Final month, the SAVEUR staff sailed into Miami to expertise its pure springtime magnificence and certainly one of its most interesting hospitality property: the cruise ship business. In a first-time collaboration, the model teamed up with the ultra-luxury cruise line Seabourn to host award-winning regional media professionals, restaurant business leaders, and SAVEUR subscribers in celebrating the discharge of its newest print problem. The gathering befell aboard Seabourn Encore within the ship’s 270-degree Remark Bar and culminated in a panel dialogue moderated by SAVEUR editor-in-chief Kat Craddock, that includes native Miami chef Luciana Giangrandi, co-owner of the Michelin-starred restaurant Boia De and neighboring Walrus Rodeo; and Daniel Putzhammer, Seabourn’s senior director of meals, beverage, and housekeeping operations.
The daytime soiree started with a guided tour of the beautiful ship, which was designed by iconic hospitality atelier Tihany Design. The vessel launched in 2016, however the occasion aligned with its long-awaited maiden name to the Magic Metropolis. Friends explored the various eating places on-board, together with the signature Solis, which serves delicacies impressed by Seabourn’s Mediterranean ports of name, and likewise received a peek the spa, on line casino, solar terrace, evening membership, Grand Salon, and the ship’s central lounge, Seabourn Sq.. Everybody was decked out in resort put on, as demonstrated with specific aptitude by Miami vegan cookbook creator Ellen Kanner, SAVEUR contributor Dinkinish O’Connor, and Miami native Chovitta Ariza, founder and CEO of Area of interest Carver Consulting.
After the tour, teams returned to the Remark Bar for sips and bites impressed by SAVEUR’s newest print problem. Wines included a calmly spicy, full-bodied Argentine natural malbec from Bodega Séptima and a fragile brut from Champagne Montaudon, the latter of which was additionally the right base for a chic kir royale.
A beneficiant welcome breakfast unfold, which visitors loved earlier than and after their excursions, supplied parfait fixings, pastries, and egg sandwiches. Throughout cocktail hour and the panel dialogue, servers discreetly proffered trays crammed with artfully composed bites, comparable to seared tuna with white asparagus salad and caviar-topped cauliflower panna cotta. Dessert included macarons, pineapple and fervour fruit salad, chocolate toffees, McVities crumble trifle, and caramelized apricot tarts. In step with the fleet’s on-board eating places, the fare was thoughtfully ready to rejoice a variety of world flavors.
Craddock had simply accomplished a 19-day solo journey on the ship, visiting ports in Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. She opened the dialog together with her thanks and delight to be again in the USA by the use of “sunny and scrumptious” Miami. Certainly, it was a cloudless 85-degree day, typical for springtime within the subtropical south, and the sky, a palette of azure, was a stunning backdrop to the event.
Craddock then set the scene by introducing her interviewees: “Two folks whose work captures the whole lot we attempt to do at SAVEUR, which is to rejoice how meals and journey and hospitality meet to convey a way of place.” That proved true because the dialog ranged broadly, from the nitty-gritty particulars of working a restaurant to the panelists’ most cherished meals reminiscences. The 2 professionals have vastly totally different properties to run—Boia De is a intentionally intimate restaurant, whereas a typical Seabourn ship serves two tons of caviar and 160,000 bottles of Champagne per 12 months. However each Giangrandi and Putzhammer recalled fond reminiscences from the pure world: Giangrandi recalled peeling oranges within the kitchen and Putzhammer mirrored on foraging porcini mushrooms, every with the elders who taught them their first culinary expertise.
This topic led naturally into the lengths each leaders go to to serve their visitors. In Giangrandi’s case, her clients have been recognized to grouse and even put on marketing campaign T-shirts to revive a Boia De dish that has gone off-menu. Putzhammer additionally has a private contact with passengers and sometimes attends the favored shore tour “Purchasing with the Chef,” the place the day’s in-port market gatherings are then used to compose a meal.
The journal’s mission was as clear because the sky to the attendees, which included Dana Baran, founder and president of the PR agency The Dana Company. “Right this moment’s occasion was flavorful in each sense,” she mentioned. “We explored the intersection of meals and journey whereas connecting with outdated mates and new ones who share pleasure one chunk at a time.”
James Beard Award-winning creator Linda Gassenheimer confirmed that sentiment. “I used to be launched to a fantastic mixture of stylish cruising and wonderful meals,” she mentioned. Seabourn president Mark Tamis took the microphone on the finish to thank the members; he referred to as Craddock “a fantastic accomplice,” thanked Putzhammer for his “dedication to a excessive stage of meals and hospitality all through the fleet and all over the world,” and suggested Giangrandi, “the most well liked chef in Miami,” that he lived simply down the block from the restaurant.
Whether or not that may assist him rating certainly one of Boia De’s famously laborious reservations stays to be seen.
