The Pantry, a new dining concept for P&O cruises, is coming soon.
I order the snapper at Salt Grill knowing it will be fresh. I'd spied it, or its close relative, earlier that day at the Sydney Fish Markets and it looked great.
When it arrives on my plate, grilled and adorned only with a lemon and butter sauce on the side, it looks even better and tastes sweet.
Sticking with fresh seafood, I go for mussels at lunch the next day in the Waterfront Restaurant but what takes the cake, literally, is the tiramisu with espresso and Kahlua. I can't resist ordering this rich dessert as just two hours earlier I watched a chef make it in the ship's galley, mixing in a generous slurp of the rum liqueur.
Luke Mangan's restaurants on P&O ships offer such delicacies as prawn buckets. Credit: Chris Court
I am getting an insider's look at how food is sourced, stored and prepared for P&O's Pacific Jewel, and I'm impressed.
The behind-the-scenes tour starts at dawn at the fish markets' auction with supplier George Manettas from the renowned family of fish buyers and restaurateurs and P&O's corporate chef Uwe Stiefel. We have privileged access to this normally off-limits section of the market and follow the men as they peer into some of the 2800 crates of seafood to inspect bonito, barramundi, snapper, tuna, crab, prawns and lobster.
Stiefel visits the market four times a month to choose the best of the catch and on this occasion is selecting enough to feed 1900 passengers who will head out of Sydney on Pacific Jewel's three-night Food & Wine cruise to "nowhere" that day.
A lamb shoulder share plate is part of the new-look menu on Luke Mangan's Waterfront restaurant on board P&O ships.Credit: Chris Court
Later onboard and below decks we watch as hundreds of boxes of fruit and vegies including cauliflower from Bathurst are wheeled into cooler rooms. In one room we inspect a choice whole salmon farmed in Tasmania, which will grace menus in the ship's fine-dining rooms.
Stiefel proudly boasts that 97 per cent of all food and wine served on P&O's three ships is Australian, including grass-fed beef from Victoria, chicken from RSPCA-approved farms in NSW, wheat and grains from WA and Hunter Valley and Coonawarra labels.
The German-born chef who has spent six years with P&O and another 15 with Cunard and Princess lines, also takes us through "menu engineering", which is his system of planning a season's menu for the entire fleet on a vast sheet of paper. There are no computers for this man who loves nothing more than working out how to serve 8600 meals a day to passengers and crew, and ordering just the right amount of supplies.
High tea is, for some, a highlight of ship life.Credit: Getty Images
This is my second P&O cruise in six months and it's clear the food and style of dining have come a long way since the 1990s when I first sailed on the line. Much is due to Sture Myrmell, vice-president of hotel operations, who oversees everything from food to entertainment, and who's on a mission to keep up with the latest trends in cruising.
He was the one who persuaded Luke Mangan to come onboard and open Australia's first celebrity-chef restaurant at sea. While Mangan tells us he was not interested at first, Myrmell convinced him that he was about to lift the whole food and beverage game onboard P&O.
That was in 2009 and today all three of Mangan's 70-seat Salt Grill restaurants (on sister ships Pacific Jewel, Pearl and Dawn) are full each night at both sittings and there is a four-page waiting list on our sailing. Passengers in the know book a table as soon as they embark to ensure they can sample Mangan's signature dishes of tuna sashimi with Persian feta, scallops with blue cheese polenta and truffle oil and the quirky liquorice parfait with lime syrup, or other dishes during a three-course menu at just $49 a head (and $30 at lunch).
Mangan travels on each of the ships once a year to inspect his dedicated galley and staff, meet and greet diners, and during our sojourn he staged a rather risqué cooking demonstration in the main show-lounge complete with seductive Barry White music and shots of tequila.
A food and wine-themed cruise sounds like a tautology in an industry where there are already more eating opportunities than you can jump over. But these popular long-weekend jaunts add the fun element of free cooking demos and ticketed classes on cocktail and martini-mixing, whiskey and tequila tasting and food-and-wine pairing.
Dozens of us turn up at 11am on Sunday to endure the hardship of wine and chocolate pairing. Together with Hunter Valley winemakers Nick Flanagan and Duane Roy of Glandore Estate, Tina Vamvoukakis of Adora Handmade Chocolates talks a rapt audience through each praline, ganache and truffle as we swirl, sniff and sip Semillon, chardonnay and Shiraz. At $29, it's a fun way to spend the mid-morning and a nice palate cleanser before lunch, which can be taken in the stylish main Waterfront Restaurant, the Plantation buffet, the alfresco Terrace or in Salt Grill if you snaffle a table.
Myrmell has wrought many culinary changes, as well as new entertainment including P&OEdge Adventure Park of adult rides including a flying-fox, Segway obstacle course and funnel-climbing, and more are on the way.
New menus in the Waterfront Restaurant, which hosts 1600 at dinner each night, reflect the current trend for shared plates and more casual dishes. Four choices of tapas (including octopus and chorizo salad and harissa-roasted zucchini, capsicum and eggplant rolls) and mains such as sticky barbecued pork belly, thin-crust pizzas and succulent hamburgers with chunky chips grace the "everyday" dinner menu, while big platters of tender-cooked lamb shoulder designed to serve four to six people are now featured on a separate "specials" menu.
Just launched is an exquisite collection of goodies in what has to be the best high tea at sea. Served during sea days in Salt Grill, an elegant art-deco cake tier-for-two is laden with 10 sweet and savoury treats including coronation chicken sandwiches, croquet madame with quail eggs, smoked salmon sandwiches, lamingtons, florentines, macarons and tiny lemon-meringue pies, together with scones and jam and cream, high-quality teas and a glass of bubbles for a mere $20 a head.
More innovations are planned following the announcement that P&O will take on two new ships in November this year, that is, ships that are currently cruising as Holland America Line's Ryndam and Statendam and were launched in the early '90s. Both vessels will be treated to a major facelift in the latter part of 2015 (and renamed Pacific Aria and Pacific Eden) and include a new concept called The Pantry. It will replace the traditional buffet and offer a variety of outlets such as a gourmet deli, a fish-and-chip bar and modern dining spaces with the latest high table, communal benches and comfortable banquette design, while Mangan's Salt Grill will include a bar serving up his signature cocktails.
In the meantime, Myrmell said cruisers would be able to experience the hip high-table, communal dining model on Pacific Dawn, which had just emerged from a major dry-dock. Dawn's Waterfront restaurant has been completely overhauled to match the layout of sisters Jewel and Pearl but with the addition of the communal dining nook, a concept currently popular in fashionable restaurants such as Chiswick in Woollahra. The idea is that casual diners can pull up a stool at these tables and mix and mingle with those who also don't want the traditional formal dining experience.
With Myrmell and Stiefel at the helm, and Mangan adding flair to the mix, it seems that dining on the high seas is truly a moveable feast these days.
TRIP NOTES
MORE INFORMATION
CRUISING THERE
P&O Cruises will operate 20 three-night (and sometimes four-night) Food & Wine cruises throughout 2015 and 2016, most departing Sydney on a Friday afternoon. The next cruises depart Sydney on March 12, 2015 (four nights) and March 20, 2015 (three nights). Prices from $450 a person quad share. Price includes dining and entertaining, cooking demonstrations and culinary talks. Cocktail mixing and food & wine pairing classes are extra and are priced from $16 to $29 a person and are booked on a first-come-first-served basis.
The writer travelled as a guest of P&O.
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