FAVORITE SPECIALTY RESTAURANT

[FLcruisergrl]

4 hours ago, complawyer said:

while others may rave, i avoid le bistro like the plague.

I agree. We’ve tried it twice. The first time, it was underwhelming. The 2nd time, I think it made me sick.

 

I like Ocean Blue and La Cucina.

[complawyer]

i have only eaten there twice in my  18 ncl cruises. 1st time i went there, i was unaware that men needed to have collared shirts. im on vacation, this was supposed to be freestyle.

 

well since we had 9 people in our party, i swiftly marched back to my cabin and put on a nice clean collared shirt.

 

went back to the table, sat down, and the waitress spilled  entire her tray of drinks all over me. no apologies, no offer of free drink or dessert, as they say in the old country "NADA"

 

the next time was just recently. my wife, a close friend and myself were on the ncl jade this past april.

 

my friend lived in paris for about 6 months and wanted to  try it out. with much trepidation i agreed.

 

if i want a steak ,ill go to cagneys. i ordered the sea bass, talk about tasting fishy,

 

for what it's worth (not very much,however) we're sapphire  level and get a freebie dinner at either cagney's of le bistro. guess what? this is a no brainer.  

 

cant say much in favor of la cucina either. slightly upscale from olive garden, but not much so.

 

they used to have a terrific lobster and pasta dish. alas and aleck no more

[nhtravels]

We love Cagney's, especially dining on the waterfront.  It's how we spent our 30th anniversary on a recent Panama Canal sailing.

 

1.  Cagney's

2.  Food Repblic

3.  Teppanyaki

4.  Los Lobos

5.  Moderno

**.  Haven restaurant ranks above all for us, but I excluded. it from the list,  as you hadn't asked about Haven.

[nferr]

Cagneys and LeBistro.

[mearsfansinboise]

Cagney's. 🏆

We enjoyed La Cucina in the past, but on our last sailing it was a huge letdown -- overcooked pasta, subpar service; just a bummer.

Tried Teppanyaki last time too - the food was just ok.

[cruiseny4life]

I can't wait until I get off my cruise in a few weeks, so I can post a most educated response...so far we've tried Teppanyaki and Cagney's. The food was better at Teppanyaki. Cagney's was worse than Texas Roadhouse. 

 

But! I'll be trying La Cucina, Moderno, and Le Bistro on the Getaway (same ship I tried the above), so then I'll have at least five on my list. I'm not expecting much, so pretty sure my answer is going to be they are all "meh." Then I'll just stick with the Haven Restaurant and ignore specialty dining on NCL. Hopefully not though! 

[The Shrike]

9 hours ago, mearsfansinboise said:

Cagney's. 🏆

We enjoyed La Cucina in the past, but on our last sailing it was a huge letdown -- overcooked pasta, subpar service; just a bummer.

Tried Teppanyaki last time too - the food was just ok.

On the Star last month and La Cucina was the opposite.  Both the food and the wait staff were great.

Reading through the 219 threads that have been started on this exact topic over the last three months (😜) there's definitely one common element:  the quality of the specialty restaurants seems to vary greatly from ship to ship.

[mjcatlvr]

On 8/2/2022 at 9:43 PM, The Shrike said:

I like them all, really.  But we rarely do teppanyaki, because we have three restaurants around where we live that we can go to for that.  And as much as I like it, we only do Moderno every few cruises because my wife says "It's just SO MUCH FOOD!"  🙄🙂
Keep in mind you can get a really good meal at the complimentary Asian restaurant, too.

With the FAS meals plus Latitudes meals we eat at Cagney's, La Cucina, and Le Bistro at least once each cruise.

THIS! I agree with your wife. Way too much food there that it's actually a turn off for me. We have always loved the "salad bar" at Moderna but the two times that we went and only wanted that, we felt that we were pressured by waitstaff to partake in the meats. Many Red cards and NO's later, they finally left us alone after serving us each a slice of the grilled pineapple, YUM!

[Sim1979]

1 hour ago, mjcatlvr said:

THIS! I agree with your wife. Way too much food there that it's actually a turn off for me. We have always loved the "salad bar" at Moderna but the two times that we went and only wanted that, we felt that we were pressured by waitstaff to partake in the meats. Many Red cards and NO's later, they finally left us alone after serving us each a slice of the grilled pineapple, YUM!

 

Same for me, my favorite is also the Moderno, especially for the soup/salad bar and the pineapple... sad that they don't have those fried bananas side anymore  😞

[tetleytea]

15 hours ago, nhtravels said:

We love Cagney's, especially dining on the waterfront.  It's how we spent our 30th anniversary on a recent Panama Canal sailing.

 

1.  Cagney's

2.  Food Repblic

3.  Teppanyaki

4.  Los Lobos

5.  Moderno

**.  Haven restaurant ranks above all for us, but I excluded. it from the list,  as you hadn't asked about Haven.

 

It's good to hear that Cagney's has waterfront on other ships (it had none on ours), but my favorite aspect of the specialty restaurants is clear:   it's the waterfront.

[mearsfansinboise]

12 hours ago, The Shrike said:

On the Star last month and La Cucina was the opposite.  Both the food and the wait staff were great.

Reading through the 219 threads that have been started on this exact topic over the last three months (😜) there's definitely one common element:  the quality of the specialty restaurants seems to vary greatly from ship to ship.

 

I have read a hundred times how the quality of food and service is going down hill on this ship and that ship and this restaurant and that restaurant and then I'll go and it's all fine to me.  It's like it depends on the dish, the server, the time of day, the day of the week, etc.  Every meal I've ever had on a ship is better than anything I can get locally at home, so, it's always at least good to me - and sometimes great.   Annnnnd now I'm hungry! 😋