Other than industries who's sole concern is food, there is no industry which is so concerned about food as the cruise ship industry. Cruise ship dining is big business, and it's one of the most important things that a cruise ship line will consider. It'll also be one of the things that the most money goes on. When you are talking about a luxury cruise, there is of course luxury dining, and the luxury cabins.
Then there's the luxury activities and amenities onboard. But you can't have luxury cruising without luxury cruise ship dining. Currently, on the true five and six star cruises you'll find an incredible range of food available. Most modern ships have a huge number of restaurants with world renown chefs often cooking up the meals.
There are an increasing number of celebrity chefs and Michelin starred chefs who are lending both their name and their expertise to cruise ships for quite a hefty price to help really improve cruise ship dining. For many years cruise ship dining has been very Mediterranean. It has been about le cordon bleu menus, and extravagant food. The place setting are decided by the cruise ship, and everyone must dress up for dinner. This is the way that it was for many years until cruise ships, and thus cruise ship dining, began to open up to a much wider segment of the public.
It was then that it was found that while a lot of people still enjoy the elegance and upper-classness of such formality, a much larger group of people wanted something that was less rigid. They wanted something that was flexible to both their needs and to their taste buds. And so modern day cruise ships generally take an attitude of allowing people to eat whenever they like, and not requiring them to dress up in order to eat in every restaurant. Serving food in a buffet style set-up allows many costs to be decreased and it seems that it's a big hit with customers who can choose whatever they want to eat everyday, and can choose exactly how much they want to eat everyday.
After all, they have paid for it, and they're getting the exact cruise ship dining that they want So cruise ship dining has really changed. However, the shift isn't happen very quickly. While there are now Tex-Mex and pan-Asian restaurants on almost every big cruise ship, there are still a few restaurants that require people to dress smart. That's a good thing.