The best things I ate on a P&O Cruises holiday in the Med

The Glass House features a tapas menu curated by P&O Cruises Local Food Hero José Pizzaro. I’ve wanted to try a restaurant by José for years, so I couldn’t wait – and this meal really delivered. My advice? Order as many dishes off the tapas menu as possible to share; we tried rich squid ink croquettes, plump olives with nectarine, a perfectly light tuna and avocado ceviche and beautifully soft lamb chops. Every dish was packed with flavour – but the bravas stole the show for me; warm, crispy, salty with a dollop of warm, smokey sauce and punchy garlic aioli. Just perfect, paired beautifully with local wine. Oh, and make sure to check out the wine recommendations by expert Olly Smith!

Sometimes, the best dishes are the ones you don’t expect to blow you away. And this beetroot dish at Green & Co, a restaurant packed with tasty plant-based dishes, did exactly that: kombucha infused beetroot, white peach gel, wasabi pickled salsa and candied walnuts made for an earthy, pickley dish with pops of sweet and nutty flavour. I even drank a kombucha with it, for the full effect. The best part was the ‘beetroot coral’ (basically a bright pink tuile, a type of French wafer), which was beautifully delicate as well as visually stunning. If not everyone in the family is into plant-based food, don’t worry, Green & Co feat. Mizuhana serves sushi, curries and more. 

The Olive Grove is a restaurant on board serving up seafood, salads, mezzes, pasta and more, and it’s one of Arvia’s included restaurants, meaning you can dine here at no extra cost. And yes, I still can’t get my head around the fact that you can eat here every single night for free if you fancy it. This rich, buttery rice dish was stuffed full of mussels, prawns, clams, salty chorizo and tender chicken – cut through with a squeeze of lemon and a spoonful of creamy garlic aioli; and my very first meal on board Arvia. Paired with a crisp glass of Gavi, and finished with a tiramisu, this dish was the perfect start to a holiday around the Med. 

Ever got half way through a week-long European holiday and found yourself dying for something spicy? Well, that’s where I was at when I saw this curry on the menu at Mizuhana – and it was everything I’d been craving and more. Sweet, creamy and slightly spicy, this Massaman was deeply rich and seriously comforting with slow-cooked, meltingly tender beef, served with sticky white rice and topped with salty peanuts, coriander and fresh red chilli. If a European holiday has you craving sushi instead, you’re in luck – as well as its Malaysian curries, Mizuhana also serves up a mean selection of maki and moriawase platters, from yellowfin tuna to truffle-brushed salmon and caviar. 

My favourite night on the ship? That would be seeing drag queen La Voix perform at The Limelight Club, along with a fantastic three-course meal. She was utterly hilarious (what else would you expect from a star who came a close second on RuPaul’s Drag Race UK?), and the space was incredible, as if we’d been transported to an old-style speakeasy. You simply choose what you’d like for each course, order a drink, sit back and enjoy the show – we had an incredible mini tostada, wild mushroom and truffle arancini, and a chocolate brownie with salted toffee ice-cream to finish. But my main was the star of the show: chalk stream trout with saffron potatoes, salty samphire and earthy root veg, swimming in a buttery broth of clams and prawns. Paired with a glass of ice-cold chablis, this was a perfectly decadent meal. Approximately one hour after I ate this we were at a silent disco in the Grand Atrium, but that’s a story for another time…