What the food is like on a Viking Cruises ocean ship

Viking Cruises may be a luxury cruise line, but it offers laid-back luxury, at least when it comes to dining. 

The actual number of choices is fairly limited. There's "The Restaurant," essentially the Main Dining Room, and World Cafe, a buffet, which bother offer breakfast, lunch, and dinner daily. Those are supported by a small grill near the pool, Mamsen's, a unique Nordic-inspired spot which offers waffles, pastries, and other snacks, and a small selection of cookies, pastries, and sandwiches on the first floor at the bar in The Living Room.

There's also an Italian specialty restaurants Manfredi's that's open for a dinner and a Chef's Table that serves a fixed menu which changes every three days,

It's all very high quality and elegant, but also pretty chill as dress standards are casual, and you don't need reservations at The Restaurant. 

You won't go hungry, but you also won't find yourself regretting your dining decisions as there's much more fresh fish, chilled seafood, and nightly sushi than on many mass market cruise lines. You can eat well while staying relatively healthy (although the excellent gelato was a nightly temptation).

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Viking Cruises makes elegant dining easy

Transcript:

Hey there, cruisers. I am Dan Kline, Executive Editor of Come Cruise With Me. That is comecruisewith.com. And I'm coming to you from my cabin in Viking Jupiter.

Things are a little bit different in Viking, and I thought I would want to talk a little bit today about what the food is like. So it's not quite as expansive as if you're on a megaship. There aren't as many places to eat.

But basically, there's a main dining room that serves breakfast, lunch, dinner. You do not have to make an appointment. You don't need a time.

You can just show up. It might take a minute or two.

There is a buffet that does breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Not quite as expansive, but absolutely top-notch. I actually think some of the best food on the ship. 

Dinner time, not only is there the buffet, which has many of the things the main dining room does, there's also the main dining room, which changes every night.

There's an Italian specialty restaurant also included. You just have to make a reservation. And there's a chef's table.

The chef's table is a different four-course meal every night. You really want to look at the menu before you go, because it's very specific. There's no substitutions other than for allergies.

But everything is world-class. I would say the worst thing on the buffet is as good as any specialty restaurant I've ever been in. And there are things like king crab, shrimp cocktail, sushi every night for dinner.

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Viking Cruises feeds you well

There's also Mamsen's, which is a sort of Norwegian specialty snack place. And there's sandwiches and waffles and pastries. And it's a little bit weird.

There's also tea every day at 4 o'clock, which is a drawn-out British affair. Have done it a couple of times. Absolutely lovely.

And there's cookies and pastry on the first floor all day long. So it's not as much as you would eat on another wall. You'll eat plenty.

It's not as many choices as the other cruise lines have. But it is all absolutely world-class. We got to tour the galley today.

And honestly, I would have eaten off the floor. It was how unbelievably clean it was. And the chef tastes every meal himself.

So literally goes through, tastes every single thing they have. They make every day. Chef said to me that he has not been hungry in many, many months.

And he does not remember the feeling of being hungry because he has to taste so much food every day. But if you want to come on Viking, food is one of the calling cards. They pick up local ingredients in every market.

And they'll do one dish. So we had Aberdeen beef the other day. They usually pick up mussels in one of the stops we were in.

But they're actually out of them. That is, of course, the perils of going local. I am Dan Kline.

Come cruise with me soon.

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