What Foodies at Sea Want: Insights From a Head Chef

The culinary experience at sea is nothing like it used to be (remember the old days of buffets with long lines extending outside the dining hall door?). Now on luxury cruise lines in particular, the standard is gourmet, and foodies are delighting in the elevated state of dining onboard.

We sat down with the head chef at a top luxury lifestyle cruise brand to learn more about how cuisine at sea has evolved and what gastronomes want today. Travel advisors may pick up a few pointers to use when discussing cruise options with their clients who expect only the finest dining as a prerequisite for their adventures.

Travel Market Report: Where does your passion for your culinary artistry come from?

Head Chef: I was born into the pastry bakery shop of my parents. So I grew up in this food environment since I was a kid. I didn’t want to be a baker or pastry chef. I wanted to do something more complicated than what my father was doing. Then, a chef of my mother’s helped me find an apprenticeship in a restaurant. [I rotated] two weeks in a restaurant and two weeks at school. And I managed to be in the best restaurant, Le Vert d’ Eau, with Chef Jean-Francois Piers, Maîtres Cuisiniers de France. We were running a one-star Michelin restaurant, so I learned to look at the plate that was going out, and I was very impressed by this. And I said, “This is what I want to do.” It was a very clear vision of what I wanted to do in my life.

TMR: How do you want guests to feel about their culinary experiences onboard? What can they expect?

Chef: Clearly, they are expecting the best food at sea. All of our effort is made to be the best food at sea. I’ve been in this cruise industry for 30 years. I opened [the culinary offerings on] Silversea Cruises from scratch in 1994. Then was approached by Oceania Cruises in early 2000 to develop Oceania from scratch, and I stayed 19 years with them.

Then I was approached by Explora Journeys and was asked if we can be the best food at sea. I said yes, it’s just a question of money. If you give me the best chefs, the best food, I will make the best food at sea, because I have been 17 years the best food at sea. I know exactly what to do. With a great team, we have the power to source the best ingredients to be the best, so when guests come onboard, they know to expect a top quality food.

TMR: What three words would you use to best characterize the cuisine onboard?

Chef: One, is product. Two is product. Three is product. When you get the best product, it’s what really defines our cuisine. I will also say, healthy. We are really into plant-based food development. We have plant-based dishes for breakfast. And even if you go to our steakhouse, you can have plant-based food from this menu. I think it’s also sustainability. And then, innovative cuisine. We try to produce something that is creative. But, we don’t get crazy, we don’t do molecular cuisine. Everything for me is a top-quality product served in the most simple way … If you make an omelet with three eggs, perfection, the perfect omelet is so difficult to make. Because if it’s not done properly, then your menu is nothing special. That’s why we spend a lot of money sourcing top-quality ingredients.

TMR: What motivates the curation of the menus as the ship moves through different destinations?

Chef: We don’t have exactly the same menu when we’re in the Mediterranean or if we’re in the Caribbean. Because, I’ll give you an example, if I make spaghetti vongole in Italy, we can’t get the vongole in the Caribbean. So we adjust the menu.

I could say that 30 years ago, it was very challenging because we could not have access to top-rated product, being on a cruise ship. Now the world has completely changed. The people have changed, and the cooking techniques have changed. So when it comes to sourcing good products, and being originally a shipping company, so we are able to send the French flour from Viron to make a French baguette onboard. We also select some top-quality European meat for our steakhouse by now adding a process of vacuum-packed freezing, things that did not exist 30 years ago. So you see, you have a lot of different techniques now.

I always said that, 30 years ago, if you compared a restaurant on shore with a restaurant on a cruise ship, the gap was quite large because we didn’t have access to a lot of things. But, now the world has changed. I would say, now, that it’s easier to run a restaurant onboard then it is on the shore. First, we have better access to equipment. We can recruit chefs from 5-star hotels all over the world, knowing that a country like India, the last 20 years are producing some fantastic chefs that have really the sense of cooking. When you see that restaurants onshore all over the world, especially in Europe, they are struggling with recruiting chefs or waiters. We don’t have this problem.

Also, when it comes to product … The way we have access to top-quality product now all over the world, it’s amazing. So we can really cook top-quality food now onboard.

TMR: What are some of the specialty dishes served as you sail the world?

We talked about the Sicilian red shrimps and the spaghetti vongole that we do when we are in the Mediterranean. We also have fresh live lobster that we serve the first four days of the cruise. We can do that coming out of Miami or any port in Europe. One fantastic dish is warm crushed potato with Normandy butter and calvisius oscietra caviar. We have our sushi, we buy a special rice for our sushi from a farm in Japan, and we developed our sushi together with Mickael Pankar, the European champion of sushi in the sushi world competition.

In our steakhouse, Marble & Co. Grill, I wanted to have something different that you can’t find on a cruise ship, because most of the steakhouses will take U.S.D.A. prime beef and have different selections like strip loin or filet. We decided to do something completely different. We have selected some beef from Europe, so we have the Jersiaise beef from France, the Swami beef from Sweden; we have the Simmental beef from Germany; we have the Cochonillo from Segovia and Spain … We want the people onboard to say, “Oh I heard about Simmental beef, but I didn’t get the chance to try it.” And then they try it onboard.

We have a lot of special dishes to discover. We have the tuna that we buy from Balfego in Spain; I went to visit the farm … We do a tuna tataki at Sakura. So we have all these kinds of dishes from top-quality product we have sourced.

TMR: What else can you tell me about how dining at sea has changed over the years?

Chef: I would say that, in the world, the safest place to eat is on a cruise ship, definitely. The USPH regulations we apply on our ship makes the food very safe. This is one thing, also, that makes it different sometimes with a shore restaurant. What has really changed the last few years is the access to product. But also, for example, the equipment that we have access to that we didn’t have before. Onboard we have blast chiller to cool down the food; also a very fast-heating oven, for if you do a crispy sandwich, that can be done in one minute. So we make our offer larger, from quick food to long-time braising dishes. It really helps with the work involved.

Thirty years ago, we didn’t have the space in the kitchen for cooking. Kitchens are now larger onboard. It makes it easier, so the chefs have more time to focus on quality food … And it will only get better.

TMR: Do you have any particular message for foodies who are considering sailing with your brand?

Chef: Definitely, if you are a foodie, this is the cruise for you. The variety of the a la carte restaurant, the level of our cooking, it does not exist anywhere else, I can tell you. Mainly because many other cruises have a main dining room where they can seat 300-800 people, with limitations, and every day you make a different menu.

By running a la carte on a small ship like we are, you have access to such a variety of top-quality food. If you want to eat fast, you go to the food court Emporium Marketplace; if you want to have a nice French dinner, you have Fil Rouge; another option is a delicious Mediterranean dinner at Med Yacht Club; if you are a meat eater, you have the steakhouse Marble & Co. Grill; also there is an Asian experience at Sakura; if you want a luxurious gourmet experience, you have Anthology. The variety is amazing. I’ve never seen such quality of food on a cruise ship.

TMR: What is the most important thing that you want people to remember about today’s culinary offerings at sea?

Chef: You will have a “wow” experience. When I develop a dish, my team always laughs with me, because when we are creating and taste, I say, “Are you getting a wow effect or just feeding yourself?” If you’re just feeding yourself, it’s not good enough, we have to keep working. I want every dish to have you say, “Wow.” We are here to create memories for the guests. Our job is to make sure they come back by creating this wow effect. Sometimes you remember a dish because you were happy to be there sharing with others, and it creates memories. Guests will return because the food is great, the stateroom is fantastic, and the crew is smiling.

Our reward is when guests stop us in the corridor and tell us how the food is great, and how they love to be here.

FROM THE SPONSOR:
Franck Garanger is Head of Culinary at Explora Journeys, where he leads the culinary team to curate and define nine distinct culinary experiences for the first of six luxury superyacht style ships, Explora I, which was launched last year. He is focusing on healthy, delicious food from local, sustainable sources, hand selected and sourced.

Explora Journeys is set apart through five central elements: space, choice, design, destination experiences – and an unwavering commitment to the travel advisor community.

To join us, register in the Explora Travel Advisor Centre. There, you’ll find our industry-leading policies for advisors and exclusive benefits for your clients, including a “Flexible Journeys” program that promotes peace of mind when booking travel. You can access robust learning modules in our bespoke Knowledge Suite, to help you tell the Explora Journeys story and generate your own go-to-market strategy. You will gain access to a dazzling library of digital and print assets to help you market Explora Journeys; a booking portal that makes it easy to match clients to their perfect transformative holidays; the latest Explora Journeys news; and a personalized reporting dashboard – all designed to bring you and your clients closer to an Ocean State of Mind.

We invite you to enjoy a seamless booking experience, whether online, with your By Appointment + Service, or by calling an Ambassador at 1.833.697.8348.

We delight in welcoming you into the Explora Journeys travel advisor community.