Dining Aboard a Luxury Yacht

Every meal is a gastronomic delight.

One of the main attractions of a yacht vacation experience is the bespoke cuisine service. A luxury yacht charter is the only holiday where you receive a personal chef whose sole responsibility is to make sure you and your guests are properly pampered and constantly fed all the delicacies and delights you selected for the charter.

At the planning stage, you provide your charter broker with dining preferences, and you can add any number of specialized items, ingredients, and whole menus to accompany you on your holiday. The yachts chef is always a professional and experienced chef that has amassed years of cooking for hundreds of different palates and tastes and will conjure up every type of flavor, delicacy, and concept you could ever dream of.

Every meal is a gastronomic delight, from beans on toast, or brioche and coffee, to a fusion of Japanese, Zambian, and Basque for a fish dish that will take you into the seas and beyond. Italian, Chinese, French, or Ethiopian, it doesn`t matter what style you desire, from vegan to carnivore, there is a meal for every gastronomic desire.

Dining is 24/7; you are not limited to what and when you eat, food in the form of snacks to 12-course meals are made to your orders. Obviously, if you come up with a new dish while aboard the yacht, you will need to check with your chef regarding ingredients, and give the chef time to acquire all the necessary items to create specific dishes you might think of during your holiday.

Here are some tips on how to make sure your dining experience is perfect.

Planning is 90 percent of success, make sure you provide your charter broker with all your dining requirements and desires. This is passed on to the chef who then prepares the onboard stock of foods and dry ingredients required, and planning the purchase of fresh ingredients based on the itinerary.

Contact the chef prior to departure, perhaps a few days before you are ready to leave for the yacht, call up the chef and discuss last minute requirements. This will give your chef time to prepare. You can also discuss these requirements at your departure port, upon arrival at the yacht.

Never say “we eat everything” and never leave it to the chef to prepare food thought to be to your taste. If you want to be surprised, do it once or twice, otherwise, give your chef directions and instructions, down to how well you like your eggs, steak, and coffee. Be very specific with certain items, such as lactose, gluten, vegan and other dietary considerations.

Make sure any allergies are known to all the staff, for instance, peanuts. If one of your entourage has a morbid allergy, the staff will be instructed to make sure that ingredient is not on board ever. 

Finally, consider that your chef has access to all stock while in port before departure, once you set sail the access to certain items becomes limited, especially when considering fresh produce. Your chef will be able to get fresh produce and products from most ports of call. For luxury items that are not readily available consider the logistics for accessing them, everything is possible.