Australian celebrity chef Shaun Presland will be a star attraction on board Holland America Line’s ms Volendam when it cruises out of Sydney Harbour on January 17 to tour New Zealand. Presland will be one of a stellar line-up of celebrity chefs in the cruise liner’s Culinary Arts Center, which takes top chefs from kitchens and restaurants all around the world and features them in demonstrations at its theatre-style show kitchens on all of its 15 ships.
Resembling the elaborate demonstration kitchens on television cooking programs, the “show kitchen at sea” has large plasma video screens to display overhead and close-up video views of food preparation. There are vast cooking display counters where guests can learn new cooking techniques and dishes. On each voyage, guests have the opportunity to attend complimentary culinary demonstrations with either guest chefs or Holland America Line’s shipboard chefs.
Holland America Line spent more than US$14 million setting up its Culinary Arts Center facilities across the fleet in 2005, which is presented by the US’ Food & Wine Magazine and features more than 65 guest culinary experts each year in its hugely successful program – from Charlie Trotter to Marcus Samuelsson of New York’s Aquavit to master sommelier and wine educator Charlie Artuoala.
“The classes are very popular with Holland America Line guests, and we’re able to make their cruise even more enriching with these entertaining subjects,” said Richard D. Meadows, executive vice president, marketing, sales and guest programs. “By showing our guests how to make orzo while sailing inGreeceor how to arrange a beautiful bouquet, we’re creating experiences that they can take home and share with their friends and family.”
Presland will conduct two 45-minute cooking demonstrations and one 90-minute cooking class for guests on board the ms Volendam’s 14-day cruise departing Sydney January 17 and cruising through New Zealand’s Milford Sound, Fiordland National Park, Akaroa in Canterbury, to Wellington, Napier, Rotorua, Auckland and the Bay of Islands.
Presland is one of Sydney’s pre-eminent chefs of Japanese cuisine, as Executive Chef at Sake Restaurant in The Rocks, the city’s top sushi restaurant. He began his career in a Ryokan in the mountains of central Japan, learning the fine craft of the traditional local cuisine, before helping set up Merivale Group’s Sushi-e and later Ivy Teppanyaki and Sushi Choo in the Ivy complex, before becoming executive sous-chef at one of the famous Nobu restaurants, this one in the Bahamas.
Saké's Sashimi Combo, Edamame & Bankai cocktail
In 2008 Presland spent 12 months in a team that conceptualised Sake, a contemporary Japanese Restaurant and Bar with a focus on a high quality, affordable food matched with a sake and shochu list that was unprecedented in Sydney. Sake Sydney opened in November 2009 and then 12 months later Sake Brisbane, both seating 180 guests.
Presland has featured as a judge and celebrity chef on Masterchef TV and Junior Masterchef in Australia and has earned One Hat in the Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide in 2011 and in 2012, being judged the Best Sushi Restaurant in Sydney.
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