Cruise Food & Drink - Captain Greybeard

My favourite cruise ship restaurants

As part of its coverage of National Cruise Week, the Daily Mirror wanted me to tell them about my favourite restaurants at sea. It was a tough call, but I eventually settled on these two ... Ji Ji Asian Kitchen Every night is party night in Ji Ji’s Asian Kitchen, a restaurant where it’s best to turn up in a group and let each person at the table choose a dish for everyone to share. Start with slow-braised pork belly, Nanjing-style duck, and tamarind and shrimp soup before moving on to Chairman Mao’s Master stuck pig, Kung Pao chicken, and Singapore [...]

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T15:59:24+00:00 19 September 2015|Cruise Food & Drink|1 Comment

Ready to join the Cookery Club?

TV chef James Martin took a look round his latest project this week - a cookery school. Not set in a Yorkshire farmhouse or an East End warehouse, but on Deck 17 of a cruise ship, 140 feet above the waves. The Cookery Club is a feature of P&O's Britannia, due to make its debut in Southampton next March. For now the venue is effectively a building site with hundreds of workmen busily welding, wiring and wrangling everything into place. It took some imagination to picture the Cookery Club as it will look when it's complete, with workstations for 24 [...]

By John Honeywell| 2014-07-20T09:45:38+00:00 20 July 2014|Cruise Food & Drink|0 Comments

Will Fred Olsen’s extra-charge Grill restaurant turn out to be a mis-steak?

Restaurants on cruise ships are always news - food is high on the list of reasons people book holidays at sea. But the Grill now open on Fred Olsen's Boudicca has left a nasty taste in the mouths of some fans. They have taken to Facebook - where the news was first disclosed - to voice their displeasure. Why, you might ask, should such an innocent announcement raise temperatures by enough to cook a well-done steak? Regulars are worried that the £10 cover charge is the thin end of the wedge and Fred Olsen will finally follow the example of [...]

By John Honeywell| 2015-04-10T14:23:01+00:00 28 June 2014|Cruise Food & Drink, Cruise News|0 Comments

Grand Fromage joins the good ship Brie-tannia, heading for Port Salut

P&O Cruises have added a big cheese to their brigade of Food Heroes on board Britannia. He is Charlie Turnbull, who runs a delicatessen in Shaftesbury, Dorset, and is described as an "international cheese judge and expert." He will be advising P&O on the range of cheeses to be stocked in Britannia's Market Café at the heart of the ship's atrium, and in the fine-dining Epicurean restaurant. Turnbull is also planning to travel several times a year to present cheese tastings and to host cheese-related shore excursions. He will be joining James Martin, Marco Pierre White, Atul Kochhar, "Cake Boy" [...]

By John Honeywell| 2014-06-04T16:21:11+00:00 4 June 2014|Cruise Food & Drink, Cruise News|0 Comments

Pay more to eat like a Norwegian

Norwegian Cruise Line is increasing the cost of its Ultimate Dining Packages, popular among passengers who want to sample several speciality restaurants during a cruise on its ships Epic, Breakaway and Getaway. Introduced in January, the package was priced at $59 for a cruise of up to six days, and amounted to a substantial saving on the individual restaurant cover charges - especially if the passenger chose to eat each evening in the $30 Cagney's steakhouse. The cost has now gone up to $74 for a four-night cruise, and by further daily increments of $15-$20. A seven-night package now costs [...]

By John Honeywell| 2014-04-19T07:43:42+00:00 19 April 2014|Cruise Food & Drink|1 Comment

Jamie Oliver takes to the sea

Jamie Oliver has changed the eating habits of the nation and proved that you don't have to shout and swear to be a success in the kitchen. He took jobless youngsters off the streets to work in his pioneering 15 Restaurant, and he took on the Ministry of Education and stubborn turkey-twizzling mums to shake up school dinners. Now he is about to take his successful Jamie's Italian concept to sea for the first time, on Royal Caribbean's newest cruise ships, Quantum of the Seas and Anthem of the Seas. His is one of 18 themed restaurants on each ship [...]

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T15:59:27+00:00 27 March 2014|Cruise Food & Drink, Cruise News|0 Comments

What’s cooking? A brigade of food heroes for Britannia’s maiden season

Details of the maiden season for P&O's Britannia - biggest cruise ship ever to be built for the British market - have been announced. The ship's maiden voyage will be from Southampton on March 14, 2015, and the summer includes cruises to the Mediterranean, the Canary Islands, Norwegian fjords, and the Baltic. There will be a two-night short break cruise to Guernsey in July, followed by a 12-night round-Britain cruise visiting Edinburgh, Inverness, Kirkwall, Glasgow, Liverpool, Dublin, and Cork. In October, the 3,600-passenger ship will set off for winter in the Caribbean, and fares for the 14-night Transatlantic crossing, which [...]

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T15:59:27+00:00 12 February 2014|Cruise Destinations, Cruise Food & Drink, Cruise News|0 Comments

Meet Thomson cruise menu finalists

Passengers on Thomson Cruises certainly know their onions - and their pork, chicken and venison, judging by the shortlist of finalists in a competition to devise their ultimate dinner menu. Wannabe chefs were invited to put together the meal from a list of ingredients provided by Thomson for starters, main courses and desserts. Entrants were required to suggest the style of cooking, and add side dishes and sauces. Three finalists will now take part in a cook-off during a seven-night cruise to the Canary Islands on board Thomson Celebration in March. The ultimate winner receives a Caribbean cruise on Thomson [...]

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T15:59:28+00:00 31 January 2014|Cruise Food & Drink|0 Comments

Impress me with a favourite menu and you could win a dream cruise

Think you know about food and cruise ships? Could you design a menu for a three-course dinner on board a ship? If you can, and you can impress me with it, you could win your dream cruise. The competition is being launched today by Thomson Cruises, who are looking for a menu to be featured in the Grill restaurant on their Platinum-rated ship, Thomson Dream. The Cruise Kitchen menu creator allows entrants to choose from a selection of ingredients to build their dream dinner, deciding on the central element of each disch - whether it be duck, scallops or venison [...]

By John Honeywell| 2013-12-06T14:04:11+00:00 6 December 2013|Cruise Food & Drink, Cruise News|2 Comments

Getting a taste for Crystal luxury

Crystal Serenity is looking fresher than ever after an £11 million facelift in a Spanish dry dock. The 12 days out of the water were enough for unseen mechanical overhauls and a touch-up job on the underwater part of the hull with slippery, fuel-saving silicon paint costing £160 a litre but there wasn't enough time to complete the re-design of the ship's Lido restaurant. As the ship filled with passengers, 150 workmen remained on board to finish off the transformation into a lighter, airier buffet with new server islands and lattice-work screens to separate tables from passengers queuing for their [...]

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T15:59:28+00:00 6 December 2013|Cruise Food & Drink, Cruise Ships|0 Comments