Being the fleet executive chef at Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines means Simon Early is responsible for driving and implementing the vision when it comes to everything food related on board their fleet of three ships – Bolette, Borealis and Balmoral, from the buffet restaurants, five course a la carte dining to the Asian fusion and Goan speciality restaurants.
Having started off his culinary career as a kitchen porter aged 14 and being inspired by his head chef at the time, Simon continued to work at various restaurants and hotels across the UK and Spain before joining Fred. Olsen eight years ago.
We sat down with the chef to find out what it takes to feed and please such a large number of diners across their ships’ restaurants, including creating a unique menu for a 93-day cruise.
Can you tell us a little bit about yourself, including where you are today, professionally, and what got you here?
I’ve been working for Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines for around eight years now, having previously worked with Regent Seven Seas and Hurtigruten. Prior to my time at sea, my culinary career started as a kitchen porter, aged just 14, before working in various restaurants and hotels across the UK and in Spain.
Getting to where I am now has taken a lot of determination. Being a chef has its challenges – it is a job that often entails unsociable and long hours and can be a stressful environment to work in. However, nothing can bring as much joy as when you see and hear someone enjoying something you have created. It’s for this reason that I find being a chef an incredibly rewarding profession.
What or who inspired you to become a chef?
Whilst working as a kitchen porter aged 14, I was inspired by seeing the commitment and passion that came from the head chef who worked there. The dedication and care that he gave to every ingredient and every day he spent in the kitchen was truly inspirational.
Today, I’m inspired every single day by the team I work with in our galleys aboard our ships. One of our biggest strengths is certainly our incredible crew. At Fred. Olsen, we have an expression – ‘it’s all about the people’, and that really is so true when you look at the team we have and the passion and energy they put into creating dishes for our guests.
How did the pandemic affect your work?
As a cruise line, we were really impacted by the pandemic, but rather than sitting still we used our pause in operations to really evolve our brand – and that included our culinary product too. We have developed new skills within our galley teams and evolved our new on-board restaurant concepts right across the fleet, introducing new Al Fresco, Asian, Goan and contemporary western flavours. All in all, this involved curating, learning and refining around 4,000 new recipes in our galleys – all whilst launching three ships as we resumed sailing again.
What’s your signature dish?
This is a question I am asked a lot and I always find it difficult to answer. I don’t have a signature dish as such, but my passion is in creating new, fresh and exciting dishes for our guests. When you’re catering for a cruise, those guests aren’t just visiting you for one night as they would do in a restaurant ashore. Instead, our guests will be dining with us anywhere from five to 100 plus nights.
That means we need to be really creative with our menus to ensure there is always a great choice on offer. Borealis, for example, has recently set sail on her ‘Around the World in 80 Days’ cruise, for which we created a bespoke menu for each day of the cruise. This means guests will have a choice of new dishes every single day – they won’t need to eat the same thing twice.
In addition, we offer such a diverse variety of cuisine on board, from Asian fusion to Goan, British, and European cuisine – plus specialty dishes from the destinations we will be visiting on each cruise – that it would be hard for me to pick just one signature dish.
What are the most important considerations when crafting your menu?
We want each dish to taste and look amazing. The added challenge is that, as we can be catering to over 1,000 guests at any one time, we need to ensure that we can recreate each dish to that same consistent high standard each time whilst making sure that each menu caters for all tastes and dietary requirements of our guests.
Do your personal preferences influence the menu at all?
Of course, as a chef, my first priority is to satisfy our guests with a variety of options for all tastes. However, one of the best things about being a chef, and where we can be really creative, is by adding our own twists to menus and dishes, which will generally be based on our own tastes and experiences. It’s what makes us all different as chefs!
How would you describe your cooking style?
For me, that’s a difficult one, as with such a diverse food offering on our ships I need to be able to change styles for each venue. At home, if I were cooking for friends and family, I would typically lean more towards modern British dishes.
Do you have a favourite time of year or set of ingredients that you look forward to working with?
I love working with seasonal produce, whatever the time of year. I get a real sense of enjoyment from working with produce from each season, and am always looking forward to the next season and what will be available then. The change in produce keeps us creative!
What is your favourite ingredient to create with?
There are such a large variety of ingredients that come throughout the year that each have their own benefits and ways in which they’re incredibly exciting to work with, as well as always finding new ingredients. It’s impossible to pick my favourite – there are too many!
What would you be doing if you weren’t a chef?
There is genuinely nothing else I would rather be doing. I’ll always be in the hotel or food and beverage industry. It’s my passion and a sector that I find extremely rewarding and satisfying.
What is your favourite dish to cook at home?
Definitely wholesome, warming, British comfort food. I think this goes back to when my mother made lots of delicious, well-cooked comfort food.
When are you happiest?
When I’m in the galley with my colleagues, creating and developing recipes and mentoring my team, seeing their progression and the satisfaction and enjoyment that our food brings.
What is your favourite piece of kitchen equipment?
Thermomix is without doubt my favourite piece of kitchen equipment. It’s essentially a blender that also cooks and stirs your food at adjustable temperatures and speeds. It also comes with a built-in scale, a steamer attachment and touchscreen that allows you to easily programme times, temperatures and speeds.
When you’re not in the kitchen where can you be found?
Unsurprisingly, I can usually be found in a restaurant either checking the quality of our own dishes or enjoying a meal at another restaurant.
What’s your favourite takeaway or comfort food?
Pizza and Thai food are definite favourites – both are impossible to turn down!
Where is your favourite place to dine?
My favourite place to dine has to be in fine dining restaurants that are known for producing innovative dishes. Nothing excites me more than eating at a restaurant where I’m made to think ‘how did they manage that?’ and ‘what techniques must they have used to achieve this?’
What do you think is the most over-hyped food trend?
Fad diets. Food is a source of fuel for our bodies and provides sensory enjoyment. Unfortunately fad diets often ignore both of these key points about what food actually means, and the enjoyment it should bring.
What differences do you find working with local produce as opposed to non-local produce in terms of what you can create and flavour?
It makes a real difference when you can build a relationship with suppliers. You can get to understand how they operate and how you can work together. Sustainably is also a key benefit that comes by supporting local suppliers, and this is something that means a lot to us at Fred. Olsen, not just here in the UK but overseas too.
You’ll often see myself or my galley teams out at local food markets in the destinations we visit, helping us to create and celebrate local dishes and flavours. These local specialties will be highlighted through our ‘Treats of the Region’ experiences on board. This sees us create local dishes in our restaurants, but we also hold culinary demonstrations too so guests can learn how to make specialty dishes from the places they visit with us and recreate them at home.
How do you go about menu planning? What’s the process from picking the ingredients to getting them fresh into the kitchen and into dishes?
A lot goes into planning each of our daily menus – it’s far more challenging than simply creating tasty dishes for our guests. We consider the impact each of our meals has. We support local suppliers as much as possible, and take into consideration the food miles required to get the items on to our guests’ plates. Sustainability and reducing our carbon footprint all have a large part to play in the development of our menus.
Every one of our menus is decided weeks in advance. Because we often have days at sea with no ports of call, it’s so important for us to be organised to ensure we have the correct ingredients on board for each meal. We can’t simply visit a shop if we run out of something when out at sea!
Of course, we are able to cater to dietary needs as well as any religious requirements too. Typically, guests will make us aware of these when they book with us, so we can make sure we have plenty for them to choose from during their cruise.
How would you describe the food you create aboard Fred. Olsen’s ships to someone who’s never experienced your kind of food?
Food plays such an important part in a cruise holiday. The industry is renowned for having exceptional cuisine, and I take great pride in playing a part in that for Fred. Olsen.
We love telling a story through food, and we are using our dishes to celebrate the joy of the journey on board and the places that guests are visiting with us on their cruise. Whether that’s by offering a native cake in our Bookmark Café, serving a local delicacy in one of our restaurants or giving a live cookery demonstration of a special dish so our guests can recreate it for themselves and remember the flavours of their holiday.
What’s also great about our kitchens is that we have a very talented team of bakers on each of our ships, who craft all of our baked goods, from breads and cakes to biscuits and pastries, all from scratch. That’s quite unusual. They’ll be up kneading the dough as our guests are retiring for the night, to ensure they have deliciously fresh baked items ready for their breakfast, lunch and dinner each day.
I’m also currently developing a 93-day menu cycle for our upcoming Grand Voyages, which is rather unusual in the industry, meaning a guest will never have the same dinner twice in 93 days! It means this is an incredibly exciting experience for us!
What’s your favourite flavour combination?
I’m a fan of simple, clean Mediterranean flavours, the sorts of flavours you get when using fresh, local produce that is full of flavour – but I also love and anything that brings sweet and salty together in harmony.
What are the USPs of your restaurants?
Our restaurants are a real diverse mix of regions. Vasco is one of our speciality dining restaurants, where we serve authentic Goan cuisine crafted by chefs from the region. We also have Colours and Tastes, our Asian fusion restaurant, serving a twist on Asian cuisine.
We also have casual Mediterranean style al fresco dining, more traditional sophisticated British food in the main dining rooms and of course our ever-popular buffets that offer a wide variety of options for every taste. As our ships take you to new destinations, you’ll experience a flavour of that place too – destination dining is such a key part of any cruise with Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines.
What do your future plans entail?
In the cruise industry, we always need to be innovating new concepts and menu designs. Our future is to continually develop and enhance our dining offerings at Fred. Olsen, alongside the continual mentoring and training of our valued crew members to allow them to consistently deliver the high-quality product to our guests that we are known for.
Factbox
Customer service: 01473 292200
Website: fredolsencruises.com
Headquarters: Ipswich
Founded: 1848
All imagery copyright: Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines
