Just ten years ago, dinner on a ship was a pretty predictable affair: It'd be you, your spouse, and two or three other couples, at a table in a formal dining room, dressed according to code and eating a five-course dinner while making small talk about sports, your home state, and how much you'd eaten on your cruise.
Ho-hum.
Today the concept of cruise dinners more closely resembles the same concept on land: It's a free-for-all, with numerous specialty restaurants that let you dine with complete flexibility, choosing when, where, and with whom you want to eat, how fancy you want to be, and how dressed up you want to get. Norwegian Cruise Line got the ball rolling in 2000 with its Freestyle Cruising arrangement, which boils down to passengers being able to dine anytime between 5:30pm and midnight in any of several venues, within a multi-hour window. Oceania Cruises' much smaller ships operate on essentially the same system, while Princess's "Personal Choice" dining scheme offers passengers the option of choosing flexible or traditional dining routines. From the mega-ships to the small and midsize luxury vessels, practically every ship sailing today has at least one small, intimate specialty restaurant for Asian, Italian, French, Tex-Mex, Pacific Northwest, or Creole cuisine, serving 100 or fewer passengers with elaborate presentations, and mostly at a fee of between $10 and $30 per person.
Here's what's on offer at the various cruise lines.
Carnival
All of Carnival's Spirit-class and Conquest-class ships offer a two-level, reservations-only venue serving steaks and other dishes for a $30-per-person cover charge (plus tip and not including wine). Service is more gracious than in the main dining rooms: Menus are leather-bound, dedicated sommeliers are on hand to take your wine order, and elegant table settings feature beautiful Versace show plates and Rosenthal, Fortessa, and Revol china. Tables for two and four are available, and musicians serenade diners with soft ballads. Like a traditional steak house, the menu includes starters, salads, and side dishes such as creamed spinach and mashed potatoes. Cuts range from New York strip to porterhouse and filet mignon, and other options include grilled lamb chops and a fish and chicken dish. The experience is designed to be slow and lingering, so don't go if you're looking for a fast meal. The food and service are the most doting you'll find at Carnival.
Celebrity
The specialty restaurants on Celebrity's Millennium-class ships (Millennium, Infinity, Summit, and Constellation) are some of the best at sea, with standout cuisine, service, and ambience that's well worth the $30 cover charge. The hook that grabs diners immediately is the restaurants' decor, with each designed around architectural elements and memorabilia salvaged from some of the great old 20th-century ocean liners. Millennium's Edwardian-style Olympic restaurant, for instance, incorporates a series of ornate wall panels hand-carved by Palestinian craftsmen for the à la carte restaurant aboard White Star Line's Olympic, sister ship to the Titanic. Infinity's SS United States restaurant features etched-glass panels from the 1950s liner of the same name, the fastest transatlantic liner in history. (Now owned by NCL, by the way, and possibly to be rebuilt and relaunched in the coming years.) The Summit's Normandie restaurant features original gold-lacquered panels from the smoking room of the legendary Normandie, while the Constellation's Ocean Liners restaurant has artifacts from a variety of luxury liners, including sets of original red-and-black lacquered panels from the 1920s Ile de France, which add a whimsical Parisian air.
The dining experience Celebrity has created to match these gorgeous rooms is nothing short of amazing: Fewer than 100 guests per night are served by a staff of more than twenty, including eight dedicated chefs, six waiters, five maître d's, and four sommeliers, all trained personally by executive chef Michel Roux and his senior staff. Dining here is a two- to three-hour commitment, full of gracious touches such as domed silver covers dramatically lifted off entrees by several waiters in unison when meals are delivered. Cuisine is a combination of Roux specialties mixed with original recipes from the ships the restaurants are named after (such as the Long Island duckling featured on the original SS United States), and includes the first use of table-side flambé cooking at sea. A great cheese selection is offered from a marble-topped cart, and in the menu, Roux suggests wines for each course (which are not cheap). For atmosphere, a pianist or a piano/violin duo performs music appropriate to the era mimicked by the room. No children under age 12 are allowed and reservations are required.
Aboard Celebrity's older but recently refurbished Century, a new 66-seat specialty restaurant called Murano is decorated with chandeliers handcrafted from Italian Murano glass, a style made famous by glass-blowers on the island of Murano, near Venice. The restaurant's decor includes a floor designed to resemble medieval European paving stones; a hand-painted mural themed on travel and adventure; and glass-fronted, polished nickel wine armoires displaying backlit bottles. The menu follows the style of the Millennium-class specialty restaurants, with elaborate, multi-course meals; tableside cooking, carving, and flambé and the same $30 cover charge.
Costa
The two ships Costa sails in the Caribbean (Magica and Mediterranea) both offer a reservations-only alternative restaurant serving Mediterranean dishes or a Tuscan steakhouse menu, each at a cost of $23 per person. The ambience is considerably quieter and more romantic than in the main dining room, with pleasant piano music and a small dance floor if you feel like a waltz between courses. Magica's Vincenza Club Restaurant is outstanding, with an adventurous menu by restaurateurs Zefferino that includes some outrageously good desserts and wines. The ambience is romantic, with Versace china and gold napkins standing out against rich, dark woods and shining gold ware, with friezes from Palladio's villas reproduced around a giant skylight. If you order wine, you're in for a show, with a steward decanting your bottle using a steady hand and a candle.
On Mediterranea, the two-story alternative restaurant high up on Deck 10 offers an atmosphere of dim lights, candlelight, fresh flowers, soft live music, and lots of space between tables. After 10pm the restaurant's second story becomes a cigar lounge.
Crystal Cruises
Crystal's Asian specialty venues are among the best at sea. Aboard Crystal Symphony, the Jade Garden showcases the Asian cuisine of Wolfgang Puck's acclaimed Santa Monica restaurant Chinois on Main. Even better, master chef Nobuyuki "Nobu" Matsuhisa, known for his restaurants in New York, Miami, L.A., London, Paris, and other cities, partnered with Crystal to create menus for Crystal Serenity's Sushi Bar and its Pan-Asian restaurant Silk Road. It's an ultra-stylish space designed in a sea of ethereal mints and whites, with seating available at tables or at the sushi bar. Dishes feature Nobu's eclectic blends of Japanese cuisine with Peruvian and European influences. In the Sushi Bar, sample the salmon tartare with sevruga caviar or the yellowtail sashimi with jalapeño; in Silk Road, choices include lobster with truffle yuzu sauce and chicken with teriyaki balsamic. While Nobu himself makes occasional appearances on Serenity, chef Toshiaki Tamba, personally trained by Nobu, oversees the restaurants.
Aboard both ships, famed restaurateur Piero Selvaggio showcases the cuisine of his award-winning Santa Monica and Las Vegas Valentino restaurants at an Italian restaurant called Valentino at Prego. The surroundings really make you feel you're in a fine Italian restaurant ashore, with meat, pasta, and fish dishes offered à la carte or through a tasting menu.
Reservations are required for each of the specialty restaurants, and though there's no per-person fee, a $6 gratuity is suggested.
Cunard
Aboard Queen Mary 2, the Todd English restaurant is a small 156-seat Mediterranean venue that echoes the original Queen Mary's Verandah Grill, one of that ship's most legendary spaces. Located in the stern on Deck 8, it was created by celebrity chef Todd English and serves elaborate and often very rich lunches ($20 per person) and dinners ($30 per person), with some truly amazing desserts.
One deck down, adjacent to the King's Court buffet area, the contemporary Chef's Galley serves only a few dozen guests who pay $30 a pop to watch the chef prepare their meal via an open galley and several large monitor screens.
Disney
Disney's sister-ships Disney Magic and Disney Wonder both offer a romantic adults-only restaurant called Palo, serving Italian specialties such as tortellini stuffed with crab meat, grilled salmon with risotto, and excellent gourmet pizzas, such as one topped with barbecued chicken, black olives, and spinach. A decent selection of Italian wines is available, and the dessert menu includes a fine chocolate soufflé and a weird-but-tasty dessert pizza. The restaurant itself is horseshoe-shaped and perched way up on Deck 10 to offer a 270-degree view. Service is attentive but not overly formal, and you don't have to dress up, though a jacket for men may be nice. Reservations are essential, and should be made immediately after you board, as the docket fills up fast. The cover charge is $10 per person.
Holland America Line
Fleetwide, HAL offers Pacific Northwest cuisine in the small, elegant Pinnacle Grill, an attractive venue where you can get dishes as Dungeness crab cakes, pan-seared rosemary chicken with cranberry chutney, wild mushroom ravioli with pesto cream sauce, or lamb rack chops with drizzled mint sauce, plus premium beef cuts. All entrees are complemented with regional wines from Chateau Ste. Michelle, Canoe Ridge, Willamette Valley Vineyards, and others. On a recent Noordam outing, the service was top rate and the food exceeded our expectations. Aboard the line's Vista-class ships (Zuiderdam, Oosterdam, Westerdam, and Noordam), the Grill wraps partially around the three-deck atrium, offering an appealing design of marble floors, bright white linens, gorgeous Bulgari place settings, and ornate, organically sculpted chairs by Gilbert Libirge, who also created the ships' beautiful, batik-patterned elevator doors. Ask for a table by the windows or in the aft corner for the coziest experience. Abooard Amsterdam and Rotterdam the Grill seats fewer than 100 diners in a romantic, elegant (if windowless) setting. Aboard Amsterdam, make a point of looking at the paintings, all of which have a joke hidden somewhere on the canvas -- look for the RCA "his master's voice" dog on the Italian rooftop, and for Marilyn Monroe by the lily pond.
Make reservations as early as possible when you come aboard. In addition to dinners (for which the cover charge is $30), alternative restaurants are also open for lunch on sea days, at a $10 cover charge.
Norwegian Cruise Line
NCL is the king of specialty dining, its modern ships offering up to ten different dining options at dinner. In addition to their main dining rooms, each ship has a French/Continental restaurant called Le Bistro, where the menu includes items such as Caesar salad made at your table, a delicious salmon filet in sorrel cream sauce, a juicy beef tenderloin, and a marvelously decadent chocolate fondue served with fresh fruit. On Norwegian Dawn, the room is adorned with original Impressionist paintings by van Gogh, Matisse, Renoir, and Monet, lent from the private collection of Tan Sri Lim Kok Thay, chairman and CEO of Star Cruises, NCL's parent company. Beyond Le Bistro, the line's newest ships also offer choices such as Pan-Asian, Italian, Japanese, steakhouse, Pacific Rim, and Tex-Mex tapas, in various combinations, and at prices ranging from $10 to $20 per person.
Norwegian Spirit, Star, Dawn, Jewel, and the upcoming Pearl (debuting in December) offer eight to ten restaurants apiece, with two or three main formal dining rooms plus a buffet, at least one casual diner/cafe, Le Bistro, and alternative specialty restaurants serving Italian, steakhouse, and Asian cuisine, the latter with a main restaurant as well as a separate sushi and sake bar and an intimate Japanese teppanyaki room, where meals are prepared from the center of the table as guests look on. Dawn, Jewel, and Star also have a casual Tex-Mex and tapas eatery, while Star has a restaurant serving Pacific Rim cuisine.
Aboard Pride of Aloha, the Royal Palm Bistro, high atop the ship opposite the Plantation nightclub, serves French/Mediterranean cuisine in a pseudo-colonial Hawaiian decor. On Deck 11, Pacific Heights serves Pan-Pacific cuisine, including local fish, steak, Asian dishes, and (hmm Â?) pizza, which you can get free late into the night. Most interesting is the Kahili Restaurant, a long, narrow space stretched along the starboard side of Deck 5, serving Italian cuisine in a setting of elegant burlwood paneling, cozy booths, and window-side tables for two.
Pride of America's alternatives include the Lazy J Texas Steakhouse, where waiters serve in cowboy hats; Jefferson's Bistro, an elegant venue modeled after the president's home and serving French cuisine; the Little Italy Italian restaurant; and East Meets West, a Pan-Asian restaurant with attached sushi/sashimi bar and teppanyaki room.
Pride of Hawai'i offers Cagney's Steakhouse, a faux-1930s-style meatery serving about a dozen main courses, from a king-cut 14-ounce rib eye or 24-ounce porterhouse to grilled mahi mahi and whole butter-poached Maine lobster; Jasmine Garden, an Asian restaurant with attached sushi bar and teppanyaki room; a Mexican and tapas restaurant; and Papa's Italian Kitchen Italian, with a family-style atmosphere and long bench seating.
On a technologically interesting note, six of NCL's ships (Norwegian Spirit, Norwegian Jewel, Norwegian Pearl, Pride of America, Pride of Aloha, and Pride of Hawai'i) feature large computerized billboard screens placed outside restaurants and in various public areas. Each displays a listing of every restaurant on board (with photos and a description of the cuisine), along with the restaurant's status (open/closed), how busy it is at that moment, how close it is to filling up, and how long a wait there will be if it is filled up. For those who don't like to plan too far ahead, it's a great boon: You can head out for the evening and just decide where to dine on the fly. Maître d's at every restaurant can take reservations at any of the other restaurants too, so if one looks like it's filling up you won't have to sprint to catch that last table -- just amble to the nearest restaurant and have them call ahead for you. The system will eventually be rolled out across the NCL fleet and be available through a new interactive TV system that's in the works.
Oceania Cruises
As an alternative to the open-seating main dining room aboard Oceania's three sister ships (Regatta, Insignia, and Nautica), passengers can make a reservation at two specialty restaurants, the Italian Toscana or the Polo Grill steakhouse. Tostana is sinfully overwhelming, serving half a dozen antipasti and an equal number of pasta dishes, soups, salads, and secondi piatti such as medallions of filet mignon topped with sautéed artichoke and smoked mozzarella; swordfish steak sautéed in garlic, parsley, Tuscan olives, capers, and orvieto wine; and braised double-cut lamb chops in a sun-dried tomato, olive, and roasted garlic sauce. Desserts include the remarkable if weird-sounding chocolate lasagna. Decor is bright, white Mediterranean, with Roman urns for accent. The woody, old-Hollywood Polo Grill serves chops, seafood, and cuts of slow-aged beef with all the substantial trimmings: seafood appetizers, soups such as New England clam chowder and lobster bisque, straight-up salads such as Caesar and iceberg wedge with blue cheese and crumbled bacon, and side dishes such as a baked potato, wild mushroom ragout, and creamed spinach.
Both restaurants are located in the stern on Deck 10, and serve 96 and 90 guests respectively. Passengers can make reservations for either restaurant during breakfast or lunch hours at the Terrace Cafe. There's no extra charge, but there's an initial two-reservation limit to ensure that all guests get a chance. If you'd like to dine here more than twice, add your name to the waiting list and you'll be contacted if there's space (which there usually is).
Princess Cruises
Except for the older Regal Princess, all Princess ships that sail from the U.S. feature alternative restaurants: the Italian Sabatini's Trattoria and the meaty Sterling Steakhouse on the Grand-class ships (Grand Princess, Golden Princess, Star Princess, Caribbean Princess, and Crown Princess); trattoria and New Orleans-style restaurants on Coral and Island Princess; and a steakhouse and free sit-down pizzeria on the Sun-class ships (Sun Princess, Dawn Princess, and Sea Princess). Diamond and Sapphire Princess feature an Italian trattoria and steakhouse. Regal offers a sit-down pizzeria only.
Sabatini's specializes in Italian cuisine, featuring an eight-course menu emphasizing seafood -- so you better come hungry. Service is first-rate and the food is decent. Sterling Steakhouse lets patrons choose their favorite cut of beef from the "Sterling Steakhouse" brand and have it cooked to order.
Prices are $20 per person at the trattoria and $15 at the steakhouse. Reservations are recommended for all alternative restaurants as seating is limited.
Regent Seven Seas (formerly Radisson)
On Seven Seas Mariner and Seven Seas Voyager, two reservations-only (but no-charge) restaurants are open for dinner only. Signatures features world-ranging cuisine prepared in classic French style by chefs trained at Paris's famous Le Cordon Bleu School. Latitudes offers a new Indochine menu, with such dishes as Cambodian wafu salad; steamed fresh halibut in a Matsutake mushroom broth with gingered vegetables; and a spiced rack of lamb accompanied by aromatic Jasmine rice, wok-seared snow peas, and fresh sprouts in peanut jus. On Voyager, Latitudes has an open galley, allowing guests to watch as items are prepared. Passengers can also go casual at La Veranda, serving Mediterranean and North African dishes by candlelit, with white tablecloths and a combination of waiter and self-service dining.
Seven Seas Mariner has only one alternative choice: Portofino, an indoor/outdoor Italian restaurant serving antipasti dishes such as marinated salmon rings or Bresaola carpaccio with Parmesan cheese and mushrooms, pasta courses that may include jumbo-prawn risotto, and main courses such as a grilled lobster or osso buco.
All alternative venues are intimate spaces with tables for two or four. Make reservations early in the cruise, to guarantee yourself a table.
Royal Caribbean
While Royal Caribbean's ships still serve dinners primarily in their massive formal dining rooms, there are alternatives. The Voyager-class ships (Voyager, Explorer, Adventure, Navigator, and Mariner of the Seas) and Empress of the Seas each have one intimate, reservations-only Italian restaurant, Portofino, while the Radiance-class ships (Radiance, Brilliance, Serenade, and Jewel of the Seas) and Freedom of the Seas, Mariner of the Seas, and Navigator of the Seas have Portofino and the Chops Grill steakhouse. They're all attractive and intimate getaways, and food and service are the best on board, justifying the $20-per-person cover charge. Specialty restaurants are being installed on the line's older ships as they're renovated. The Freedom- and Voyager-class ships and the older Sovereign of the Seas also have an honest-to-god Johnny Rockets diner with red vinyl booths and chrome accents, serving burgers, milkshakes, and other diner staples. There's a nominal $4 per-person service charge, and sodas and shakes are à la carte, but that doesn't stop lines from forming here during prime lunch and dinner times.
Seabourn Cruise Line
In addition to dinners in their main restaurants, Seabourn's three sister ships (Seabourn Pride, Seabourn Legend, and Seabourn Spirit) offer a casual option known as 2, which features multi-course tasting menus for as many as 50 guests a night (reservations are suggested). A pair of chefs prepares an array of small plates typically served two to a course during the five- to six-course meals. Expect such dishes as spring rolls with soy, Thai and chili dipping sauces; soba noodle and seaweed salad with sesame vinaigrette; lobster bisque with black truffle cappuccino; grilled Striped Bass witha roasted vegetables; and braised beef short ribs with celery-potato mash and beef jus. You meal might end with something like vanilla beignets sauced with caramel apple, fudge and chocolate along with white and milk chocolate ice pralines. The outdoor seating offers a rare opportunity to dine with the sea breezes and night sky surrounding you -- it's a beautiful thing. The ambience is more casual here than The Restaurant, and the dress codes follow suit; on formal "black tie" nights in the Restaurant, jackets but no ties for men are suggested in 2. There is no cover charge.
Silversea Cruises
At dinner, Silver Shadow, Silver Whisper, and Silver Wind each offers two specialty restaurants, both by reservation. Open most evenings for dinner, La Terrazza is a lovely windowed venue now offering Italian cuisine created by chef Marco Betti, owner of the award-winning Antica Posta restaurants in Florence, Italy, and Atlanta, Georgia. The second alternative venue offers a new twist on cruise dining, offering menus that pair food with wine -- and not the other way around. Developed in consultation with master sommeliers trained in the member boutique lodgings and restaurants of Relais & Châteaux-Relais Gourmands, the wine menus reflect regions of the world known for their rich viticultural heritage, including France, Italy, northern California, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. Sommeliers describe the origin and craft of each vintage, then offer dishes created especially to bring out the wine's full richness. Guests enjoy a different wine with each course, with the extra charge for dinner varying in accordance with the wines presented.
Windstar Cruises
Windstar's largest ship, the Wind Surf, offers alternative dining at the casual, 128-seat Bistro, an intimate space with an understated fantasy garden motif and a menu that rotates between steakhouse, Italian, French, and Indonesian dishes. Reservations are required, but there's no additional fee.
What do you eat when you're cruising? Talk with fellow Frommer's cruisers on our Cruise Message Boards.