The Top 10 Cruises for Food & Drink, According to the Experts

Cruise ship culinary experiences just keep getting better and better. At onboard restaurants, chefs are gleefully pushing past the limits, presenting exquisite dishes that would rival anything they could whip up on land. And with companies offering lavish tasting menus, immersive cooking classes, and expertly curated culinary shore excursions, there’s never been a better time for food lovers to book a cruise. Book a berth on these 10 sailings for the best bites and sips at sea — for memories that you’ll savor long after you disembark.

Winner: Silversea

Silversea tops this list for the second consecutive year thanks to its trademark S.A.L.T. (Sea and Land Taste) program, which comes to life through local ingredients on kitchen and bar menus, hands-on culinary classes, and exhilarating shore excursions. La Dame, Silversea’s signature restaurant, embodies the meticulous, multilayered approach to food and drink through haute cuisine. Be sure to sample the fougasse, so freshly baked its olive oil aroma perfumes the entire restaurant.

Explora Journeys

Launched in 2023, Explora Journeys is a new cruise line that has already soared into second place. Its nine dining experiences include its signature restaurant Anthology, where guests can devour a seven-course tasting menu that celebrates Italy’s regional foodways. For a midday or late-night snack, head to the all-day Emporium Marketplace, which stresses à la minute preparations. Or sit back and let the food come to you with in-suite dining that includes specialty dishes from its restaurants.

The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection

Caviar pairings? Private reserve tastings in wine vaults? Truffle hunting in Tuscany? You can have all that and more cruising with The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection. Each yacht offers a distinctive dining experience: On Evrima, you’ll find vibrant Southeast Asian cuisine at Talaat Nam; on Ilma, inventive Japanese dishes like yellowtail sashimi with burnt jalapeño and shishito pepper at Memorī. Be sure to visit the Humidor, a fleetwide lounge, and treat yourself to Macallan Rituals, a white-glove, multisensory whiskey experience.

Crystal

Crystal’s rebirth in 2023 upped the brand’s already inspired dedication to stellar bites. Its two ships each have 24-hour in-suite dining, a very popular gelato bar, and eight restaurants, including Beefbar (where guests rave about the Kobe beef burgers and Angus tacos) and glam Osteria D’Ovidio (where the eggplant confit with smoked tomato sauce is a fan favorite). And thanks to Crystal’s affiliation with chef Nobu Matsuhisa, at Umi Uma guests can experience iconic dishes like miso black cod and yellowtail tartar with caviar.

Cunard

Queen Anne, Cunard’s newest ship, turns heads with global dining options from Aji Wa, where Japanese plates and omakase are on offer, to Aranya, an Indian restaurant where fresh papadum and fruit chutneys pair with dishes like smoked chile pork belly and duck kebabs. Fleetwide, the Golden Lion, a wonderfully atmospheric pub, cooks up hearty British bangers and mash and ultra-crispy beer-battered cod with minty mushy peas. Keep an eye out for chef residencies, where guest chefs come aboard to give live cooking demonstrations.

Seabourn

Dramatic interactive dining abounds at Seabourn’s onboard restaurants. At Solis, the panzanella is prepared tableside, and salt-crusted sea bass is cracked open before diners, revealing a swath of fragrant herbs. At Earth & Ocean, chicken rillettes arrive in a box swirling with smoke. Next-level culinary options include a luncheon with each ship’s head sommelier and, at open-air oasis The Retreat, a multicourse dinner where wines are paired with rose-shaped, gin-cured salmon and braised oxtail–topped beef tenderloin, all served under the stars.

Hurtigruten

Hurtigruten’s lauded Coastal Kitchen concept, available on the 132-year-old company’s Signature voyages, reimagines classic Norwegian dishes. The menus are developed with the line’s culinary ambassadors — Norwegian chefs touting local ingredients and cultural heritage — and draw upon farms, bakeries, and products from across Norway, ensuring every bite is emblematic of the country. On Hurtigruten's Coastal Express route to the Arctic Circle, Kysten restaurant’s modern menus dazzle with dishes like black bread toast with moose bone marrow and wolffish with charred cabbage and smoked kelp.

Oceania Cruises

Only Oceania Cruises can claim the culinary arts as its raison d’être — most ships were custom built to highlight cuisine. In the health-forward Aquamar Kitchen on newest ship Vista and debuting-this-summer Allura, chefs press raw juices and assemble poke bowls while bartenders mix up innovative mocktails. Fleetwide, Polo Grill’s aged prime Angus steaks are surpassed only by its bone-in prime rib, a whopping 32 ounces of melt-in-your-mouth meat. Other onboard food and wine special experiences include a three-course extravaganza paired with rare Moët & Chandon Champagnes; hands-on cooking classes; and, at Italian restaurant Toscana, the opportunity to learn about and taste several distinctive olive oils, courtesy of a rolling olive oil cart.

Regent Seven Seas Cruises

Opulence is the name of the game on Regent Seven Seas Cruises. At showstopping Chartreuse, sailors can indulge in French fare like escargots with herb puree, braised rutabaga, anchovy, and Pommery mustard cream. At the fanciful Pacific Rim, chicken and foie gras gyoza and duck confit spring rolls match the Pan-Asian mood. However, the good eats don’t stop onboard. Deep-dive epicurean excursions abound, including a chef-led spice harvest in Belize, followed by a cooking class that uses those hand-picked spices onboard.

National Geographic-Lindblad Expeditions

Many of the globe-trotting vessels in this fleet take an uncommon gastronomic approach, offering multiple culinary venues and eschewing traditional menus. Instead, chefs create dishes inspired by the region traveled, working with sustainably sourced ingredients. On one of the line’s newer polar vessels, National Geographic Endurance, each sailing includes a multicourse educational dinner hosted by the ship’s chef where each course — like net-caught seared king scallops with black parsnip puree — is meant to spark curiosity and conversation about how we can protect the beautiful planet we love exploring.

Global Tastemakers is a celebration of the best culinary destinations in the U.S. and abroad. We polled over 400 chefs, travel experts, food and travel writers, and wine pros from across the globe; including over 300 Best New Chef alums and our international editorial teams. We then entrusted those nominations to our Global Advisory Board to rank each category’s top winners. The purpose of this curation is to cultivate lists that feel surprising and a true discovery and taste of place. See all the winners at foodandwine.com/globaltastemakers.

Read the original article on Food & Wine