The Menu

Vegan homemade cheese platter with pickled pear and blueberry and lime coulis braised short ribs with saffron risotto, roasted pumpkin with ginger and demi-glace spaghetti al frutti di mare compressed pineapple carpaccio with homemade coconut ice cream and cilantro syrup

Frisky Lady’s owner also is into sharing new experiences with the crew. In New York, he took them to see “Cats” on Broadway. For days, the crew couldn’t stop talking about it.

Those respites are hard-earned, since life on a charter yacht allows for few breaks.

“To a professional chef, any downtime on charter is an opportunity to prepare so the next meal can be even more fantastic than the last,” Messina says.

Excellence in the galley, Messina notes, is all about time and temperature.

“You can’t study it,” he says. “It just comes to you over years of practice. To make any dish really well, you’ll probably make it a hundred times, but once you have it, it’s there. Beyond that, it’s all about cooking with fresh ingredients. I never use spices. Always fresh herbs. They deliver much better flavor. Also, I don’t like to reheat things, even for the crew. Food should be fresh. Sure, it’s more work, but hard work never bothered me. You get what you put into it. That’s life.”

For charter information: IYC, iyc.com, or any charter broker