Cruise Food & Drink

Celebrity Cruises are determined to gain wider recognition for the food on their ships. To the extent that chief executive Michael Bayley has plans up his sleeve to open a New York restaurant serving dishes from the menus in an attempt to earn Michelin star status. London's own Celebrity pop-up food and drink outlet opens today in Regents Park. The company is operating a stand at the Taste of London festival; visitors will be able to sample popular items from the quirky Qsine restaurant menu and executive chefs will be on hand to showcase skills such as sushi lollipop. Celebrity [...]

Cunard's Queen Victoria has a new Verandah - not a cabin balcony this time but a restaurant to match the one that has proved to be such a success on sister ship Queen Elizabeth. It replaces the Todd English speciality restaurant on Deck 2, just off the Grand Lobby. How long now before Victoria's Chart Room bar is replaced with a Britannia Club restaurant like the one which has been a hit on Elizabeth? Todd English is an American celebrity chef - he opened his first Olives restaurant in Boston in 1989 and it was followed by one in Bellagios, [...]

The minute chef Molly Brandt saw me take a knife to an onion, she rolled her eyes in despair. She wanted the vegetable finely diced in preparation for making her smoked sweet potato velouté and realised immediately she was dealing with a rank amateur. I thought I knew what I was doing. I've made soup before - it all goes in the liquidiser in the end anyway, so why the need for precision? Chef Molly soon put me straight. If my take on her signature soup was to make it onto the tables of the $40-a-head 150 Central Park restaurant [...]

Wine expert Oz Clarke had so much fun on his first cruise last year that he's coming back for more. He will be hosting a themed cruise in October which takes in Bordeaux in France, the Rioja region of Spain, and the home of port in Portugal. Once hailed as Britain's youngest-ever Wine Taster of the Year, his enthusiasm, his encyclopaedic knowledge, and his gift for entertainment remain undimmed 40 years later, as he demonstrated with a virtuoso performance in London this week for guests of Celebrity Cruises. Taking us through a collection of wines he had selected from the [...]

Cruise lines can do what they want to spice up their entertainment or beef up their children's clubs; they can draw up an a la carte list of shore excursions at every port of call, and even introduce pillow menus. But what most passengers expect is to eat well in as wide a variety of restaurants as possible during their chosen holiday at sea. Which is why, no doubt, there has been a clutch of food-related announcements in the past few days. Here's my table d'hôte selection . . . MSC Preziosa, to be launched in Genoa in March, has [...]

What's the must-have addition to the cruise ship experience these days? Broadway musicals, high-speed wi-fi, pillow menus and 3D cinemas have all staked their place alongside towel animals, singing waiters and the Baked Alaska parade. But they come nowhere near matching the desirability of a cake shop. Allure of the Seas has its Cupcake Cupboard - where I was given a lesson in cake decoration (above) - and Royal Princess will have its own Pastry Shop in the Horizon Court buffet. Cake Boy legend Eric Lanlard, who has created confections for David Beckham and Claudia Schiffer, will be travelling on [...]