Photos by Jason Leppert

Celebrity chef collaborations continue to heat up as MSC Cruises announced it is partnering with Roy Yamaguchi, the James Beard Award-winning culinary artist internationally known for his Roy’s Hawaiian fusion restaurants. The chef personally came out to Seatrade Cruise Global 2016 to reveal that he is developing a specialty pan-Asian restaurant that will be featured onboard the new MSC Seaside, launching in December 2017 with year-round service from Miami, Florida.

“Our heritage lies in the Mediterranean, where a passion for food is a way of life and we seek to bring this to life every day for our guests with always fresh, authentic food of the highest quality,” said Gianni Onorato, chief executive officer of MSC Cruises. “We are developing exciting new dining options onboard MSC Seaside, with nine eateries featuring cuisines from all around the world, including a pan-Asian restaurant in partnership with Roy Yamaguchi, a luxury fish restaurant with a chef’s table and a world class international steak house where the beef will dry age on board.”

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The restaurant has yet to be named, but it will incorporate a sushi, sashimi and raw bar, as well as teppanyaki grills and action cooking. A wide range of cuisine will include Japanese, Malaysian and Thai Korean. Yamaguchi will personally help design all elements of the restaurant from concept to finished product. His involvement extends to recipes, wine pairings, chinaware, menu paper stocks and musical ambience. The restaurant will carry a surcharge, but the amount is not known at this time.

The chef even entertained and fed attendees with a taste of his cuisine at the convention during a special culinary demo (pictured below). The MSC Seaside is just one of two prototypes building out across seven forthcoming ships, and the line also has a private Caribbean island destination under development and several other partnerships with the likes of Cirque du Soleil and Samsung applying to the worldwide brand.

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