Silversea’s SALT program takes food beyond the plate

From specialty dining to celebrity chef-branded restaurants, from food-focused shore excursions to onboard cooking classes, a focus on gastronomy has become the rule rather than the exception on cruises.

Much of the forward movement of this longtime trend has been incremental — new restaurant concepts, partnerships with chefs, the addition of a culinary lab — but in June, Silversea Cruises launched SALT (Sea and Land Taste), a holistic approach that ties together dining, a bar, lectures, hands-on food preparation and, both onboard and ashore, interpretation of the interplay of food, history and culture. 

The program is currently only available on the line’s newest ship, the Silver Moon, but it will also be on the Silver Dawn when it begins sailing later this year.

“Food is probably the strongest expression of any culture,” said Silversea’s chief commercial officer Barbara Muckermann. “It’s a way to get under the skin of a destination. And, of course, enjoy amazing food and wine.”

Onboard, the SALT Kitchen is the third-largest restaurant on the 596-passenger Silver Moon. The opening pages of its menu, under the header “Terrain,” change as the ship moves through its itinerary. I boarded the ship in Aghios Nikolaos, Crete, and began my meal with chochlioi boubouristi, a Cretan specialty of lightly floured, fried snails with wild rosemary, served with garlic mayonnaise. 

Among the entrees was lamb with stamnagathi, a wild chicory that’s native to Crete’s mountains.

One of the desserts was a Cretan pie filled with mizithra (a goat cheese) and drizzled with local honey.

The waiters don’t only describe the dishes, they embellish them with factoids. Why, for example, is Cretan food more likely to incorporate lamb than beef? The answer, I learned, could be seen from my stateroom balcony: Cows cannot maneuver on the hilly Cretan topography as easily as sheep.

My wife and I finished the night at the SALT Bar, next door to the restaurant, where Carlos the bartender made me a “gateway,” so called because its alcoholic ingredients trace a Mediterranean passage en route to Greece: port from Portugal, Spanish brandy and Solerno, a blood orange liqueur from Italy.

The next morning in Nafplio, Greece, I took a SALT Ashore excursion titled “Greek Spirits: The History & Art of Ouzo Distilling.” Yiannis Karonis, a fifth-generation ouzo producer, brought us to a steam-heated copper distiller, its contents bubbling wildly, and demonstrated how ingredients are added to give his product a unique flavor.

All ouzos will have anise seeds, he said. Fennel seeds, star anise, coriander, ginger and a resin called masta are also commonly added. But he said that he, like most other producers, keep any additional ingredients top secret.

We tasted three of the Karonis distillery’s products: two grades of ouzo and a sweet liqueur, mastika. We were also given a piece of raw masta to chew. (I greatly preferred it in its distilled form.)

From there we went to a restaurant and met Olivia and Nicholas Tsakiris, the father-daughter cookbook authors of “Sea, Salt and Honey” (Harper Design, 2021), to learn about new takes on old Greek recipes. (Another daughter, Chloe, is also a co-author of the book.)

The next day, our SALT Ashore program went to “Vezene – Santorini’s Hottest Table With a View,” where indeed the view atop a volcanic peak competed with an amazing meal of neos Greek cuisine.

Onboard lectures included “The Wild Isle: Why the Food of Crete Is the Best in Greece” and “Greek Spirits and Introduction to the SALT Bar Program.”

But perhaps my favorite part of the SALT program took place in the “lab” — a small room with a dozen or so cooking stations, where I learned to make the Cretan appetizer dakos, a traditional Cretan wedding rice dish called gamopilafo and moussaka, complete with lamb ragout and bechamel sauce. 

Part of that pleasure was due to the instructors, Carolina Gomes and David Bilsland, who peppered their talk with cooking tips and jokes. It kept my spirits up even after I realized my bechamel sauce was not going to thicken to the desired consistency.

Seasoning the salt program

To design SALT, Silversea engaged former Saveur editor in chief Adam Sachs.

“Adam’s primary role is to shape, and continue to reshape, the vision of the program,” said Andrea Tonet, Silversea’s director of product strategy. “We needed someone who has traveled the world and seen it through the lens of food, someone who has contacts around the world. He helped us design the menus and lectures. He’s always challenging us, keeping us on edge to raise the bar.”

The cruise line also tapped food anthropologist Ilaria Edoardi to work on the program.

Food, Edoardi said, can be the entry point to understanding a destination’s history, traditions, geography, geology and agricultural practices.

“A culinary culture is not defined by a country’s borders,” she said. “Traditions travel with people. They bring their foods with them when they migrate, and a local food culture reflects the history of the people who populate it.” 

Silversea CEO Roberto Martinoli said guest reaction is beyond his expectations and that although existing ships cannot be fully retrofitted to incorporate all the SALT components, some of what has been learned can be inserted into existing ship programs and restaurants.

SALT will be on Silversea’s two Evolution-class ships, set for delivery in May 2023 and May 2024.

Once SALT was conceived, the SALT Lab on the Silver Moon took the place of what was to be a teppanyaki restaurant. On the Evolution-class ships, it’ll find a custom-designed home on the top deck.

Martinoli also said that although they were disappointed that the program’s launch was delayed by the pandemic, there was an upside: It gave the SALT team time to reconsider the name it had first come up with for the lab: The Culinary Discovery Center.

Or, CDC for short.