A Sea of Culinary Options

Food has come a long way on the high seas in the past few decades, evolving from midnight buffets, “baked Alaska marches” and Continental menus full of stalwarts like beef Wellington into something significantly more exciting. Today, your clients will find contemporary options ranging from raw food menus and celebrity chef-helmed restaurants to Brazilian steakhouses.

In the past few years alone, several lines have upped their food profile even further. For example, Windstar Cruises recently extended its partnership with the James Beard Foundation through early 2021. As the Official Cruise Line of the James Beard Foundation, Windstar brings James Beard Award-winning regional chefs onto their ships for six special voyages a year that feature onboard classes, tastings, and demonstrations, as well as local market tours with the chef.

All Windstar cruises also feature culinary demonstrations of James Beard award-winning recipes and beverages by Windstar chefs, as well as featured JBF-winning recipes served nightly in the main dining room.

While foodie cruisers formerly had to choose a food-and-wine-related theme sailing to find likeminded cruisers and celebrity-chef cuisine at sea, a variety of lines now focus on cuisine as a primary attraction. So, with all the great choices, how do you help your foodie clients choose the ship that’s right for them?

Step one is to acknowledge that no two foodie cruisers are alike, said Lynda Turley of Alpine Travel in Saratoga, Calif. “My food-loving clients are all food conscious, but in different ways. Some are steak-and-potatoes people, and some want authentic local dishes,” she explained. “Others want spa cuisine with grilled fish and no butter. And, for some cruisers, it’s really crucial that the line pay attention to dietary issues and allergies, too.”

It’s also important to ascertain which lines have the best culinary options. “Seabourn and Oceania both do a great job in their respective price points,” according to Linda Allen-Speer of Harrison, Ark.-based Cruises by Linda. Seabourn has a partnership with Thomas Keller, the iconic chef of California Wine Country’s acclaimed French Laundry restaurant; and Oceania with Jacques Pepin, the cooking show host and cookbook author. “I don’t think people primarily look at the celebrity chef, but the cruise line uses it as a marketing tool,” she said, adding that these relationships have the most sway with first-time cruisers.

Oceania Cruises, for one, is aiming to serve all types of foodies. “It [food] is probably the one aspect in which we are indeed all things to all people,” said Nikki F. Upshaw, Oceania’s senior vice president of sales. “In fact, most couples, families or groups who travel with us are a mix of different types of foodies.” Health-conscious travelers are drawn to the line’s Canyon Ranch Spa Cuisine and the extensive vegan and vegetarian menus that are offered across the fleet, she added.

Allen-Speer said she books many of her food-loving cruisers on Viking Ocean Cruises, which doesn’t have a celebrity chef partnership but nonetheless offers top-quality cuisine on all fronts, from fine-dining experiences to onboard buffets.

Some of her foodie cruisers like to book suites on larger, mass-market ships that offer a wider variety in the form of many more restaurant options. “The Celebrity Edge isn’t out yet, but, with the suite retreats, it is going to be huge with foodies,” she said. “People who might otherwise book a luxury line will sail with Celebrity and eat exclusively in the specialty restaurants.”

Allen-Speer finds this to be especially true of her younger foodie clients, many of whom are drawn to the Haven Suites on Norwegian Cruise Line’s newer ships. “My passengers are really happy with the Haven product, and they do like the specialty restaurants,” she said. “If you compare the overall cost with what you would pay on land, it comes in at quite a good value. The younger demographic of foodies, 40- and 50-somethings, is really averse to formality, and they like the vibrancy that you find on a bigger ship with the different entertainment options.”

Norwegian Cruise Line’s specialty restaurants include a wide variety of cuisines, from Latin fusion to Asian fusion, modern Mexican fare, and a barbecue restaurant with a cool urban vibe. As the river lines have upped the ante on design in recent years, there are increasingly foodie-friendly river cruise options as well.

On the other end of the pricing scale, Crystal Cruises has long focused on food on its oceangoing vessels, and its river cruises and yacht are no exceptions. “One permeating trend of Crystal cuisine is the superb quality of ingredients and caliber of artistry our chefs possess,” said Carmen Roig, senior vice president of marketing and sales. “Travelers who seek a wide variety of choice when it comes to the type of cuisine they enjoy—and a consistently world-class standard that rivals Michelin-starred restaurants—will find that Crystal’s culinary experiences are second to none.”

And Crystal isn’t the only one upping the ante on the cuisine front. In July, AmaWaterways is also hosting its second sailing with California chef Joanne Weir and will be focusing more on food and wine on its newbuilds. “The new AmaWaterways ship that’s coming out is going to have multiple dining venues, so I think that’s going to be a game changer,” Allen-Speer said. “And Crystal is doing well in the river [segment], so I think multiple venues are going to become more and more important.”