Seabourn Legend's Culinary Sizzle By Janice Wald Henderson
January 28, 2011

I'm into small ships, but Seabourn Legend is tiny. We're talking 208 passengers. That's small by today's standards. The hot trend in the luxury market is bigger ships, carrying 400 to 1,000 passengers. Upscale travelers now want more of everything � more suite space, more dining choices, more to do. Even the Seabourn fleet's flashy newbies (three by June 2011) carry 450 passengers. Can the little Legend, built back in 1989 - before cruise ships delved seriously into cuisine and choice - deliver the culinary goods like its glam new siblings and rivals?

In its own way, the answer is yes. It's equally good, just not equal. A small luxury ship can never provide the variety of dining choices of a bigger ship of the same class. There isn't room for multiple restaurants, or countless provisions to be stored onboard, let alone giant kitchens.

Luckily for the Legend, two things happened. Seabourn hired big-shot chef Charlie Palmer as culinary consultant in 2003, and renovated this ship in 2008. The New York-based chef, a two-time James Beard Award-winner (the food world's equivalent of an Oscar), creates the menus served on all Seabourn vessels. Palmer's food strikes a definitive modern American tone. Of course, there can be minor differences between ships, depending upon the strength of the onboard chef and crew.

The Legend offers three restaurants in two dining venues: The three-meal-a-day, more formal Restaurant; Veranda Café, a buffet-driven indoor-outdoor casual eatery; and Restaurant 2, featuring Charlie Palmer's edgier cuisine, in the Veranda Café nightly. Sky Grill, for poolside dining, is open for lunch daily and a few evenings. And there is always room service, served in the evenings course by course.

Legend guests really adore the signature Seabourn amenity, complimentary malassol caviar and champagne (light, pleasant Nicolas Feuillatte Brut NV), whenever and wherever they want. On my 10-day Caribbean sail, I saw guests nibbling caviar and sipping bubbly from mid-morning to the wee hours everywhere, in lounges, poolside -- even in the hot tub.

Room Service Champagne and Caviar

What I missed in variety � and yes, there was less choice compared to Seabourn's newer ships � was made up for by service. On such a petite vessel, servers get to know their passengers and deliver uber-personalized care.

THE RESTAURANT

Unlike the soaring-ceilinged, big-windowed Restaurant onboard Seabourn's Odyssey and Sojourn (and, soon, the Quest), the Legend's dining room has low ceilings and porthole windows, which line each side of the restaurant. Initially, I felt like I was inside a Laundromat. Especially when we hit some swells, which washed up, all sudsy, on the "washing machine" windows above me.

Once I adjusted to the dining room's boat-or-yacht-like feel, I thought dinner was uniformly very good. The meat, which included Sterling Silver beef, was a strong suit. (Sterling Silver, a provider to other posh ships, hand-cuts their meat from the top 12% of all beef.)

The first night, I swooned over slow-roasted rack of veal, a giant veal chop rushed to the table with pink juices still bubbling on its surface. The accompanying sauce, veal jus splashed with Calvados (apple brandy) was silkier than my Hermes scarf. The sautéed green beans were al dente and the potato gratin, creamy. But really, when eating meat this good, who cared about the trimmings? My husband, visibly drooling, asked the maitre d' if he could have the same dish on his birthday, and the maitre d' happily complied.

Slow-Roasted Rack of Veal

The kitchen rocked grilled veal medallion, too. (This was the Chef's Gala Dinner, where executive chef Thorsten Sengutta created his own menu, not Charlie Palmer's.) Pink and tender, the medallion was paired with pan-seared foie gras, glazed shallot jam and port wine-veal stock reduction. The textural jam, more savory than sweet, added dimension to a scrumptious dish.

Okay, my last meat mention: English cut roast beef (thin slices) with truffled duchesse potatoes (mashed potatoes enriched with egg yolk � and butter and cream, of course). Accompanying baby carrots, and white and green asparagus, tasted bewitchingly fresh-picked.

English-Cut Roast Beef

While I love fish, I loved fish less here. Some entrees were fishy-tasting or bland. Dorade (moist fish from Florida's waters, served the night I boarded in Miami) was the exception. Pan-sauteed and served with braised salsify (root vegetable with oystery taste) and asparagus, the dorade was drizzled with grainy mustard beurre blanc (butter sauce).

Shellfish, however, was always excellent. Crab salad with green apple gelée translated to flaky crab sandwiched between thinly sliced apple rounds that had been dried into chips. A green apple gelatin cube garnish upped the delicate flavors of this starter. Crab cakes, all crab meat and no filler, were also delicious. Same for prawns wrapped in prosciutto, with fresh artichoke, cauliflower and salsify ragout. And lobster Thermador, with fresh lobster flown in from Maine, was divine.

Crab Salad with Green Apple Gelee

Prawns Wrapped in Prosciutto

Besides fish, soup also fell short. Consommé, in particular. Caramelized onion consommé, with scrumptious short rib ravioli, was watery. I've tasted this same soup on the Seabourn Odyssey, so I know how good it can be.

Salads, like braised and raw endives with lavender dressing, or baby romaine dressed with tapenade (kalamata olive spread) croutons, were all about unusual components and presentations, and were so refreshing.

Complimentary wines were fine. Santa Margherita pinot grigio was one pour I ignored as I can find that in supermarkets back home. Like many guests, I preferred trying little-known wines, from countries like Chile and Spain. I found several gems. I fell for Wingspan, a New Zealand sauvignon blanc with tropical fruit aromas, and a startlingly good 2007 Sirius Bordeaux. Experimenting with wines hard to score in the States makes the onboard inclusive wine experience so precious.

Desserts varied in quality. Petits fours, such as dark chocolate-drenched ice cream bonbons and fresh plum mini-tarts, were usually flawless. So was fruit napoleon with English cream. An apple hazelnut cobbler was dry and heavy. (On many luxury cruise ships, American-style desserts often fair poorly in translation by an international kitchen crew.) Chocolate-chip cookies and blueberry muffins were other examples of Americana pastries falling short.

Petits Fours

Speaking of muffins, breakfast in The Restaurant was a refined experience. Servers stood ready, armed with fresh orange juice and coffee. I was hooked on the cappuccinos, their thick foam heavily dusted with fragrant cinnamon (by my request), which kept coming without me having to ask for more. Another server strolled the room with a pastry tray; every Danish was made from scratch in-house. I sampled nearly every one. For work, of course.

Fresh Apple Danish

These Danishes were baked with fresh fruit, not canned, and sugar was nearly an afterthought. This sophisticated baking style is far more European than American. However, purveyors usually change when a ship repositions from Europe to the United States. The butter we got was American, and I bet the butter used in pastries and desserts was American, too. Unless the butter is artisan, American butter won't taste as good as European or New Zealand. So pastries can't possess the same flavor and aroma of pastries onboard Seabourn abroad. That said, the Danish were still terrific.

Swedish pancakes with lingonberries (tart Scandinavian berries) were wondrous. So thin, you could pretend they were calorie-free. (Especially if you were hung over, say, from champagne the night before.) Waffles were thin and flabby, like size Os who don't hit the gym. Omelets were well prepared, but presented garnish-free. What? Not even a sprig of parsley? This is Seabourn. Up that presentation!

Swedish Pancakes with Lingonberries

I never did make it to lunch in The Restaurant. The weather was too gorgeous to dine indoors. Besides, the menu was too heavy for my midday tastes. Of course, I could have ordered a salad or crab claws. Or even a hot dog. I'm sure there were guests who wanted German meatballs or sweet-and-sour pork for lunch, but I wasn't one of them.

VERANDA CAFÉ

Breakfast at the Veranda Café was my favorite. The expansive patio had many tables for two lining the glossy wooden rail. On a small ship, you are lower to the water, and the nearness of the azure sea mesmerized me. The morning buffet was small but adequate. (Again, the tradeoff of size versus service, and the sense of sailing on a yacht instead of a cruise ship.)

While a few egg dishes and potatoes sat in small warmers, many guests ordered breakfast prepared to order. Cinnamon-raisin French toast, or an omelet, perhaps, with aged European goat cheese. Speaking of French toast, I was touched by one interaction between a guest and a server. This guest had sailed on Seabourn Odyssey and remembered a particular French toast of the day, soaked in rum, I believe. The Veranda Café chef was not familiar with that recipe, so he actually telephoned the sister ship to request the recipe. Now that is service.

At lunchtime, guests who had been sunbathing and sipping champagne poolside often wandered down a short flight of stairs to the Veranda Café. The paella was one of many midday highlights. Gargantuan prawns, heads intact, circled the top of a big round bowl. These sweet prawns were from Nigeria, and I could have eaten a dozen. I bet if I asked, I would have gotten 12, but instead, I made do with two and enjoyed the golden saffron rice, black mussels and ripe tomatoes.

The elegantly casual buffet most days displayed light, tasty fare like finely chopped crab salad with diced apples, smoked fish terrine and marinated tomatoes with feta. A special dish was always carved to order. One afternoon, it was salmon coulibiac, a side of salmon wrapped with spinach and seasonings in flaky pastry.

Parma Ham with Aged Balsamic and Ricotta Flan

RESTAURANT 2

As mentioned prior, the Veranda Café is transformed into Restaurant 2 at night. This spot was perfect for dining al fresco. Who wouldn't want to sip champagne and nibble small plates while counting stars?

I dined at Restaurant 2 twice. Once was for the Indian Spice Market menu. I expected the dishes to be toned down in heat and flavor for cruisers. I was happily surprised when the server said the chef would make each dish as fiery or mild as I liked.

Out came turmeric-tinted focaccia, a fun play on traditional Italian flatbread. I dipped every piece into dips of curry oil, and eggplant and onion puree. My four-course meal included mulligatawny soup (made with chicken, lentils and rice, amped-up with green chile, ginger and cumin); and fiery dark-red Indian-spiced beef with saffron rice, fried onions and papadum (lentil flour crisps.).

Another night, the menu was similar to the Restaurant 2 style meals I had on the Odyssey. I consumed seven small courses, each two-or-three composed mini-plates. Crispy foie gras (wrapped in filo and flash-fried) with julienned duck breast and port wine splash began the meal with, well, a sensational splash. A "nightcap" of Kahlua frappe, made with vanilla ice cream, espresso and chocolate syrup, made a grand boozy finale. (Of course, no one was driving home.)

Dessert Sampler, Restaurant 2

SKY GRILL

Sky Grill was the lunchtime hangout for sun worshippers. If soaking in the hot tub, or basking in the Caribbean sun, the aroma of hamburgers, steaks and hotdogs sizzling on the barbecue was divine inhalation. I planned to lunch in the Veranda Café many days, only to follow my nose (and growling stomach) for a yummy burger or hotdog. Or both.

Sky Grill reopened on the upper pool deck as the "Night Sky Grill" a few evenings of my cruise. One night, the moon was full and the sky ablaze with stars. I helped myself to a small antipasto buffet; a server brought by "surf and turf," grilled steak and those primo Nigerian prawns. The steak was overcooked, but I didn't care. We lingered with our new friends for hours as the champagne flowed and the bubbles in our delicate flutes rose nonstop to touch the sky.

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