Our 2018 Cunard cruise was a short, 3 day trip trying out the Britannia Club restaurant on Queen Victoria, so our last experience of the Britannia restaurant was in 2017 on Queen Mary 2. Having found that experience pretty disappointing (see my review on here), I was hopeful that the improvements suggested by our Club dining last year might have also worked their way into the main restaurant. I am very pleased to say that was the case!

Cunard has re-worked the menus fleet-wide since 2017 and I found the choices far more inspiring than 2 years ago, often having trouble deciding what to order because so many of the choices appealed, particularly the main courses. There are 8 main course options, of which two are always fish or seafood-based and 2 vegetarian. Lamb was featured far more prominently than on previous cruises and poultry offered across the fortnight included turkey (twice), goose, squab pigeon, guinea fowl, partridge and of course chicken. Fish mains included salmon several times, sea bream, sea bass, barramundi, cod, plaice, scallops (twice), langoustine risotto, crab cannelloni (divine), mac & cheese with king prawns, lemon sole, lobster tail and Goan seafood curry. The starters, soups and salads are under a single heading on the menu but you can order what you like. It was good to see that the excellent consommés are still offered on many evenings. The dessert range had also had a make-over and I was delighted that souffles were offered on 4 nights (chocolate soufflé twice, pistachio and my all-time favourite Cunard pudding, lemon vanilla soufflé with limoncello sauce). In all, there were six desserts, including a low sugar option, an ice cream selection and the spa dessert, as well as cheese. We often asked for one of the ice cream choices to accompany our chosen pudding and Shailendra, our fantastic waiter, was happy to arrange that. He was able supported by Abner - both these gentlemen couldn’t do enough for us and they really helped to make our dining experience memorable. Shailendra was especially helpful to my partner who likes his food to be on the plainer side - he often asked for the vegetables from one dish to be served with the meat or fish from another one. We were given a copy of all of the menus on the penultimate evening. Our sommelier, Marko, was one of the best we’ve had on Cunard and was excellent at anticipating our requests. We were on a table for two on deck two of the restaurant - two lovely Australian ladies on the adjacent table provided great company.

As usual, we had chosen second sitting - this trip was notable for the fact that a large area in the centre of the restaurant remained completely empty throughout the two weeks - Shailendra explained this was because so many people had asked to switch from late to early sitting. As a consequence, whilst second sitting was quite leisurely, first sitting was apparently frenetic with extra people squeezed onto tables set for six and eight. Read more