For some years now, there has been a clear trend on cruise ships: The focus is increasingly on good food. And not only in direct life on board, but also and above all in communication. Different companies decorate themselves thereby with sonorous names of well-known cooks, partly they place whole restaurants under their direction – or, like on the fifteen ships of the Costa Crociere – a special Gala menu.
In general, the culinary experience on all of the company’s ships is strongly influenced by the Group’s Italian heritage. The menus in the restaurants on board revolve around individual regions on a daily basis. The spectrum ranges from Venice to Puglia. The last evening of most trips is dedicated to a gala menu created by Bruno Barbieri. He has already earned a total of seven Michelin stars in his career, and today he is known to a wide audience in Italy primarily as a judge on the local edition of Masterchef Italy.
I was particularly looking forward to this menu in the run-up to the trip on the Costa Favolosa. Already the second time I recently set sail together with my son on a cruise ship in northern direction. The voyage on the Costa Favolosa took us from Warnemünde via Copenhagen to the Geiranger Fjord. Meanwhile, I was not only allowed to be a guest, but also to take a look or two behind the scenes. More stories will tell about that.
The menu sequence in the restaurants and also in the Barbieri menu is typically Italian: anitpasti, primi and secondi, dessert. Usually there are two or three dishes to choose from per course. This was also the case on this evening. I decide first for the millefeuille of pork. An easy start and perhaps a bit inflated in the naming. But – and this is where Barbieri’s classic compositional craft is evident – very finely balanced and in the combination of the thinly carved pork loin with endive, walnut and pear, the dish comes across as very round.
Because in essence, that’s what it’s all about: coming up with ideas for dishes that are not only typical of the Costa ships’ orientation, but can also be produced in reproducible quality for a large number of guests. This has already been achieved here.
Two pasta courses follow. In general, it can be noted that special attention is given to pasta dishes. Over the eight days on board, we tasted a variety of different pastas, the classic pasta, by the way, all coming from the Barilla Gold range. The processes in the kitchens are also well worked out for the large amount of guests, so that there is always perfectly al dente cooked and hot pasta on the plate. The accompanying sauces were good, some even very good. Barbieri serves garganelli with swordfish on one side and tortellini with Parmesan cream, bay leaf and nutmeg on the other. These are not complex dishes, but honest and simple Italian cuisine well implemented and only discreetly modernized.
The main course of the gala menu is two lamb chops wrapped in a bread crust and thyme extract. Particularly striking here the unusual in this form intense lamb aroma. This is not necessarily a flaw, but simply unusual, at the same time well integrated and present through the Mediterranean herbs. The saffron potatoes are worked into paper-thin strips and deep-fried until crisp.
A small cheese course is followed by a Waldfrucht-Bavarois, or Bavarian cream, coated with grape must, for dessert. This is fine, sweet, and thankfully not as powerful as expected. Across from him, the young man is surely delighted with a lukewarm chocolate tartlet with vanilla sauce and a hint of lavender. However, the search for a liquid core remains unsuccessful.
Bruno Barbieri sets some clear guidelines and priorities with the concept of his menu: It should be authentically Italian, suitable both for guests from his home country, but especially for the many international travelers. And, of course, this is not given such prominence in communication: It must be possible for the kitchen to prepare and send so many dishes at the same time, more or less simultaneously – and in stable and reproducible quality. All this succeeds very well. It was a nice culinary ending to our trip. My real highlight, however, came on a different evening, at a different restaurant. More about that later…
Our trip was supported by Costa Crociere S.p.A.. This has no influence on the type and scope of reporting.
