Oceania Cruises is celebrating 15 years of The Culinary Center – the first-ever hands-on cooking school at sea – with an array of new classes for 2025 and beyond.
Announced 15 years ago ahead of the launch of Marina™, the first purpose-built foodie-ship for the line, Oceania Cruises’ Culinary Center is now available on four of its elegant ships, Marina, Riviera™, Vista™, and Allura™, its newest ship due to join the fleet in Summer 2025.
In celebration of the milestone, Oceania Cruises has added new culinary classes for 2025, putting the spotlight on dishes from the Pacific Northwest of the United States, Polynesia, and Australia, among others.
The Culinary Center boasts more than 60 current classes taught in custom-built teaching kitchens with individual stations and professional-grade equipment. The classes offer the chance to explore a destination’s culture and history through food, or to hone core kitchen skills thanks to the faculty of dedicated Chef Instructors.
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Chef Kathryn Kelly, Oceania Cruises’ Director of Culinary Enrichment, is the founder and driving force behind The Culinary Center and oversees Oceania Cruises’ team of 11 Chef Instructors.
She is also the chief architect of the line’s signature range of Culinary Discovery Tours™, a key part of The Culinary Center program. These popular chef-led excursions, which are available in more than 40 destinations worldwide, feature the opportunity to learn to cook destination-inspired dishes back on board after a morning of shopping for ingredients in local markets, or to learn from local experts and artisans about the food and culture of the region. Chef Kelly is planning a new swathe of chef-led tours for 2025 which will be announced in the coming months.
“We are the only cruise built by foodies, for foodies,” said Frank A. Del Rio, President of Oceania Cruises.
“Food is at the heart of everything we do at Oceania Cruises – we have literally built our ships around the culinary experience, from vast galley spaces to an unparalleled range of restaurants.”
“I am so proud to say we were the first line ever to have a hands-on cooking school at sea, and the popularity of The Culinary Center shows no sign of abating. This is testament to the incredible work done by Chef Kelly and her creative team, as they continue to drive our culinary legacy,” Del Rio said.
Chef Kelly added: “It’s been an amazing evolution over the past 15 years, from the first Culinary Center aboard Marina, followed by Riviera, to the even more expansive Culinary Centers on board Vista and her sister Allura, which have twice the number of individual stations. I am thrilled to be working with such a creative and collaborative team as we constantly look for new dishes and class themes to introduce to our curious guests.”
When not on board, the team lives in locations all over the world, from Christchurch, New Zealand, to Riga, Latvia, to San Francisco, California, making them perfectly placed to keep their fingers on the global food pulse to bring the latest culinary trends to the kitchen classrooms on board.
Culinary Center Chef Instructors have hundreds of years of experience and fascinating career histories between them. Backgrounds include:
- an early career as Julia Child’s executive assistant;
- executive chef for world-renowned television shows such as Sesame Street and 30 Rock;
- and leading the food programs of blue chip companies including Google and Amazon.
With graduates from The Culinary Institute of America, Le Cordon Bleu, and Boston University’s prestigious gastronomy program on the team, Oceania Cruises’ guests can truly learn from the best in the business.
