Trellis Restaurant
Trellis Restaurant
Celebrity Infinity
Celebrity Cruises
Trellis Restaurant - Celebrity Infinity
I suppose it is a bit unusual to write a restaurant review about a restaurant on a cruise ship. I am not sure Mimi Sheridan ever did such a thing. And while MFK Fisher often wrote about her cruise experiences her focus was mainly on the people she met and only tangentially on the food that was served. I guess I will break with tradition and write about our recent dining experience at the Trellis Restaurant on the Celebrity Cruises ship Infinity.
I should state up front that we are not two people who venture onto cruises very much. Back in the early 1980’s I took a cruise to Bermuda that was memorable only for the amount of glee I exhibited as I disembarked at the end of the trip; swearing never to return to a ship again unless I was pressed into military service. Last year Will talked me into a European cruise on the Celebrity Century for which I was greatly surprised at how much I enjoyed the experience. The ports of call were lovely, the food was actually quite good, and the close proximity of 1,800 strangers gorging themselves on the buffet did not seem to bother me much.
When Will brought up a cruise to Alaska, which apparently was on his “bucket list,” I was moderately enthusiastic. We booked passage (sounds exotic when said that way) on the Celebrity Infinity which is a ship only slightly larger than the Century.
When we arrived it was clear that the menu on the Infinity would be roughly the same as what we had been offered on the Century. It was also clear from the beginning that the Executive Chef, the person who runs the daily food service operations on the ship, makes a very big difference in the quality of the food being served. What actually was enjoyable on the Century became almost laughable on the Infinity. The list of mistakes would be too long to list. Some of my favorites included:
• the pork loin in mustard sauce, where the mustard was left out of the sauce
• the crostini that had not been toasted, resulting in a cold flabby piece of white bread under a dollop of tasty toppings
• “Momma’s Mozzarella Meatballs,” where someone neglected to add any mozzarella
• the antipasti platter which consisted mostly of boiled deli ham you find in the grocery store
• the overcooked pasta, no matter the recipe involved
Quality control seemed to be a big issue on this ship, while it seemed not to be an issue on the Century.
In all fairness we were reminded constantly that the galleys on the ship churned out nearly 9,000 meals per day. This is of course the Chef’s way of saying that sometimes things will go wrong. But there is a difference between hitting a few potholes and having the wheels fall off the bus. How can you leave the mustard out of the mustard sauce?
To keep things balanced I will say that the galley excelled at salads and pastries. The salads were widely varied and were offered with some very interesting dressings; all of which I enjoyed and many of which I will try to copy. Imitation is the greatest form of flattery.
The pastries made under the direction of a very shy pastry chef, who we met, were comparable to just about most any other good restaurant. Once again they were of a wide variety and ranged from the ultimate in simplicity to the ultimate in complexity.
As Executive Chef on a cruise ship your basic job is quality control. The head Chef back at headquarters, Van Staden, hands you a menu complete with recipes and pictures of how the food is to be presented (we saw them on our tour of the galley). At that point your job is to taste the soup (universally bland on this cruise), make sure the mustard gets in the sauce, and make sure someone is actually toasting the crostini.
I attended a cooking demonstration by the Infinity Executive Chef Oswald. He seemed very personable (the main reason you get hired by a cruise line) and knowledgeable. He offered some good cooking pointers and gave good reasons for why ingredients often have to be added in the correct order. When asked what kind of basil he used in his sauce he replied, “There is only one kind of basil, and it come fresh or dried.” It kind of takes your breath away.
The final point is this; whoever is in charge of the galley does matter on a cruise ship. If you are looking for haute cuisine, let’s face it, you are not going to get it on a cruise ship with a couple of thousand passengers. But when it comes to perfectly enjoyable versus perfectly terrible the guy in the galley does matter. If you are looking for good food I would stay off the Infinity until someone from Celebrity headquarters actually goes undercover and eats whatever is being served to the passengers. Some serious changes need to be made.