Crystal Serenity: 5 great restaurants for dinner
Wherever Crystal Serenity sails in the world, from Alaska to Zanzibar, whether it is a world cruise, an Asian odyssey or a voyage through the Mediterranean, dinner is a very special event. Every evening, guests face a dilemma. Where should they eat? What should they eat?
As soon as Crystal veterans set foot on board they head for the maître d’ of the speciality restaurants to book. Osteria d’Ovidio creatively and lightly reimagines the flavours of Northern Italy. Nobu Matsuhisa brings superb Japanese cuisine, with subtle Peruvian influences, to Umi Uma. While cosmopolitan Beefbar fuses global street food with comfort eating.
On this uber-luxurious ship, reborn in 2023 after a $150 m refit, the restaurants call for a Michelin guide of the waves. Hosting up to 740 guests, Serenity’s menus transport diners to new flavours, new aromas and new textures. The waiters are guides to a gourmet world. It is a triumph of culinary logistics over seasons, time-zones and the seas.
Waterside Restaurant
For many guests from their first breakfast to their final evening dinner, Waterside Restaurant, with its crisp white tablecloths and warm impeccable service, is the go-to destination. Offering open-dining, informed service is slick, enabling diners to head off for an evening show if they wish.
Every evening, the menu completely changes. Some of the diners are veterans of dozens of Crystal Cruises so chefs ring the changes with invention and invention.
Think wasabi crumble with the seared tuna or an original citrus brown butter with the goat cheese hazelnut tortellini for the exciting contemporary side of the menu. Diners are free to select one of these starters followed by a classic such as grilled swordfish or T-Bone steak. Or there is an ever-changing cheese selection of eight cheeses from the Cheese Sommelier.
Osteria d’Ovidio
Immersed in Northern Italian cuisine, Massimiliano Alajmo reimagined a light renaissance of the rustic classics that brought him a third Michelin star at the age of 28. The youngest chef to ever achieve that milestone.
Now he and his restauranteur brother Raffaele, have brought the lexicon of casarecce, risotto, spaghetti and tortellini to a new menu with a light touch of the flavours of their childhood: basil, extra virgin olive oil, oregano, rosemary and truffle.
As well as classic dishes from across the Italian peninsula such as sliced veal in tuna sauce, there are traditional Venetian dishes and signature dishes of the Alajmo’s family restaurant. Look out for the self-explanatory spaghetti aop con Bloody Mary!
Umi Uma
Nobu Matsuhisa, the renowned Japanese chef, pays homage to his years in Latin America with Peruvian influences on a menu that owes much to his Nobu restaurants.
Even by Crystal Serenity’s standards, Umi Uma is one of the most serene spots on the ship. As four chefs create at the sushi bar there’s a sense of temple reverence.
Umi Uma offers many of the Nobu restaurants’ signature dishes such as yellowtail sashimi with jalapeño, lobster tempura and wagyu steak.
The near legendary black cod. marinated in Saikyo Miso and served with baby peach and young ginger, is ever popular.
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BeefBar
Out of Monte Carlo, the BeefBar name is slightly misleading. Yes, this chic French Riviera eatery is a Mecca for meat connoisseurs with superb steaks, especially when served with truffle-infused sauce.
But BeefBar certainly delivers on the “Beef, Reef and Leaf” credo. Neither pescatarians nor vegans are disappointed.
A subtle blend of global street food and comfort food is surrounded by artwork that blends the stunning natural beauty of the Côte d’Azur with the glamour of its sophisticated visitors.
Stand-out dishes such as jasmine-tea-smoked Waygu bao and Wagyu-topped quesadillas impress with both flawless presentation and intense flavour.
Stardust Supper Club
For one night only, on shorter cruises, the Stardust Supper Club has the feel of a 1960s Hollywood evening. Hosted on a formal evening, the 116 lucky diners who’ve booked on a first-come, first served basis head for the Sunset Club, in tuxedos and glamorous gowns. It’s the hottest ticket on board.
Of course, there’s sparkling wine, caviar, lobster and superb house wines as ever. But this is evening as much about live music from Serenity’s six-piece band and singer, plus dancing, as it is about culinary excellence.
And there’s more …
These five restaurants are part of Serenity’s all-inclusive offering. In addition, guests can book a dinner, with wine pairings, at the intimate Vintage Room, for $300 per head. The Head Sommelier gives guests an education in a selection of fine wines from the ship’s extensive onboard cellar.
Wherever and whenever guests dine, that early evening slot before dinner tends to become “Cocktails”. And for some, a post-dinner visit to the elegant Connoisseur Club for the finest cigars and cognacs becomes part of the evening routine.
Disclosure: Our cruise was sponsored by Crystal Cruises.
Michael Edwards
Michael Edwards is a travel writer from Oxfordshire, UK. Although Michael had his first travel pieces published nearly four decades ago, he is still finding new luxury destinations to visit and write on.
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After reading this I get why there are so many cruises around. It’s a wonderful way to spend your holidays. Though there can’t be too many ships dishing up food to such high standards as this.
I would say that at the very top of the market there are a few brands competing very hard to produce food that if it were on land would be picking up Michelin stars.
Obviously, Crystal is right-up there with the very best and the collaborations with top chefs demonstrates their determination to keep standards astronomically high. Which is great news for the diners on board.
And there I was naively thinking that the meals that I’d had on cruises were good … This post has really made me think about what I want from a cruise.
The first time I cruised I thought it was all about the destinations and enjoying the ports of call. Now, I probably look forward to the food more than anything else.
It’s also worth saying that it’s not just diner which is a star, breakfasts are great too, with some huge buffets.
My choice would be the Japanese restaurant. But what are the Peruvian influences?
From what I understood the use of the ceviche technique for “cooking” and hints of citrus are both quite Peruvian.
I’ve always had a thing for Italian food since spending a long summer month there with my parents when I was a teenager. They insisted that we went totally Italian, “When in Rome ..” was their motto. No Burgerking for us.
Although the food in the Osteria looks much lighter than the hearty portions we devoured, it brings back some great memories.
I don’t know anybody who doesn’t love Italian food when it’s done well. I’m green with envy at you having a whole month in Italy as I’ve never managed more than a week. Though I did have a foodie press trip to Emilia Romagna in November 2025 which packed in a lot of great culinary experiences.
I’ve been to a couple of Nobu restaurants on terra firma and been very impressed.
Well Diana, as far as I know, Umi Uma is the only Nobu restaurant at sea and I think you’d be highly impressed by it.
740 guests suits me just fine. On one cruise we had over 4,000 passengers and the ship was big enough to take them, the problem came when we had to disembark on tenders. We were hanging about for nearly an hour in the theatre waiting to be called for our excursion whilst they got everyone off the ship.
Yes, it’s an ideal size. One of the guests said that it had the feel of a boutique hotel.
The supper club is such a lovely idea and it’s so nice that people take the effort to dress-up and make it a very special evening.
To be honest we were disappointed that on our last cruise there were a few guests who were no making no effort to stick to the dress code and were downright scruffy. It’s nice to know that standards are right up there on Crystal Serenity.
Yes, it was a very nice evening. If I remember rightly there was a choice of 2 starters, 2 mains and only 1 dessert. Most guests were happy with that and they were really there for the music and dancing. How much choice do you need when caviar is one of the starters?
This is a must for us foodies. Five restaurants like this all within walking distance of the cabin. After dinner it would be a show for me, I’ve never been into cognac and as I don’t smoke I wouldn’t want a cigar either.
Five restaurants isn’t quite the whole story. At lunchtime you’ve also got the buffet at Marketplace and Trident Grill too. On sea days Waterside serves lunch and BeefBar also opens for lunch. A lot of guests, including me, spent a lot of time in the Bistro for coffees and teas.
I’ve got friends who’ve been on cruises with a variety of cruise companies and they’re always talking about how brilliant the food has been on the cruises they’ve done. What’s impressive about this post is how much variety of food there is on what is quite a small ship by today’s cruise ship standards.
This was only a short cruise so it was almost a struggle to fit in the full variety of the restaurants for us guests.
Next year Serenity is sailing a world cruise of 135 nights and they will have to have endless variety to keep the diners happy. It makes you realise why they put on so many options.
Wow, everything looks exquisite.
You’re spot on Kristina, everything did look exquisite.
We actually preferred going to the Marketplace for breakfast rather than going a la carte at the Waterside restaurant and I found myself trying to recreate the artistic presentation from the dozens of fruits available on the buffet. Needless to say my efforts weren’t a patch on what the professionals played up.
My husband is such a foodie and a wannabe amateur MasterChef that he’d love a cruise like this with so much variety of food. When he’s home in time he always cooks and I can see all these menus inspiring him for months and months.
Going around all these restaurants is very inspiring. One of the issues when you get home could be the sourcing for all these dishes though cooks are fairly lucky nowadays in the UK that we can get a lot more sources than we used to. You can always take inspiration from Nobu’s Umi Uma. When as a young chef he was asked to set up a Japanese restaurant in Peru he struggled to get a lot of his commonplace ingredients that he’d used back in Japan so he started to get creative with local flavours such as citrus and learning from local techniques such as ceviche.