Chef Charlie Palmer Enhances Seabourn Dinner Menus

MIAMI, July 6 /PRNewswire/ -- From a delicate Crab & Asparagus Napoleon appetizer with caviar cream and preserved lemon to a scrumptious Bittersweet Chocolate & Orange Tart with chocolate sauce for dessert, in the months to come, cruise guests aboard the intimate, all-suite Yachts of Seabourn will discover an array of taste-tempting new choices gracing their dinner menus.

Award-winning chef/restaurateur Charlie Palmer, one of only three chefs to earn a spot on Forbes' annual Celebrity 100 list this year, has designed over 50 new gourmet culinary indulgences to be added to the award-winning fare served to guests in the open-seating Restaurant aboard Seabourn Pride, Spirit and Legend. The new dishes, which were developed in collaboration with Seabourn's Corporate Manager of Food & Beverage, Chef Tony Egger, enhance every course of the dinners, and will be rotated into the line's Palmer- designed, 28-day menu cycle through the end of 2005.

"Charlie has always insisted that the dining experience aboard our Seabourn yachts should reflect the best of what's happening in the culinary world shoreside," said Seabourn president Deborah L. Natansohn. "Just as his own fine dining venues in New York, Las Vegas and California continue to innovate and evolve," she said, "Charlie employs the same culinary creativity to updating and enhancing our menus on board."

Seabourn's ongoing collaboration with Chef Palmer has been a dramatic success, pleasing both the line's guests and professional reviewers and experts. In 2003, Palmer's revitalized menus for the line earned it a coveted first-place Diamond Award for outstanding achievement in onboard cuisine from the judges of Onboard Services magazine. In the 2005 Conde Nast Traveler Readers' Poll, Seabourn Legend and Spirit scored the top two spots for Food/Dining in the small ship category. Average scores for cuisine by guests in onboard surveys consistently hover around 9.5 on a scale of 10.

Among the new recipes, thanks to Chef Palmer's imagination, a traditional hot appetizer of Sauteed Escalope of Foie Gras receives an exotic accent with a Peppered Mango Tatin and basil oil, while a Double Consomme of Beef is enlivened with tiny duck confit cannelloni and roasted shallot petals. In a Mediterranean-inflected fish entree, Pan Seared Halibut arrives Studded with Anchovies, adorned with a warm, Nicoise-style salad, crisp giant capers and black olives. For those in a meat-and-potatoes mood, a Grilled Hanger Steak is paired with a Guinness Braised Short Rib and complemented by grain mustard mashed potatoes and tomato compote.

Chef Palmer's ingenious and flavorful vegetarian entrees are among the most popular on Seabourn's menus, and new variations include Potato Leek Crepes with Gruyere, young vegetables and garlic confit or a Crisp Polenta & Mushroom Cake with creamy leek stew and tomato sauce. Renowned for his sumptuously rich and playfully presented desserts, Palmer adds ten new fanciful finales for Seabourn feasts, including a Milk Chocolate & Peanut Butter Bombe with bittersweet chocolate sorbet and roasted peanut anglaise, and a fresh take on the comfort-food classic Pineapple Upside Down Cake, smartened up with pineapple coulis and coconut ice cream.

Guests can enjoy Chef Palmer's cuisine aboard The Yachts of Seabourn during ultra luxury cruise vacations of seven to 72 days or more in the Mediterranean; Northern Europe; the Americas and Caribbean; Southeast Asia; Africa, India and Arabia; Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific. For information, contact a travel agent, call Seabourn at 1-800-929-9391 or visit http://www.seabourn.com/ .

Voted the World's Best Small Ship Cruise Line by the readers of Departures magazine, The Yachts of Seabourn is a proud member of World's Leading Cruise Lines. Our exclusive alliance also includes Carnival Cruise Lines, Holland America, Princess Cruises, Cunard Line, Costa Cruises and Windstar Cruises. Sharing a passion to please each guest, and a commitment to quality and value, our member lines appeal to a wide range of lifestyles and budgets. Together we offer exciting and enriching cruise vacations to the world's most desirable destinations. The Yachts of Seabourn is a brand of Carnival Corporation and plc , and supports the Ocean Conservation & Tourism Alliance, dedicated to education and promotion of best practices for protecting the marine environment.