Loss of Michel Roux effect?

[sexyaznboy]

It seems some people have definitely noticed a decline in the quality of the food since X broke off its affiliation with Michel Roux, can recent cruisers who have done X before and more recently comment?

[dmk]

I was on a Century cruise 3 weeks ago and the food was excellent. I don't think Michel Roux, in the last few years, has affected Celebrity dining at all. He had become just a name.

I am sure others will disagree with me. It is all a matter of perception. It depends on the Kitchen Chefs and it also depends on your menu selections.

For me, the food is still excellent. The only comment I have is that after so many cruises the food choices become boring. In that respect, I am looking forward to new offerings:)

[kitty9]

I have to agree with dmk. I feel a lot has to do with who's in the kitchen. We were greatly disappointed in the food on Constellation, but on Millennium and Summit, we found the food to be much better, and they were the same basic menu items. While I cannot wait to see what they're going to do when the finally get rid of the Roux menus, especially the rather boring desserts, I feel for the most part that the food reflects the chef and assistants.

[jezzdogg]

Found the food was not as good on Century as on previous Celebrity cruises but think it was a reflection on the onboard chef rather than M. Roux's menu. We were told that his menu's will be continue into the fall when Celebrity annouces it new head star "chef." The have 4 or 5 people they are talking to..count not get names out of my "source" This might not have been a Celebrity decision, but one by M. Roux's as he felt he could not expand into other phases when he sent weeks every year on the ships

[CaptainG]

Celebrity is still using the same 14 day menu.

 

The only difference I can see is that his cookbooks are no longer sold in the gift shop .

[greeneg]

Certainly was not true on our recent Mercury cruise (1/29-2/9/07). Food quality and preparation was excellent, presentation and service, as always, were outstanding.

 

I have felt that Celebrity's Cuisine has been less innovative in recent years, which may well reflect another aspect of trying to broaden their appeal to more of a mass market audience. But certainly no decline in quality that I could see on our last trip.

 

I would like, I will admit, to see Celebrity move away from the "French" service a bit and perhaps be a bit more creative in their menu planning.

[greeneg]

Sorry about duplicate post.

[uktog]

Michel Roux is also in his mid 70s as I understand it and prefers to travel less these days. I very much doubt the impact of his departure would affect food quality do quickly - after all it will take a few years before Chefs not trained byhim or to equivalent standards are impacting on catering. Obviously if the policy as to where food is sourced from has also changed, well that may bring about some differences. Sometimes though it can be the same source but the food is not quite the same - how often have we bough meat or fish from our usual supplier and been disappointed only for the quality to go back to what we expected next time

[c-legs]

:) Good morning,

Very good point by the previous poster.

As well, unless I'm wrong, the recent announcement pertained to Roux & Celebrity simply not reneweing their ''partnership''....ONCE THE CURRENT ONE EXPIRES...and that, imo, is not a done deal yet...is'nt the current contract running out at the end of March ??

So, the impact of Roux's parting of the ways with -- X --surely won't be felt for a while yet.

Meanwhile....Bon appetit !!!

And happy sailings

Cheers

;)

[Nonna and Papa]

:) I imagine that when Michael Roux concludes his contract with Celebrity, another Chef with the same level of name recognition will be hired to replace him. I doubt very much that Chef Roux does any of the day to day food preparation and/or cooking on any of the Celebrity ships. Chef Roux most likely serves as the person who has been hired to oversee the culinary operations for the cruise line, including writing the menus, and from time to time to perform culinary demonstrations, more as entertainment, for the passengers.

 

In the hierarchy of the commercial kitchen, each ship has it's own Executive Chef, Chef de Cuisine, various Sous Chefs, Pastry Chefs, Line Cooks, Prep Cooks, Salad Preps, and various other food handlers. These are the staff who prepare the meals for each meal or event.

 

I do not mean to or wish to lessen any impact or contributions Chef Roux has had with Celebrity. Yet I doubt very seriously, that Celebrity or any other hospitality business which "caters" to what is deemed a very important feature of it's industry, will be allowed to suffer in it's overall standards. Differences always come with change, some more apparent than others, but I really don't expect too many gastronomes to be afflicted with poor food quality. Rest assured...Celebrity has too much money invested in public relations regarding it's food service to allow that to happen!

 

Bon Appetit!

 

Mary

[dkjretired]

I would be more concerned with the reports if they are true that Celebrity has cut down on the per diem costs for food. I don't remember the figures but it was a significent cut which would definitely affect the quality.

[Germancruiser]

Hi

I think as long as X uses fresh products, watch the quality of meat, fish ... carefully , stay away from to much premixed things, we will not feel a difference- as previous posters mentioned it depens a lot on what chef or assistans are in charge. I am sure X will not loose their good " name" for food quality. So I am not worried!

Happy Cruising

Michael

[Germancruiser]

double post sorry!

[sexyaznboy]

Thanks guys for your responses! My only other cruise was on Carnival 3 years ago and I was pretty happy with the food! So if Celebrity is renowned for its food, then I'll be in pig heaven :D

[Rev22:17]

Mary,

 

:) I imagine that when Michael Roux concludes his contract with Celebrity, another Chef with the same level of name recognition will be hired to replace him.

 

The company's press release announcing the non-renewal of the contract stated that (1) he will remain a consultant and (2) the line will not hire another celebrity chef.

 

The company's circumstances have changed considerably since the company entered into its partnership with Michel Roux. When the partnership began, Celebrity was a relatively new cruise line with a few ships that were quite small by today's standards. At that time, alternative dining was limited to a simple poolside buffet and perhaps a grill. The line was not in a position to hire, and did not need, a full time executive chef. Today, the line has much larger vessels that have several dining venues -- elaborate buffet areas with multiple stations serving diverse cuisine, very fancy alternative restaurants, and much larger main dining rooms -- that require a full time executive chef aboard each vessel to manage inventories of many more ingredients, to oversee even more elaborate preparation of food, and to coordinate training of larger staffs that do all of this work. Additionally, much of the training of staff now occurs aboard each ship rather than in Michel Roux's restaurants ashore. Thus, the time for an orderly transition is here.

 

I doubt very much that Chef Roux does any of the day to day food preparation and/or cooking on any of the Celebrity ships. Chef Roux most likely serves as the person who has been hired to oversee the culinary operations for the cruise line, including writing the menus, and from time to time to perform culinary demonstrations, more as entertainment, for the passengers.

 

In the hierarchy of the commercial kitchen, each ship has it's own Executive Chef, Chef de Cuisine, various Sous Chefs, Pastry Chefs, Line Cooks, Prep Cooks, Salad Preps, and various other food handlers. These are the staff who prepare the meals for each meal or event.

 

Exactly!

 

I do not mean to or wish to lessen any impact or contributions Chef Roux has had with Celebrity. Yet I doubt very seriously, that Celebrity or any other hospitality business which "caters" to what is deemed a very important feature of it's industry, will be allowed to suffer in it's overall standards. Differences always come with change, some more apparent than others, but I really don't expect too many gastronomes to be afflicted with poor food quality. Rest assured...Celebrity has too much money invested in public relations regarding it's food service to allow that to happen!

 

Yes, and change is not always for the worse, either. I have one major criticism of Celebrity's recent menus. There's a certain sameness to the style of cuisine. On a seven night cruise, you can pretty much expect that the dinner menus will be French, French, French, French, French, French, and French. While I have no serious objection to French cuisine, I would welcome more variety. Indeed, the variety of Princess's dinner menus are the one thing that I really do miss since shifting to Celebrity nealy four years ago.

 

Norm.

[Drew B]

Also, please note that many people were complaining of a decline in food quality well before X announced they were dissolving their partnership with Roux. If there is a continuation of a downturn, that doesn't mean that it is caused by Roux parting ways with X.

 

Sxyaznboy, I wouldn't necessarily expect the food to be much better than Carnival's. In my experience, Carnival has excellent food. So does X. I'd expect X to match Carnival overall and certainly some dishes on X will be better, but overall, they're pretty comparable.

[negc]

Forgive me if I am skeptical of reports noting a decline in the food quality on Celebrity ships since the announcement that the line was discontinuing its relationship with Michel Roux. The change took place much too recently to have had such a deleterious effect and opinions about food are almost totally subjective. There were similar reports about declining food quality from the day that RCI took over Celebrity and I suspect that, had Monsieur Roux remained at Celebrity, those who thought that the food quality had declined would probably be posting that his age was showing, his skills deteriorating, or his style hadn't kept up with current trends in food preparation and presentation.:rolleyes: Some people are uncomfortable with anything that smacks of change and look for a simple explanation for anything that they perceive is a lessening of quality. The more obvious explanations that food preparation depends very much on the chefs actually cooking the meals on the ships, and can vary from ship to ship or cruise to cruise, don't satisfy their need to blame some other factor for what they perceive as a deterioration.

[BrendaJ]

On the Galaxy a few weeks ago, the CD John Howell mentioned that Celebrity was kicking around various ideas, one of them being that, instead of a different menu every night, there would be just one, expanded menu, so that people would get a chance to try everything, rather than having to choose between two tempting items on one evening's menu and not having an opportunity to try the second choice.

 

Has anyone else heard anything about that?

[Rev22:17]

BrendaJ,

 

On the Galaxy a few weeks ago, the CD John Howell mentioned that Celebrity was kicking around various ideas, one of them being that, instead of a different menu every night, there would be just one, expanded menu, so that people would get a chance to try everything, rather than having to choose between two tempting items on one evening's menu and not having an opportunity to try the second choice.

 

Has anyone else heard anything about that?

 

No, but I'll be very surprised if it happens. Many of the items on the featured menus require fairly extensive preparation, and the galleys of cruise ships need to be quite compact for the number of meals that they must prepare. The facilities simply are not adequate to prepare that many different dishes.

 

Norm.

[beachfanatic]

Just off the Constellation and thought the food was excellent...not a bad meal. Did have some repeat items, which thought that was odd but very,,.very good. Did miss the Seafood in puff pastry dish but no complaints.

[suntan]

I recently returned from a 10-night S Caribbean cruise on the Galaxy and I can report that the quality of the food was not as good as it was 3-years ago when we first sailed with Celebrity. Also, we found that the servers in the Oasis Cafe were scimpy when they were serving you the hot food. Now I'm not one who piles their plate up with food but I should be able to get a decent amount of food without standing there like "Oliver" and asking for more.

 

I also found the food in the dining room to be lacking innovation. They served the same food every night but in a different variation.

 

I hope Celebrity finds another chef who can bring some inspiration back into the kitchen.

[chessbriar]

I just came off the Galaxy and the food was as good as ever. There were some minor changes with the dishes and I loved it.

[AFuncruiser]

I find the food on Carnival, Celebrity, NCL, Royal Crib, Princess, Holland America all the same..If you have a good waiter it comes out hot. The food does get better on Regent's & Crystal ships, like better cuts of meat. I find Carnival's Celebration from Jacksonville (the rent a wreck of cruises) to have food no better no worse than the above lines.

 

Dennis

 

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[jaxon41]

Just off the Century -- 4th X cruise -- best food, yet. Very pleased as were the other 18 in our group. IMO, the prize for lousy food goes to NCL.

[Blanco-Grande]

When I left the Century 3/15 it was the last night of the Roux menu in Muranos