Cuisine

Dining is the single most discussed aspect of the cruise experience. There is a thrill of anticipation that comes with dining out in a fine restaurant - although the latest trend on land is towards less than thrilling “bistro” style eateries. The same is true aboard ship, where dining in elegant, friendly, and comfortable surroundings stimulates an appetite sharpened by the bracing sea air. Passengers enjoy the ceremony of dining and feel they are part of a performance.

Attention to presentation, quality, and choice of menu in the honored tradition of the transatlantic luxury liners has made cruise ships justly famous. Cruise lines know that you will spend more time eating on board than doing anything else, so their intention is to cater well to your palate, within the confines of a predetermined budget. Presenting food has a show business element and some ships even have open or “show” kitchens in their specialty restaurants (examples: Century, Constellation, Infinity, Millennium, Queen Mary 2, Seven Seas Voyager, Summit).

Most ships cannot offer a real “gourmet” experience because the galley (ship’s kitchen) may be striving to turn out hundreds of meals at the same time. What you will find is a good selection of palatable, pleasing, and complete meals served in comfortable surroundings, in the company of friends - and you do not have to do the cooking. Maybe you will even dine by candlelight, a pleasant way to spend any evening.

Some passengers like their food plain, while some like it spicy; some like nouvelle cuisine, some like lots of meat and potatoes. Some try new things, some stick with the same old stuff - it’s a matter of personal taste. Cruise lines tend to cater to general tastes. If you are allergic to any kind of ingredients (such as nuts or shellfish), do let the cruise line know in writing well ahead of time, and check once on board with the maître d’ (restaurant manager), so that meals can be properly tailored to you. Vegetarians should make sure that soups are not made with a chicken stock (as many so called “vegetarian” soups have proven to be aboard some ships).

The highest-rated ships offer food cooked more or less individually to your liking. Some people are accustomed to drinking coffee out of polystyrene plastic cups and eating food off paper plates at home. Others wouldn’t dream of doing that and expect fine dining, with food correctly presented on fine china, just as they serve it at home.

If you are left-handed, tell your waiter at your first meal exactly how you want your cutlery placed and to make sure that tea or coffee cup handles are turned in the correct direction (this is impossible with a fish knife, of course). It would be better if right- or left-hand preferences were established when you book, and let the cruise line inform the ship.

Menus are typically displayed outside the dining room each day so that you can preview each meal. Suite occupants have menus delivered to their suite. When looking at the menu, you don’t have to consider the price: it is all included.

.Healthy eating

With today’s emphasis on low-cholesterol and low-salt diets, most ships have “spa” menus, with calorie-filled sauces replaced by spa cuisine. Some include basic nutritional information, such as the calorie count and fat, protein, and carbohydrate content, on their “spa” menus, or for selected “light” items on regular menus (mostly for dinner, seldom for breakfast or luncheon).

If you are vegetarian, vegan, macrobiotic, counting calories, want a salt-free, sugar-restricted, low-fat, low-cholesterol, or any other diet, advise your travel agent at the time of booking, and get the cruise line to confirm that the ship can actually handle your dietary requirements. Note that cruise ship food does tend to be liberally sprinkled with salt, and that vegetables are often cooked with sauces containing dairy products, salt, and sugar.

The dining room

 Many ships contract the running and staffing of dining rooms to a specialist maritime catering organization. Ships that cruise far from their home country find that professional catering companies do an excellent job. However, ships that control their own catering staff and food often go to great lengths to ensure that their passengers are satisfied.

What time’s dinner?

Open Seating:

This simply means that you can sit at any available table, with whomever you wish, at whatever time you choose (within dining room opening hours). So, just turn up, and you’ll be seated - just like going out to a restaurant ashore (although you’ll need a reservation at any additional specialty restaurant).

However, this is a little bit of an anomaly aboard large resort ships, where the principal entertainment program is typically set at two shows each night. This limits your choice of dining times if you wish to catch a show (examples: Norwegian Cruise Line’s Freestyle Dining, or  Princess Cruises’ Personal Choice Dining).

Single Seating: you can choose when you wish to eat (within dining room hours) but have an assigned table for the cruise.

Two Seatings: you are assigned (or choose) one of two seatings, early or late. Typical meal times for two-seating ships are: Breakfast: 6.30am-8.30am; Lunch: 12 noon-1.30pm; Dinner: 6.30pm-8.30pm.

Some ships operate two seatings just for dinner, while others operate on a two-seating arrangement for all meals. Dinner hours may also vary when the ship is in port to allow for the timing of shore excursions. Ships that operate in Europe (the Mediterranean) or South America typically have later meal times.

Four Seatings: you choose the time, although once you decide you can’t change it.  Only Carnival Cruise Lines and Holland America Line currently operate four seatings - with dinner, for example, at 5.30pm, 6.45pm, 7.30pm or 8.45pm. However, two seatings apply aboard Carnival Legend, Carnival Miracle, Carnival Pride and Carnival Spirit.

Some ships that operate in Europe (the Mediterranean) or South America may have later meal times. Dinner hours may also vary when the ship is in port to allow for the timing of shore excursions.

Smoking/Nonsmoking

 Most ships now have totally nonsmoking dining rooms, while some provide smoking (cigarettes only, not cigars or pipes) and nonsmoking sections. Those wishing to sit in a no-smoking area should tell the restaurant manager when reserving a table. At open seating breakfasts and luncheons in the dining room (or informal buffet dining area), smokers and nonsmokers may be seated close together.

The Captain’s Table

 The captain usually occupies a large table in or near the center of the dining room on “formal” nights. The table seats eight or more people picked from the passenger or “commend” list by the hotel manager. If you are invited to the captain’s table, it is gracious to accept, and you will have the chance to ask all the questions you like about shipboard life.

Dining room staff

 The Restaurant Manager (also known as the Maître d’Hôtel - not to be confused with the ship’s Hotel Manager) is an experienced host, with shrewd perceptions about compatibility. It is his responsibility to seat you with compatible fellow passengers. If a reservation has been arranged prior to boarding, you will find a table assignment/seating card in your cabin when you embark. If not, make your reservation with the restaurant manager or one of his assistants immediately after you embark.

Unless you are with your own family or group of friends, you will be seated next to strangers. Tables for two are a rarity; most tables seat four, six, or eight. It is a good idea to ask to be seated at a larger table, because if you are a couple seated at a table for four and you do not get along with your table partners, there is no one else to talk to. And remember, if the ship is full, it may be difficult to change tables once the cruise has started.

If you are unhappy with any aspect of the dining room operation, the sooner you tell someone the better. Don’t wait until the cruise is over to send a scathing letter to the cruise line - it’s too late then to do anything positive.

The best waiters are those trained in European hotels or catering schools. They excel in fine service and quickly learn your likes and dislikes. They normally work aboard the best ships, where dignified professionalism is expected and living conditions are good.

A typical day

 From morning till night (and beyond), food is offered to the point of overkill, even aboard the most modest cruise ship.

• 6am: hot coffee and tea on deck for early risers (or late-to-bed types).
• Full breakfast: typically with as many as 60 different items, in the main dining room. For a more casual meal, you can serve yourself buffet-style at an indoor/outdoor deck café (the choice may be more restricted than in the main dining room, yet adequate).
• Lunchtime: with service in the dining room, buffet-style at an informal café, or at a separate grill for hot dogs and hamburgers, and a pizzeria, where everything is cooked right in front of you.
• 4pm: Afternoon tea, in the British tradition, complete with finger sandwiches and cakes. This may be served in one of the main lounges to the accompaniment of live music (it may even be a “tea-dance”) or recorded classical music.
• Dinner: the main event of the evening, and apart from the casualness of the first and last nights, it is formal in style.
•  Light Bites: served in public rooms late at night (these have mostly replaced the midnight buffet).
• Gala Midnight Buffet: This is usually held on the penultimate evening of a cruise, when the chefs pull out all the stops to create this most famous of all shipboard meals. It features a grand, colorful spread, with much intricate decoration that can take up to 48 hours to prepare.

Plate service vs. silver service

• Plate Service: When the food is presented as a complete dish, it is as the chef wants it to look; color combinations, the size of the component parts, and their positioning on the plate. All are important. In most cruise ships, “plate service” is now the norm. It works well and means that most people seated at a table will be served at the same time and can eat together, rather than let their food become cold, as can be the case with silver service.
• Silver service: When the component parts are brought to the table separately, so that the diner, not the chef, can choose what goes on the plate and in what proportion. Silver service is best when there is plenty of time (few cruise ships provide silver service today). What some cruise lines class as silver service is actually silver service of vegetables only, with the main item, be it fish, fowl, or meat, already positioned on the plate.

National differences

 The different nationalities among passengers present their own special needs and requirements. Here are some necessarily generalized examples:

• Asian, British, German, and other European passengers like boiled eggs served in real china eggcups for breakfast. North Americans rarely eat boiled eggs, and most often put the eggs into a bowl and eat them with a fork.
•  German passengers tend to prefer breads (especially dark breads) and a wide variety of cheeses for breakfast and lunch. They tend to like yellow (not white) potatoes. They also have an obvious liking for German draught or bottled beers rather than American canned beers.
•  The French like soft - not flaky - croissants, and may request brioches and sweet pastry items.
• Asian passengers like food with many different “mouthfeel” textures.
• Japanese passengers like “bento box” breakfasts of salmon and eel, and vegetable pickles, as well as Japanese rice (very different from American or Italian rice).
• Southern Italians like to have red sauce with just about everything, while northern Italians like less of the red sauces and more white sauces and flavorings, such as garlic, with their pasta.
• Australian passengers like to have “vegemite” to spread on bread and toast.
• North Americans like weak coffee with everything - often before, during, and after a meal. This is why, even on the most upscale ships, sugar is placed on tables (also for iced tea). North Americans tend to eat and run, whereas Europeans dine in a more leisurely fashion, treating mealtimes as a social occasion.

Alternative dining

More than 60 ships now have “alternative” restaurants, for which reservations are needed for dinner (make them early aboard large ships). These typically incur an extra charge ($12-$30 a person, although some have only a cover/gratuity charge of about $6 a person), for which you get much better food, presentation and service than in the ship’s main dining room(s), which tend to be large and noisy.

Celebrated chefs

Celebrity chefs have long been involved with cruise lines, particularly with the small, upscale ships, where quality control works best. While Celebrity Cruises has had a contract with three-star Michelin chef Michel Roux since the line’s beginning in 1989, the partnership has worked only because Roux insisted on the cruise line purchasing higher quality ingredients, and making everything from “scratch” (no pre-made sauces or soup mixes, for example). In reality, only in the (extra-charge) alternative restaurants can the quality that Roux insists on even come close to what is prepared in his superb Michelin three-starred Waterside Inn at Bray, near Windsor (UK).Major alliances include: Carnival Cruise Lines and Georges Blanc; Celebrity Cruises and Michel Roux;

Crystal Cruises and Nobu Matsuhisa; Cunard Line and Todd English; Oceania Cruises and Jaques Pepin; Seabourn Cruise Line and Charlie Palmer; Silversea Cruises and Relais & Chateau; and Windstar Cruises, Joachim Splichal and Jeanne Jones.

The executive chef

The executive chef plans the menus, orders the food, organizes his staff, and arranges all the meals on the menus. He makes sure that menus are not repeated, even on long cruises. On some cruises, he works with guest chefs from restaurants ashore to offer tastes of regional cuisine. He may also purchase fish, seafood, fruit, and various other local produce in “wayside” ports and incorporate them into the menu with a “special of the day” announcement.

The galley

The galley (“kitchen”) is the heart of all food preparation on board. At any time of the day or night, there is plenty of activity, whether it is baking fresh bread at 2am, making meals and snacks for passengers and crew around the clock, or decorating a special birthday cake. The staff, from executive chef to pot-washer, all work together as a team, each designated a specific role, with little room for error.The galley and preparation areas consist of the following sections (the names in parentheses are the French names given to the person who is the specialist in the area of expertise):

• Fish Preparation Area (Poisonnier): This area contains freezers and a fully equipped preparation room, where fish is cleaned and cut to size before it is sent to the galley.
• Meat Preparation Area (Butcher/Rotisseur): This area contains separate freezers for meat and poultry. Their temperatures are kept at around 10°F (-17°C). There are also defrosting areas kept at 35°-40°F (2°-4°C). Meat and poultry are sliced and portioned before being sent to the galley.
•  Vegetable Preparation Area (Entremetier): Vegetables are cleaned and prepared in this area. 
•  Sauce Preparation Area (Saucier): This is where the sauces are prepared.
•  Soup Preparation Area (Potagier): Soups are made in huge tureens.
•  Cold Kitchen (Garde Manger): This is where all cold dishes and salads are prepared, from the simplest sandwich (for room service, for example) to the works of art that grace the buffets. The area is well equipped with mixing machines, slicing machines, and refrigeration cabinets where prepared dishes are stored until required.
•  Bakery and Pastry Shop (Baker): This area provides the raw ingredients for preparing food, and contains dough mixers, refrigerators, proving ovens, ovens, and containers in all shapes and sizes. Dessert items, pastries, sweets, and other confectionery are prepared and made here.
•  Pantry: This is where cheese and fruits are prepared, and where sandwiches are made.
•  Dishwashing Area: This area contains huge conveyor-belt dishwashing machines. Wash and rinse temperatures are carefully controlled to comply with public health regulations. This is where all cooking utensils are scrubbed and cleaned, and where the silverware is scrupulously polished.
  

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