Best Specialty restaurant on any ship

[lenquixote66]

Do you have a favorite ? If so,which one and why ?

[Harters]

Our recent cruises have been with Oceania, so my experience is limited. I have a "rule of thumb" about holiday restaurants, whether ship or land based holidays. And that's would I be a regular at this place if it was near home. And I'd have to say that, of Oceania's specialities, only Toscana (it's Italian restaurant) meets that criteria. It's generally as good as the Italian we go to regularly. If it was nearby, I'd probably alternate between Toscana and our normal place.  

[Seamus6]

Our recent (2022) favorites were Hibachi at Izumi and Giovanni's Table on Allure of the Seas.  The Giovanni's meal was great with top notch service.  We wore our Tuxes!  much better than our meal at Jamie's Italian on the Navigator in 2023.  

[Harters]

22 hours ago, Seamus6 said:

much better than our meal at Jamie's Italian

This comes as absolutely no  surprise. Oliver's now closed land based restaurant chain of the same name was never good quality - even for a chain. Very much playing on his "celebrity chef" reputation without the substance behind it. 

[spun69]

One of the best dining experiences we had was on the Celebrity Infinity specialty restaurant SS United States.  This was many years ago but still a great memory.  More recently we did a Top Chef cruise on Celebrity and attended a celebrity chef dinner (Shirley Chung) which was awesome.

[Hlitner]

Our most interesting (in terms of cusine) was in the Anthology Restaurant on the new Explora 1 (Explora Journeys).  This is a new ultra-luxury line owned by the MSC folks.  On that ship they had 4 regular restaurants (no main dining room on their ships), a Lido, and the specialized Anthology.  When the line first started, Anthology featured a Michelin starred chef's food (which changed from time to time).  With wine pairings the meal cost aobut $400 per couple.  On our cruise, Chef Emma Bengtsson, a 2 star Michelin Chef was featured.   Chef Emma normally cooks at Aquavit, which is a NYC venue where getting a reservation is very difficult.  On our cruise, she was aboard, and did cook our dinner (we could watch her work since the kitchen was viewable from our table.  It was a multi-course (I recall about 8 courses) based on her tasting menu used in the NYC Michelin 2* restaurant.  Because of the way the ship screwed up reservations, there were only 8 in the dining room :).  Quite an experience at less than half the cost of dining in the NYC venue.  

 

I should add that Explora Journeys has since done away with that concept (in Anthology) and now just features an upscale Italian dinner in that venue.

 

Hank

[livetravelcruise07]

Playmakers! This restaurant is such a fun atmosphere, we have had it on Independence of the Seas, Mariner of the Seas and Wonder of the Seas. It truly never disappoints! Not only does the food hit the spot, but we love getting a pitcher of beer and playing pool! It's super reasonable and you never leave hungry!