The main dining room
Where would you use 200kg of flour, 200kg of dark chocolate and make 5800 bread sticks each and every day? The answer is on board a Seabourn cruise ship. I was lucky enough to spend two weeks on this amazing boat as part of my South America adventure with my family.
One activity that I jumped out of my skin at the chance to do was a galley tour. Today I’m taking you behind the scenes of the ginormous task of feeding the guests and staff on board a luxury cruise ship. I hope you find it as fascinating as I did.
Chef Andrew Soddy
Executive chef Andrew Soddy heads up the team on board the Seaborne Sojourn. He trained under 3-hatted chef Marco Pierre White – quite an accolade if you ask me.
Appetizer station
We’ll start in the order of eating. This little area is where one very clever man makes 2150 canapes every single day. I thought making 100 risotto balls was hard work!
Salad station
The second area is where they make the salads, cold cuts of meat and smoked fish. I was quite amazed by how clean and tidy everything was. I know that it needs to be like this for them to be able to handle each day but it’s just so well done!
Sojourn galley tour
58 people make up the kitchen staff. There’s a butcher, a baker and a candle stick maker fish monger. I would explain all the different levels of staff but my writing, while taking photos and standing on a rocking boat, is a little tough to decipher. I can tell you that a lot of the low-level staff come from culinary schools in Manilla and Mumbai. They train them up in special training centers and then bring them aboard to work their way up the food chain.
Preparation space
The boat carries around 400 passengers at a time who need to be fed breakfast, lunch and dinner. Add morning tea, afternoon tea, cocktails and 24-hour room service and that’s a lot of organizing and food!
Now add at least 400 staff to that who also need to be fed. I have enough trouble feeding two people let alone 800!
Our tour was of the galley of the main dining room, which seats 385 guests but a lot of the preparation for the other restaurants also happens here.
Preparation galley
Each night the menu has a selection of 6 appetizers, 6 main meals and a few desserts. A sou chef is assigned to each main meal and they get a bench each. The bench and prep areas are so close together so they don’t have to move much. At any time they might be serving 24 portions of lobster and have another 15 cooking and have to keep track of it all sometimes on very rough seas.
Executive pastry chef
When a new order comes in it goes to the new order box then Chef yells it out (they work in silence – very concentrated). The order is made and plated then taken to the delivery box where the waiters collect it. Each waiter can be in and out of the kitchen 150 times in a sitting. There’s no need to go to the gym for these guys.
Oh and then there’s also a halal section and another section for preparing gluten-free food and vegetarian food – all the allergies have a section.
Are you beginning to see what a big deal it is?
Chef Andrew in the bakery
Now onto my favourite section – the bakery. I can’t believe they do so much in this tiny space but it’s here that they make all the bread, pastries and the baked desserts. The most popular baked goodie on the Seabourn is the breadstick. I may have got my hands on the recipe for these delicious, crispy treats so they will be featured soon.
Choc-full of nuts
5800 – that’s how many bread sticks they make every day. There were a few other wonderful facts from the bakery. This is what they use every day:
- 200kg flour
- 200kg sugar
- 200kg dark chocolate
- 200kg white chocolate
- 150kg butter
- 100L cream
- 50L milk
- 100kg nuts
The breadsticks cooling
Just storing all of this on board must be an unbelievable feat.
Check out the size of those mixers. They definitely give my mixmaster a run for its money.
This is where we put the ice-cream
The ice-cream maker is a tad larger than mine too. All the ice-cream is made on board. I’m not sure how much they make a day but each machine produces 20L of ice-cream, 15L of which is cream. They also make sorbets and frozen yoghurts. My favourite has been the raspberry sorbet. Yum!
Planning
That explains just a little of how they actually prepare all the food but can you imagine the ordeal of ordering it and getting it all on board? The head chef does all the ordering for the entire ship and can tell you the exact origin of each cut of meat. He gets beef from America, lamb from New Zealand and venison from Germany. Each item is ordered just for the ship and flown in to meet it at certain ports. It hurts my head just thinking about the coordination of it all. The menus are planned up to 3 months in advance to allow time for produce to be flown in from around the world.
Lamington for Australia Day
They plan so well there was even lamington on the dessert menu on Australia Day. It was fantastic!
Hard at work
I hope you enjoyed my behind-the-scenes tour. I’m hoping to sneak in for a few more peeps behind the curtains before the end of the year so don’t miss them.
What about you? Have you ever been on a behind-the-scenes tour and what’s the most of one thing you’ve ever made?
I am Claire & I love food. Here you'll find my favourite recipes, tips, tricks, restaurants & plates full of frivolity with the odd crafty post. New inspiration posted daily.
That’s amazing and so interesting. Great post Claire. Those kitchen staff must work so hard. I love what they did for Australia Day – very cute! What an incredible holiday you must have had.
They work unbelievably hard! Add to that that they all live together on board. It would be a tough job.
Claire,
This is quite fascinating! Wow, what a job they have each day! Makes me tired just thinking of it! Your photos are beautiful and so fun to see how this all works! I cooked an engagement dinner for my daughter at our house (tiny at the time) for 40 people – I think that’s the most I’ve entertained for a whole meal – seems like a spit in the bucket compared to this!
It made me tired hearing about it Chris. I definitely wouldn’t be cut out for it.
A dinner for 40 is very impressive!
That was amazing!
I love to see behind the scenes of restaurants etc but a cruise ship just takes the cake – so to speak ( should that maybe be breadstick? )
Thank you so much for sharing this fabulous experience Claire
I’m glad you liked it Sue. It was so fascinating to hear all about it. Takes the bread stick for sure haha!
It must get crazy in that kitchen having to feed the masses in double speed time!
I can’t imagine what it’s like a serving time. Madness!
Oh my goodness what an operation it must be and the added challenge of course is not really being able to duck out to a supply shop to get an additional supplies! I’ve been behind the scenes at Emirate’s catering facility in Dubai and that was absolutely fascinating!
Nope nothing they can do if they’re missing an ingredient. They would have to be super creative in case something’s not available.
Everything’s so metallic in there! But dang, that’s a lot of things to make…such a fascinating story. I’ve never been on a cruiseship before, it’s something I really want to do in the near future. 2 weeks on board sounds like so much fun!
It’s definitely something you have to do. Such a great way to see the world!
Fantastic post
I’ve always wanted to learn more about cruises! Last time I went on a cruise trip it was probably 10 years ago, so I don’t really remember much. It’s impressive and also scary how much food they have to prepare and how well organised they have to be ~ And wow…they get their ingredients from around the world that must be interesting too ~
Thanks for sharing with us!
You’re very welcome. It hurts my head just thinking about the scale of everything that they do. It’s crazy!
Wow, what an operation it must be to keep that kitchen going!! I can’t imagine ever having to deal with that quantity of food. Thanks for the fascinating behind the scenes. It’s always interesting to learn about how such large kitchens run.
I can’t either. It does my head in. I don’t think I’ll ever complain about cooking again!
Wow, mind boggling numbers there. It must have been a fascinating trip. I dont know how you managed to visit when there wasn’t a meal under construction
It was so interesting. I think that’s what I meant by I wasn’t expecting it to be so clean. They were obviously just so organised they didn’t need to be working!