Cook up a storm on the tastiest of cruise liners
MASTER patissier Eric Lanlard is on-stage recalling how he once refused to bake a ‘very rude’ cake for Naomi Campbell. ‘Her PA said: “But it’s for Naomi!” I told her that I didn’t care if it was for the Queen,’ says Eric.
As it happens, when HM toured the cruise ship Britannia after the naming ceremony last month, one of the areas she was most impressed with was Eric’s atrium-based Market Café, where the centrepiece is a beautiful, mouth-watering display: dainty, neon-hued raspberry macaroons, Eton Mess served with popping candy and chocolate salted caramel mille-feuilles.
Atul Kochhar and Mary Berry are some of the other foodies Britannia’s owners, P&O, have enlisted.
At a dinner hosted by Eric in the Cookery Club, I watch my canard à l’orange being prepared on a screen while Eric reels off anecdotes about baking one-ton cakes for sheiks and having his bottom pinched by Mary Berry.
Then I sign up for a cookery lesson with him in the Cookery Club, where wall-mounted screens are connected to cameras positioned over Eric’s workspace, allowing us to follow his every move. I whip up a chocolate soufflé, although sadly, I later drop it face-down on the floor of my cabin.
The 3,600-passenger, Union Jackadorned Britannia is the largest ship built for the UK market. My shore excursions on a dash around the Mediterranean include a coach tour through Corsica’s snowy mountains above Ajaccio, where we sample wild boar meat.
In Cartagena in Spain, guide Pedro
teaches us about traditional Spanish cuisine on a wine and tapas tour, then shows us around the city’s Roman theatre.
Britannia basks in its Britishness. In Brodie’s, the pub, there are beers from 56 UK counties and in the library an entire shelf is dedicated to the British monarchy.
A handful of guests bemoan the lack of a wrap-around prom deck (to walk off some of those calories) but the intimate Limelight Club, where you dine to a soundtrack of performances by singers such as Kiki Dee, and the Oasis spa, with its hydrotherapy centre and fruit-scented showers, are hugely popular.
I love the wood-panelled Crow’s Nest, with its sumptuous armchairs and tinkling piano music. Passengers can sample gins from 20 British counties. When sugar cravings strike, I head for the quirky afternoon teas in Epicurean. Dinners there are just as much fun — my palette cleanser is a lipstick-shaped sorbet which the elderly passenger next to me mistakes for actual make-up.
The entertainment is as varied as the cuisine: I cringe at the j okes by mononymous comedian Tucker, whose opener mocks his ‘half-Taliban’ neighbour, but love Dickie Arbiter’s talk about life as the Queen’s press secretary.
The final stop is the Spanish port of Cadiz, where boats spouting water fountains accompany our arrival. That evening, I join my fellow passengers for a glass of something fizzy. The band strikes up. The tune? Rule Britannia, naturally.