Star Trek meets Morocco as you enter the fascinating Le Voyage, an exclusive restaurant on Celebrity Beyond. The restaurant’s angular doors that automatically open are so seamlessly hidden in the ship’s Grand Plaza that you have to know they’re there and just walk toward the wall until they open.
From the moment you step inside the restaurant inspired by master chef Daniel Boulud, the experience is a treat for all the senses. The ambiance of the restaurant comes from Parisian architect and design team of Sanjit Manku and Patrick Jouin, who were inspired to create its Moroccan-tent theme from their previous work designing the bars and restaurants of the hotel La Mamounia in Marrakech. They’re also behind the design of the three-level Grand Plaza on Celebrity Beyond, with its dramatic multi-toned chandelier.
We’re escorted into the round room whose curving net-like dividers are studded with quartz crystals that add sparkle to the golden candle-lit scene. There’s an adjacent private dining room that seats up to eight for special occasions.
We start with a complimentary glass of the always welcome Veuve Cliquot Champagne and peruse the menu that offers eight appetizers and eight entrees inspired by Michelin-starred New York restaurateur Daniel Boulud. As Celebrity Cruises’ Culinary Ambassador, the chef previously created dishes for venues on sister ships Celebrity Edge and Celebrity Apex, but Le Voyage on Beyond is his first full restaurant at sea.
The amuse bouche that arrives with the wine menu is a showpiece: salmon tartare topped in an ultra-thin pastry cone topped with salmon roe. How the salmon can be so densely packed into such a delicate shell is a mystery the chef keeps to himself.
Breads arrive and they’re wonderful. The mini brioche and multi-grain bread are still warm from the oven. We opted to have another glass of Veuve and having a premium drinks package, the Champagne that’s normally $20 a glass only required a $6 additional charge.
Nuanced is a good way to describe the Alaskan king crab salad I ordered as an appetizer, built with discs of avocado, radish, mango and a well-balanced ginger-lime vinaigrette. Every bite is a new mingling of flavors. Other appetizers range from Riviera-style tuna with crudités and black olives to a Tunisian-style beef tartare.
My entrée, Loup de Mer au Za’atar is presented over an intriguing fennel confit framed by broccolini. The rich white fish (aka branzino) is broiled with the north African herbal spice blend za’atar along with a hint of orange rind to give a final top note. Every bite was a delight.
My wife ordered the lamb chops a la Grecque and they’re like nothing we’ve encountered in Greece. The chops have been marinated then aged for five days, which makes them extremely tender and they’re accompanied by sweet and sour eggplant and topped with pistachio pepper pesto. It’s inventively done and delicious.
For dessert, the black forest is like none you’ve ever had before. It’s a rich chocolate mousse with brandied cherries studded with dark chocolate feathers that soar high into the air. It’s decorative as hell and scrumptious besides. And to top this all of there are chocolate truffles, raspberry gelées and a basket of fresh from the oven madeleines dusted with confection sugar. You can ask to take them back to your room to enjoy later if you’ve indulged too much already.
Yes, a cover charge of $75 a guest for Le Voyage is among the highest for a specialty restaurant on any ship, but the experience of a dinner here early in our cruise was such a revelation that my wife and I decided to make a reservation for a second visit even before we’d finished dessert.
On that second encounter, we were tempted to order the tasting menu, at $125 a person, which gives you choices of five courses. As tantalizing as that was, that’s a lot of food in one meal. If you purchase the tasting menu, there’s also the option of a wine paired with each dish, for an additional $100.
We stuck with an appetizer, entrée and dessert option. This time, I chose a lobster risotto that was a wonder of delicate spicing with rice that had just the right al dente firmness. My wife had been dreaming of having a second experience with the lamb chops and again, they were dreamy.
My dessert this time was a vegan berry Pavlova, whose multiple layers and lavish construction including flecks of gold leaf was almost too beautiful to eat. ..but it quickly disappeared once I had a sample taste.
We paired that meal with a bottle of wine from an extensive volume of old and new world vintages that are not included in the wine-by-the-glass options that come with Celebrity’s wine package. While you get a 20 per cent discount on the price of the specialty wines by the bottle if you have the premium wine package, by the time the service charge and tax are added, the final bill comes out to about the same as the menu price.
My only real quibble with Le Voyage was that the oh-so personable and eager to please multitude of staff could sometimes seem a bit too eager and their explanations of the menu often seemed scripted. There were so many waiters, assistants ,sommeliers and and maitre d’s tending our table that it seemed there was someone every couple of minutes coming by asking “How do you like it? Can we get you anything else?”
The service on our first visit also felt a bit rushed, so we let them know on the second visit we weren’t in a hurry to head to one of the evening shows and it was more relaxed.
If Le Voyage restaurant was on land, I’d make it a regular haunt for celebrations. But you don’t need a special occasion to experience this on Celebrity Beyond. It’s its own occasion that has to be experienced to be truly appreciated.
Story by Wallace Immen, Executive Editor, The Cruisington Times
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