In recent years, cruise lines have been making a major effort to upgrade their culinary offerings.
Many now boast of partnerships with such celebrity chefs as Jacques Pepin, Jamie Oliver and Nobu, and offer – for a cover charge generally ranging from $20 to $40 per person – the opportunity to dine in specialty restaurants as an option to the main dining room.
Several of the lines with ships sailing out of Fort Lauderdale or Miami this winter have further upped the ante by staging five-or-six course wine-pairing dinners limited to a dozen or so diners. The presentation is elaborate, and the service typically top-drawer. Prices generally run in the $100 range.
We would on the whole rate these dining experiences very good – a glitch here and there, such as the time one line overcooked the featured veal chop and couldn’t find a replacement on the ship for my husband; but on the whole, they are a good value and a fine way to spend a leisurely evening at sea.
Now, Celebrity Cruise lines seems to be seeking to further raise the bar. On a Caribbean cruise we took last week on Celebrity Silhouette, passengers were offered the opportunity to attend a “Celebration of White Truffles” dinner for only a modest $250 per head!
Was this going to be the ultimate cruise ship dining experience?
Guests were told Celebrity had acquired two of the rarest white truffles at the White Truffle Auction in Italy, and that Chef John Suley – who made a name for himself in Miami before joining the cruise line – had created a gourmet, six-course menu using the white truffles for each course.
As a dining critic, it seemed incumbent on me to try it. So at 7 Thursday evening, my husband and I joined three other couples – who all seemed to have spent most of their lives in pursuit of truffles in France and Italy – in a private salon off the luxe Murano restaurant.
We started with a cauliflower panna cotta – a puree of cauliflower served in a martini glass, topped with caviar and drizzled with an aged soy. A faint aroma of truffle wafted from the glass. This course was accompanied by a dry, crisp Champagne, the 2005 Pierre Gimonnet Brut Blanc de Blancs.
Next came a salsify root soup, poured over a confit of pears and candied chestnuts. This was paired with a white wine from the northeast of Spain, a 2011 Scala dei Blanco Les Brugueres, Priorat.
The third course was a creamy wild mushroom risotto, accompanied by a 2010 Domaine Drouhin Pinot Noir from the Willamette Valley of Oregon. The risotto, as was the case with the other dishes, had been sprinkled with flecks of truffle. No waiter appeared at tableside – as promised – to shave Alba white truffles over the dish.
Then came a pan seared turbot – a very nice piece of fish served atop a sunchoke puree and adorned with white asparagus. Again no shaved white truffles, but the turbot was accompanied by a gently oaked 2007 Coppo Monteriolo Chardonnay from Northern Italy’s Piedmont region.
The fifth course consisted of a roasted veal tenderloin, served with ricotta gnocchi, stewed baby vegetables, and topped with a Barolo sauce – which nicely tied in with a rich and velvety 2007 Michele Chiaro Toroniano Barolo, very harmonious and elegant.
We finished with a hazelnut dacquoise, with white chocolate and truffle Chantilly. This course was accompanied by a glass of 2007 Klein Constantia Muscat, Vin de Constance. The powerful dessert wine is the highest rated South African sweet wine in history, receiving 98 points from Wine spectator.
Was this dinner worth $250 before tip? The dishes themselves were creative, and very well prepared. The wines that accompanied them proved excellent choices. We particularly enjoyed the Klein Constantia.
But for an evening billed as a celebration of white truffles, we would have liked to see the stars of the show a bit more in evidence. Truffles shaved at tableside would have imparted far more taste and aroma than spiking the dishes with truffles in the kitchen.
Nevertheless, kudos to Celebrity for this creative effort to take fine dining at sea to another level. Things have come a long way from the era of the cruise ship buffets.
I welcome your comments, and encourage you to send feedback to me at tina@verobeach32963.com.
The reviewer is a beachside resident who dines anonymously at restaurants at the expense of Vero Beach 32963.