How does working on a cruise ship differ than working in a standard restaurant setting?
Before I was a steak house chef for two years, then sous chef. It is good position here. I worked my way up through the ranks as a sous chef, to chef manager and now head chef. I work directly with the Chef Managers and they each run their areas.
Do you have complete control over the menu or is it pretty standard for this port?
Dining menu comes from the office, certain areas can change or if we don’t get our food or inventory. The menu is set by corporate and is fleet wide. This is to make sure that every guest gets the same experience on every one of our 24 ships.
Do guests with special diets make it harder in the kitchen or is that is something you’re use to?
No, this is completely normal. Our Sous Chefs are in charge of making all of our special diet meals in a designated area. They make sure that each guest gets what they need and it never comes in contact with any of the other food. You can always find gluten free bread at the deli, corn tortillas, gluten free pasta or whatever you need. If the cook in that area does not have an option or know, just look for the sous chef or the chef managers and they can help you out.
Can you change items on the menu?
In special circumstances yes, like if we don’t receive our inventory. But otherwise we can make meals and take a picture to send to corporate. The company can approve the dish to go ahead. All changes come from the Carnival Corporate Chef.
Thank you to Chef Trevor for taking time out of his busy day to talk to us. We love his dishes and appreciate all of his hard work here on the Carnival Sunshine! Chef Trevor and and all of the staff of the Sunshine have been fantastic so far – need something special? Just ask!