A table is heaped with a colorful cornucopia of luscious fresh vegetables and fruits, perfectly cooked pasta and exotic garnishes that include a bowl of roasted meal worms. Yes, worms. But keep reading.
Your mission– if you choose to accept it– is to assemble an artistic pasta salad that will win the praise of a team of guest experts including a master foodie, an executive chef from Academia Barilla, and Gordon Ramsay.
Just kidding about that last one, but the third guest chef of a cooking challenge on World Traveller to gourmet meccas of the Italian and French Riviera is a celebrity chef in her own right, who goes by the nickname Mama Cacao.
Guests who volunteer for the challenge are given aprons and gloves and 20 minutes to plate masterpieces that not only look and taste wonderful but tell an intriguing story. Then the Epicurean panel samples the results for taste, texture and tantalizing presentation and picks a best in show. The judges’ verdicts are milder than they might be from Gordon Ramsay, but they do deliberate seriously. Ultimately, all the creations are declared inventive and flavorful, and there’s a winner whose prize is bragging rights and a bottle of vintage wine.
It’s all part of the fun on Epicurean Expeditions, an inventive spinoff from the Polar Expeditions that the Atlas Ocean Voyages fleet does in Antarctica. The ice-rated ships have zodiacs for adventures in the ice and boots and parkas for cold weather sailing half the year. But in the summer months, World Traveller shifts focus to the Mediterranean, Scandinavia and Iceland. Live demonstrations, cooking classes and tastings as well as food excursions ashore take advantage of Europe’s abundant fresh ingredients to educate and entertain the taste buds of the fortunate few sailing on this 200-guest mega-yacht.
Each of the guest experts does cooking demonstrations as well, which always include tastings of the finished products. The gourmet team includes Mara Papatheodoru, long-time contributing editor at Bon Appetit Magazine, who sports the title master foodie Executive Chef Marcello Zaccaria from Accademia Barilla, who can turn boiling water for pasta or grinding basil for pesto into a show, and Juliet Davey, aka Mama Cacao from Costa Rica, who produces her own brand of gourmet chocolate. There’s also an Epicurean storyteller, Brian Liss, owner of an eponymous Toronto art gallery. They’re out to prove that you can be serious about food and still have a lot of fun with it.
The kitchen team on World Traveller gets inventive with their presentations as well. At the lunch buffet you’ll find vast plates tantalizingly arrayed with scrumptious salads and local berries and fruits. An entire table is covered with bowls of fresh local nuts from pine nuts to pistachios, almonds and hazelnuts.
And, oh yes, there are those roasted meal worms again. We’re told they’re high in protein and sustainable, but I didn’t notice anyone exactly diving into them. I did sample a couple of the inch-long brown critters and they had a flavor reminiscent of shrimp.
The Epicurean program includes fascinating wine tastings on board. On a stop in Sicily, there’s an afternoon tasting of organic and sulfite-free local vintages bottled just days before as Cantine Colosi vineyards they prepare for the fall harvest. Marco, the company’s wine ambassador, describes how sea, soil and sun affect grape development. Sicily is a center of organic wine production because the dry sunny climate and plenty of wind that reduces pests, he explains. The soil of the region near Messina is also rich in minerals from the volcanic ash of Mount Etna.
The hit of the day is Secco del Capo, a dry white wine “of the boss” which has a somewhat almondy base tone that would go well with either meat or pasta. The Colosi rose is strong in color but quite dry, and the consensus is it would pair well with fish or a cheese pizza. What better place to do that than Sicily?
Dinners all feel gala in the intimate Lisboa restaurant, which features a large covered outdoor deck at the stern perfect for viewing sunsets. An alternative is dining at the 7Aft Grill on the top deck which features a smokeless Josper grill and a menu of prime steaks, ribs and fish. The menus for all meals include plant-based dishes destined to please both carnivores and veggie fans alike. You have to try their plant-based steak that has remarkably meat-like texture and flavor to believe it.
Meal presentations are always artistic and aided by the ship’s collection of dinner plates and bowls that are masterpieces of Portuguese ceramic art. The ship must have a warehouse below decks to store the incredible array of elaborately formed and hand-painted dishes and serving platters.
In homage to Atlas Ocean’s Portuguese roots, menus also always include a Portuguese-inspired entrée, from takes on the classic cod with potato and egg dish bacalhau, to the seafood and rice crowd-pleaser arroz de marisco. The complimentary wines on the ship also include a range of Portuguese vintages. The choices also include French Champagne, which was my favorite on this cruise.
The executive chef Valeriu Surugui from Romania comes around to each table in the evening to get their impression of the day’s offerings, which on a ship with only 200 guests can be made to order. We’re the judges of this cooking challenge and there’s high praise all around. But special kudos have to go to the pastry teams, who consistently turn out tempting treats, from the croissants at breakfast to the all-day snacks at Paula’s Pantry, including classic Portuguese pastel de Nata custard tarts.
You don’t have to be a foodie to appreciate this gourmet voyage, but you’re destined to come away from World Traveller as an epicure.
After a summer and early fall in the Mediterranean, World Traveller joins her fleet mates for cultural voyages to South America and the winter season of Antarctic cruises from Ushuaia. In 2025, she will be doing Epicurean Expeditions in the Med, followed by a summer season in Scandinavia and Iceland.
Story by Wallace Immen, The Cruisington Times
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