Mario Minuto: Gastronomy with Gusto

 
Europe’s cruising boom has encouraged the building of ever larger ships and a big growth in the volume and variety of on-board foodservice. The challenge, according to Mario Minuto, hotel operations director at Genoa-based Costa Crociere, is to reflect the passion and precision of high street restaurants while serving a large and diverse passenger mix at each sitting. Costa is Europe’s largest cruiseline and a key brand within global cruise leader Carnival Corporation. Interview by Bruce Whitehall.
 

 
With so many diversions incorporated into modern cruise ships, from theatres to race-car simulators, how important is the food in determining the decision to book a cruise?
 
Minuto: When people buy a cruise, the first consideration is the itinerary. But when they give opinion about cruises they have taken, the food is the most important subject for comments. Our core values are based on international cuisine with an Italian interpretation. Each of our cruise ships has a main restaurant and a self-service buffet restaurant open 24 hours a day – included in the cruise package price. There are also more upmarket Club Restaurants operated under various names (such as Amalfi Restaurant on the Costa Allegra and Club Bacco on the Costa Serena) requiring an additional payment (typically around €25 per head). ‘Wellness’ restaurants are available to particular cabins as part of the more expensive spa packages. And there are various bars, cafes and lounges.
 

 
How much do passenger demographics vary during the year?
 
Minuto: We have Italian passengers mainly in the summer, when the percentage can be around 80%, including a lot of children; at that time of year, 1,000 of the 3,000 passengers can be children. You can imagine how happy that makes the people who have no children. But things change once winter comes. Italians don’t travel all that much in the winter months so we have mainly German, French and British on Mediterranean cruises. And as ships move further from Europe, our population changes considerably and we may be almost entirely full of older people and a lot of Americans, especially Brazilians and Argentinians. On ships like the Costa Allegra, which cruise the Far East for several months each year, the passenger list switches from European to mainly Chinese. That’s not a problem as we have 22 cooks of Chinese nationality. It’s well-known that Chinese people like to eat Italian-style food but the reality is that it is only for one or two days. The rest of the time they like to eat their own food. It’s a bit like Italians in America: the first day they will eat a hamburger and the second day a steak but the third day they want spaghetti.
 

 
How much in advance of sailings do you know what passenger mix you are going to have on board?
 
Minuto: We get detailed information well in advance. We can follow on-line our sales so we know at any moment the ages and the nationality of who is going to sail – by February, we know that 80%of our summer cruises are sold out. Advance information is crucial not just because we need to know the likely menu demands but also because we need to ensure we have all the suppliers arranged.
 

 
Do you promote menus in advancewhen advertising cruise packages?
 
Minuto: We promote the fact that we have different kinds of menu but without going into a lot of detail beyond a few pictures in our brochures. People typically don’t have much idea of what food they will get on-board but they have a dream based on what they have seen maybe in a movie or on the TV so they have great expectations. They also expect passion in the way food is prepared. We go out of our way to offer menu variety, such as Oriental cuisine, and we make a point of offering one or two dishes from the cuisines of countries which the ship is visiting, eg Arabic food when we go to an Arab country, Greek food when travelling to Greece.
 

 
| 15 April 2008 | Bruce Whitehall |