Foodies Take Note! An Exclusive Audience With Our Celebrity Chefs

8 years ago Delicious Cuisine, Latest News, Announcements & Awards, Recent Adventures: Mekong River

A major part of the Aqua Expeditions luxury cruise experience is the opportunity for guests to enjoy the extraordinary cuisine onboard our cruise ships artfully crafted from unique combinations and recipes using the finest of locally-sourced ingredients. Our celebrity chefs-Chef Pedro Miguel Schiaffino on the Amazon and Chef David Thompson on the Mekong are award-winning masters who have helped shape the trends in Peruvian and Southeast Asian cuisine over the past decade.

Shopping with Our Chefs

On our 2019 Chef-hosted departures with Consulting Chef David Thompson and Pedro Schiaffino, our guests can learn from these two culinary experts directly about the entire life cycle of a menu—from recipe creation to harvesting of ingredients to shopping and food preparation, and finally, visual design and presentation. Guests will join our consulting chefs as they tour local riverside markets to shop for the day’s freshest ingredients from catfish to river prawns as well as local organic produce and spices. Coconut, lemongrass, coriander, and turmeric are just a few of the more recognizable flavors our guests will learn about in the ever-changing, inventive menus from our chefs, always authentic to our destinations.

Kitchen Tours

During the midday break in between morning and afternoon excursions, our kitchens on board are “open for business” for foodies. Our chefs and kitchen staff offer our guests the opportunity to fully immerse themselves in learning, first-hand, how meals unfold from start to finish. Gastronomes will participate in orchestrating a menu to balance a palate, selecting ingredients for freshness, preparing raw ingredients, the cooking process and, of course, tasting and consuming the final culinary masterpiece!

Cooking Classes With the Masters

Chef-hosted departures also allow our guests to meet “up close and personal” our celebrated culinary artists. Guests can participate in Master Cooking Classes led by chefs Schiaffino and Thompson to learn about the locally grown ingredients that are essential to creating their signature dishes – such as Chef Schiaffino’s Solterito Salad with Inca Corn and Wild Andean Cilantro or Causa with Shrimp Escabeche on the Aqua Amazon and Aria Amazon or Chef Thompson’s Crab on Crunch Rice Cake on the Aqua Mekong.

So gather around, meet our Chefs and enjoy an “up close and personal” very unique and intimate culinary experience – just for foodies – on board our Aqua Expeditions cruise ships.