I had the great fortune to spend the last week or so sailing along Alaska’s inside passage on the NCL Jewel. Being the kind of person that I am, I gave myself a side-quest on day one: eat at and review each of the on-board dining options. I mostly succeeded, with two notable exceptions. It turns out a reservation at the Teppanyaki restaurant is incredibly difficult to score, and I simply ran out of time for the steakhouse.
But First, the Rubric
Taking inspiration from Michelin stars, I decided to categorize each dining option with the Contrariwise Boat Emoji System. Boatmoji if you will.
- 0 (Zero) boats - Anything I wouldn’t expressly recommend. Runs the gamut from terrible to basically fine. Might be perfectly cromulent, but doesn’t stand out.
- 1 (One) boats 🛳️ - Worth a visit. If it requires a reservation, consider making one.
- 2 (Two) boats 🛳️🛳️ - Plan around it. Get at least one reservation, at any day or time you can, and schedule other things to accommodate.
- 3 (Three) boats 🛳️🛳️🛳️ - Vacation highlight. Take a cruise specifically to go to this restaurant.
The Restaurants
O’Sheehans
- Rating: 0 boats
- Style: Casual
- Cuisine: Bar food
Generally speaking, O’Sheehans had both the worst food and worst service of the trip. It’s the kind of place you go to kill 1.5 hours waiting on the smallest plate of nachos you’ve seen in your life. As everywhere on the boat, the staff were both patient and kind. I think the delays were frequently because the O’Sheehans kitchen is also providing room service, and so no matter how busy (or not) the restaurant appeared to be, I suspect there were at least double as many tickets accounted for by room service requests.
The nominal benefit of O’Sheehans is that it’s open 24 hours, has no dress code, and no reservations. But I think I’d recommend the buffet categorically over O’Sheehans at any time when the buffet is open and operating.
Speaking of…
Garden Cafe (The Buffet)
- Rating: 0 boats
- Style: Buffet
- Cuisine: Rotating
Buffet (noun): the opportunity to eat as much as you would like of food that would not be acceptable at any other time.
Jokes aside, I actually rather liked the buffet, and I think it’s the “set point” for all other on-ship dining. O’Sheehans falls slightly below, most other things are equal are slightly above. The buffet is fine. It never really excelled, but it was reliable. It always made for a quick breakfast or lunch, but I never made it for dinner generally preferring to work on my quest to eat at every other option. I think the buffet is never the wrong option, especially if you’re in a hurry or don’t want to wait to be seated.
Le Bistro
- Rating: 🛳️ (1 Boat)
- Style: Fine Dining
- Cuisine: French
Le Bistro is the one place on the ship that had a dress code, and despite a few ruffled feathers about whether or not my collared sweater qualified (it did,) I had a mostly pleasant experience. I think that other options on the boat win for atmosphere, but the food here never disappointed. I can strongly recommend both the escargot and the french onion soup. There are other restaurants on the ship that will claim to have french onion, but none of them will be as good as what Le Bistro serves.
What really stole the show for me was the dessert at Le Bistro, a strawberries and cream fraisier with pistachio topping. I would rank it as “dangerously good” and worth the price of admission alone.
Chin Chin
- Rating: 🛳️ (1 Boat)
- Style: Casual
- Cuisine: Chinese
We had to wait an hour to sit at Chin Chin, and I can see why. I ordered the kung pao chicken and I’m somewhat at a loss for how to describe it. Spicy teriyaki chicken? Clearly non-traditional, none of the flavors that I expected, and yet somehow still incredible. Maybe they went with that name due to familiarity, maybe they just don’t know how to make kung pao and lucked into something that works? I won’t fault them for the non-traditional take, because it so clearly worked and was clearly at least inspired by kung pao with a spice that both built and lingered. A friend had many compliments about their chicken fried rice, and several people got calamari that was lightly fried but not chewy, the hallmark of well-prepared squid.
The highlight of my dinner at Chin Chin was actually a cross-order which deserves its own section…
Sushi (by way of Chin Chin)
- Rating: 🛳️🛳️ (2 Boats)
- Style: Counter seating
- Cuisine: Sushi
It’s possible to book directly into the sushi restaurant, but it can also be ordered from Chin Chin, which is what I did in order to save time. I can’t overstate how good it was; at $11 for two pieces of nigiri, it had better have been. But I want to be clear, the sushi on board the NCL Jewel is among the best I’ve ever had.
La Cucina
- Rating: 0 boats
- Style: Casual
- Cuisine: Italian
The vibe, as they say, was immaculate. Better than Le Bistro’s no doubt. But the food didn’t live up to the same expectation. It was fine, maybe even two points north of acceptable. But hard to recommend. If you like Olive Garden, you’ll like La Cucina. I think the gnocchi where my highlight, and probably the best gnocchi I had all week.
Azura / Tsar’s Palace
- Rating: 0 boats
- Style: Casual
- Cuisine: Rotating
Azura and the Tsar’s Palace are two sides of the same coin. Either or both could be referred to as “main dining,” with the only real difference between them being the ambiance and decor. I will note that we found the service in Tsar’s Palace to be slightly more reliable. Nominally the more casual option, Azura, reminded me of just about every “fast-casual” restaurant I’ve eaten at.
The food choices changed slightly throughout the week, but were generally the kind of thing you might find at Chili’s or Applebees, and about the same quality overall. Tsar’s palace offered the same menu, but with an interior designed to evoke old-style regal charm. For what it’s worth, the palace also had bathrooms inside the restaurant, a rare luxury on the Jewel.
Moderno Churrascaria
- Rating: 0 boats
- Style: Buffet
- Cuisine: Brazilian
In what I’m certain will be my most controversial opinion, Moderno was… Okay? I guess? I’m not convinced it was better than Garden Cafe, except that I paid $70 for it. Like other Brazilian Steakhouses the gimmick is mostly that people walk around and carve fresh hunks of animal directly on to your plate. I’m mostly of the opinion that those animal hunks were… Fine? I guess? Neither the quality nor flavor really stood out from among all the other animal hunks I had on the boat.
The salad bar portion of Moderno was marginally upscaled compared to Garden Cafe. They had manchego cheese, which I like, and the charcuterie was decent. It felt sort of like something I might have thrown together for some friends that I wanted to impress but like… Not too much? Basically what I’m trying to say is that it was okay, but left to my own devices I might spend my dining credits elsewhere.
Overall Impressions
Generally, I liked pretty much all of the food I had on the NCL Jewel. I don’t think any of it was “bad,” although much of it was “okay.” That doesn’t really surprise me, and I think there are other cruise lines that lean harder into the food as a draw. I appreciated that for the most part Norwegian doesn’t require specific dress codes or assigned seating, something I’ve heard other cruise lines still do. I’d cruise the NCL Jewel again without hesitation.