Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin were due to dine on halibut and steak in Alaska before their lunch was cancelled, sensitive documents revealed today. The US President and Russian leader held crunch talks at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage on Friday and were expected to eat together.
The menu - revealed among papers relating to the summit found in a hotel printer - shows they would have had a starter of 'green salad with champagne vinaigrette'. The main course was a 'duet of filet mignon with brady peppercorn sauce and halibut Olympia served with buttery whipped potatoes and roasted asparagus'.
But the summit ended early and the lunch at the US military base - which would have concluded with a dessert of 'crème brûlée' - never took place. The document found at Hotel Captain Cook also stated that the meal was 'in honour of His Excellency Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation'. Halibut Olympia is a local dish where halibut fillets are smothered in a creamy sauce then topped with buttery breadcrumbs on top of a base of caramelised onions.
Jeremy Pataky, an editor of Edible Alaska magazine, told the New York Times: 'It has the vibe of being homey and comforting and mildly retro, but palatable. I would not characterise it as haute cuisine. To see that on the menu for an extremely high-level state dinner felt a bit surprising.'
He added: 'In our culinary Venn diagram of what's possible to harvest at sea between Alaska and Russia, I mean certainly we have halibut, so there's that.'
President Trump's chief of protocol has been facing questions after the menu was among sensitive documents relating to the Russia-US summit that were discovered.
Monica Crowley (pictured), who was in charge of creating the programme for Russian leader Vladimir Putin's visit, was left red-faced after eight pages including precise locations, meeting times and private phone numbers of government employees were found. The documents also told US officials how to pronounce their Russian counterparts' names, including, 'Mr President POO-tihn'.
Hotel Captain Cook is 20 minutes from the Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, where the historic meeting took place. Ms Crowley, 56, is a former Fox news presenter who is said to be 'extremely close' to Mr Trump and his wife Melania.
She was photographed on Friday warmly greeting President Putin when he arrived at the military base and again at the airport as he prepared to fly home to Russia. The documents were given to US public broadcaster NPR which has seen its funding slashed by Mr Trump.
The broadcaster claimed the papers were found in a printer on Friday morning by three hotel guests. Jon Michaels, a professor of law at UCLA and national security expert, said that the documents revealed 'a lapse in professional judgement'.
He said: 'It strikes me as further evidence of the sloppiness and the incompetence of the administration. You just don't leave things in printers. It's that simple.'
But White House deputy press secretary Anna Kelly dismissed the papers as 'a multi-page lunch menu' and claimed that no security breach had occurred.
She told the Daily Mail: 'It's hilarious that NPR is publishing a multi-page lunch menu and calling it a 'security breach'. 'This type of self-proclaimed 'investigative journalism' is why no one takes them seriously and they are no longer taxpayer-funded thanks to President Trump.'