Windstar Food

[HaveDogWillTravel]

On 3/13/2024 at 2:01 PM, tnm6217 said:

Shame on me for not remembering the chef’s name, but I believe our sailing was his first. It certainly bodes well for Star Legend to have two chefs in a row who knocked it out of the park! I have five more Star Legend sailings booked so I’ll have plenty of opportunities for further culinary study 😉

I take pictures.  It’s the only way I can keep it straight. 

[RBCal]

Amphora is good usually. I've found the vegetarian mains consistently good. The green beans and carrots are often undercooked. Asparagus is great.  Butter is a bit over the top in some sauces and sugar is also in the desserts.

 

[Strenz]

2 hours ago, RBCal said:

Amphora is good usually. I've found the vegetarian mains consistently good. The green beans and carrots are often undercooked. Asparagus is great.  Butter is a bit over the top in some sauces and sugar is also in the desserts.

 

We also like Amphora. We like the on the smaller side portions, we like " undercooked vegetables" vegetables  should have a crunch in the mouth.  Not big dessert eaters but would rather have real sugar than fake sugar which we would never eat. If you do not want sugar eat a lovely piece of fruit. My husband loves the soups, I love the lamb, which is from New Zealand.  I applaud WS the menus have something delicious for everyone. The Stella Bistro is real " French ", which we adore. They make a real Frisée Salad, real Soup d' Oignon, we used to live in Europe, yummy memories. Of course Candles lamb again! Great memories of our past with WS, have to wait until 2025 to go again. Happy Sailing.

[gsutiger2]

Food is definitely subjective.

With that said, we are vegans. The food was a negative experience for us. It was so bad that I had to contact corporate to describe what we were served and lack of protein. We never expect to have the same options as meat eaters. However,  you could tell the vegan/plant based options were a last minute after thought and probably push back from the kitchen to corporate regarding the new plant based offerings. 

 

What Windstar advertised for plant based /vegans options was never offered. They claim they have rolled out a full menu and asked for us to give them another try.

[buhbyenow]

Recently spent 14 nights on Wind Surf, our first time on that ship. I’ve cruised with 8 different cruise lines, although only 149 nights on Wind Star, having previously sailed on Breeze, Spirit and Legend.
 

It occurred to me on this Caribbean sailing that availability of local produce and proteins (especially fish/seafood) wasn’t great in the ports of call and was reflected in the menus.  Without a doubt the most memorable food was on the Legend last year ( 47 nights,Portugal, Spain, France primarily) where there were fresh items fairly consistently and locally inspired dishes and menus. Quadro 44 was our favorite dinner spot, with the best lamb chops I’ve ever eaten outside of my own kitchen.   Repetitions are to be expected (I think the menus in Amphora are on a 14 day rotation) but with so many items on offer I have never been bored.  Someone else is procuring, preparing, serving and cleaning up and that someone isn’t ME, so maybe I’m less critical and more appreciative than some 😉. 

 

I personally do not miss the lobster at the Deck BBQ or the Beach BBQ. Frozen “rock lobster” tails doused in butter isn’t anything special. But that suckling pig and the paella are perennial favorites of ours. 
 

Desserts tend to be better at lunch, and the fruit tarts at Yacht Club are positively addictive, as are the fresh scones every afternoon. 

 

Not certain why, but the brewed coffee at Verandah was better on Spirit than on the other ships we’ve been on. I’m such a coffee snob that I brought my own French Press and ground coffee with me on Legend. I wouldn’t bother on a two week cruise, but 47 days…I had to have it 😆 Macchiato on all ships 👍👍

 

 The biggest disappointments IMO are the plant based offerings, which, with the notable exception of the black pepper tofu and vegetables in Candles, are uniformly under/unseasoned and uninteresting.  I say this as someone who prepares and eats a 50% plant based diet at home. It’s not impossible to make appealing and tasty plant based dishes, but it seems that on WS they are doing double duty as no salt/fat/sugar for those who have dietary restrictions. Herbs/spices and extracts go a long way towards adding flavors but apparently WS recipes are lacking these well known techniques. Siracha or Sambal should be available in all venues but sadly are not. Midway thru our cruise I bought sambal at a local supermarket and brought it with me to Verandah and Candles.  
 

Finally, I would put Windstar’s staff up against any of the ultra-luxury, super expensive cruise lines and feel comfortable that they’d score highly.  Windstar corporate management? Well, let’s just say the product excels in spite of them. 

[AmateurGO]

For quick background, we have done 7 WS cruises (all but the most recent on Wind* ships) and several non-WS cruises.  In late April - Early May 2023 we did  2 week Greek islands cruise on Seabourn.  (I liked their itinerary better than the WS cruises) and we were not impressed by the food.  It was not really bad, just lacking in significant flavor and non-memorable.  In September (2023) we did a WS cruise around Iceland (well, it was supposed to be "around" Iceland, but the cruise itinerary underwent multiple major modifications).  The first evening (in Amphora) I had an appetizer that was more flavorful and interesting than anything I had in two weeks on Seabourn. The rest of the cruise was just as good.

In 2022 we did a cruise in Celebrity's Retreat section and I felt the Luminae and Amphora were very close in selection and quality.

[Host Jazzbeau]

We are going on our first Windstar cruise in January 2025, and are really looking forward to the food.  We recently completed our first Silversea cruise, and were very disappointed in the food – as @AmateurGO said about Seabourn, it wasn't really bad but it wasn't flavorful or memorable.  We have been very happy with the food on Oceania (latest 2022), Scenic river (latest 2023), and Azamara (latest 2024) – those are our standards for cruise ship food.  I hope and expect that Windstar will equal or exceed them [and of course I will report back]

[AmateurGO]

Funny you should mention Oceania, Jazzbeau....  We have a cruise on their Sirenia in about 2 weeks, based largely on some friend's experience back in January.  

[Host Jazzbeau]

23 minutes ago, AmateurGO said:

Funny you should mention Oceania, Jazzbeau....  We have a cruise on their Sirenia in about 2 weeks, based largely on some friend's experience back in January.  

They claim to have the best food at sea, and in my experience the claim is true.  But of course in this post-Covid economic climate, nobody's reviews from last year are still reliable now...

 

BTW, that's the hardest ship name to spell correctly.  It's Sirena.  [I always want to say Serena...]

[AmateurGO]

Would you believe I even looked up how to properly spell the name of the ship on my cruise confirmation paperwork, and then still typed it in wrong!?  🙂

[gsutiger2]

Azamara for vegans is absolutely wonderful and highly recommended.  Generally the same offerings as the meat eaters, with a slight modification. 

[ynottravel?]

I'm guessing it depends who's cooking  when you are on the ship.  Our first Windstar cruise was on the Star Legend in December 2021 and the food was very good to excellent.  Next was Star Pride in December 2022 and the food was good to very good, but we had few, if any, dishes that we thought were excellent.  We sailed again on Star Pride this past December and to our surprise and delight the food was much improved!  Back to very good to excellent!  

 

We are also going to give Oceania a try this summer.  They had an itinerary that I loved!