seller, Lion Heart Autographs, expected the menu to fetch as much as $70,000—but it sold for $88,000. You can see the full luncheon menu below.

The menu is one of two or three such documents that are thought to have survived the Titanic’s sinking. It originally belonged to Abraham Lincoln Salomon, a well-off New York City businessman who escaped the Titanic via a lifeboat known as “Lifeboat No.1.”

Newspapers dubbed Lifeboat No. 1 the “Money Boat” because the craft was not filled to capacity, yet it quickly rowed away from the foundering ship without rescuing any additional passengers. Rumors swirled that one of its members, the Scottish baronet Sir Cosmo Edmund Duff Gordon, had bribed rowers to do so. Others in the Money Boat included Duff Gordon’s wife, Lady Lucy Christiana, who founded Lucile Ltd., a famous women’s fashion label; her secretary, Laura Mabel Francatelli; Charles Emil Henry Stengel, a leather manufacturer; and seven crew members.

The Menu of the Last First-Class Luncheon on Titanic

Luncheon

  • Consommé Fermier
  • Cockie Leekie
  • Fillets of Brill
  • Egg à L’Argenteuil
  • Chicken à la Maryland
  • Corned Beef, Vegetables, Dumplings

From the Grill

  • Grilled Mutton Chops
  • Mashed, Fried, & Baked Jacket Potatoes  
  • Custard Pudding
  • Apple Meringue
  • Pastry

Buffet

  • Salmon Mayonnaise  
  • Potted Shrimps
  • Norwegian Anchovies
  • Soused Herrings
  • Plain & Smoked Sardines
  • Roast Beef
  • Round of Spiced Beef
  • Veal & Ham Pie
  • Virginia & Cumberland Ham  
  • Bologna Sausage
  • Brawn
  • Galantine of Chicken
  • Corned Ox Tongue
  • Lettuce Beetroot Tomatoes

Cheese

  • Cheshire
  • Stilton
  • Gorgonzola
  • Edam
  • Camembert
  • Roquefort
  • St. Ivel
  • Cheddar
  • Iced draught Munich Lager Beer 3d. & 6d. a Tankard

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A version of this story ran in 2015; it has been updated for 2025.

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