One of the most popular aspects of Windstar’s partnership with the James Beard Foundation is its chef-led culinary cruises. In 2025, Windstar invited five chefs – Jennifer Hill Booker, Jamilka Borges, José Mendin, Jennifer Jasinski and Amy Brandwein – to host cruises. Itineraries ranged from the Mediterranean to Northern Europe to Canada/New England.
On board, they lead chef demonstrations, host a Chef’s Table, and work with the ships’ culinary team to craft distinctive new recipes. Easily one of the most popular adventures occurs in ports of calls, where the guest chefs lead tours to local markets to pick up regional foodstuffs. Later that day, the ingredients that guests and the chefs have chosen find their way into a festive galley buffet where all aboard can taste and sample.
Curious to hear what it’s like for the guest chefs who participate, we reached out to Jennifer Hill Booker, who in June traveled to Northern Europe on Star Legend. She shared some insights and experiences about what it’s like to host these voyages that go way beyond the actual activities’ menu.
The owner of Bauhaus Biergarten in Springdale, Arkansas, she headed to northern Europe’s Baltic. Her restaurant is a German- style biergarten that specializes in imported German and European beers and authentic German cuisine, so she was particularly excited about making new discoveries on the 11-day voyage from Stockholm to Copenhagen, with calls at Helsinki, Estonia’s Tallinn, Latvia’s Riga, Sweden’s Visby, Lithuania’s Klaipeda, Poland’s Gdansk and Germany’s Warnemunde.
What did she bring back home with her? She shares memories, experiences and shopping tips with Windstar’s guests, crew and chefs.
The assignment:
I hosted two full-on cooking demonstrations, led guests on a tour of the local market in Tallinn and prepared a tasting menu from the food we bought there. I also created a chef’s dinner that we served in all three restaurants and loved meeting and greeting everyone throughout the night. Best dish? I absolutely loved the braised short ribs with pimento cheese grits and tobacco onion. Also on the menu was snapper papillote poofed up with the steam before presenting it. It was a dramatic reveal and fun to see how guests responded to the spectacle.
Favorite moments:
I really enjoyed simply meeting and chatting with our guests and the ship’s chefs. Windstar Cruises will spoil you for any other kind of cruise experience. The staff, always happy, was so engaging helpful and gracious, I felt like part of the crew and also part of the guests.
One of my favorite parts of each day was heading to the lounge every day at 5 p.m. for trivia. Then we’d change for dinner and have a pre-dinner cocktail, connecting with other guests along the way. That was really the best down time every evening.
Tell us about the market where you led your chef’s tour:
Tallinn’s Central Market really surprised me. From the outside, it looked rustic and outdoorsy and yet inside, it was gleaming and contemporary. We bought so much! Cheese, produce, seafood, chocolate, sausage, and patisserie. We also brought back pesto, pickled herring, and fresh cherries….
Was there a teachable moment in any of your cooking demos (either for you or for travelers?):
During my cooking demonstrations, my style is informal and interactive, and in both cases I asked for a volunteer to assist. For guests, one teachable moment was, when demonstrating a recipe for citrus brined shrimp with sun dried tomatoes, Rob, my helper-guest and I had an impromptu competition – on plating. The visual appeal – after all you eat with your eyes first so plating, or arranging the presentation – is an important part of the meal. In the end, mine had height and color and garnish; his was just three pieces of food flat on the plate. We all had fun with it.
For me: Chef Georg, Windstar’s executive chef across the fleet, is an exacting Austrian, especially when it comes to measuring ingredients for a dish. And all of Windstar’s recipes were in metric, not imperial measurement. “Freedom measurements,” as he called out the way many American chefs cook by eyeballing ingredients, “are not exact.”
Which ports did you like best?
My first favorite was Finland’s Helsinki, a cute city right at the wharf. A lot of locals were on vacation catching the ferry to the island where Korkeasaari Zoo is located. Bordering Helsinki’s South Harbour are two markets: The historic Old Market Hall (Vanha Kauppahalli), features locally prepared dishes and has cute little cafes inside. Just around the corner is the Hakaniemi Market Square, outdoors, and it also sells freshly prepared Finnish traditional dishes but as well has some really interesting souvenirs made of reindeer bones and wood, like handcrafted wooden buttons.
In Germany’s Warnemunde, an idyllic seaside town, we hit all the grocery stores. I love to look at butcher shops and bought a chunk of smoked bacon with a rind. It was very different from the bacon we buy in America; it was lean and the fat was creamy. The running joke was I was going to try to sneak it home, but we stayed in Copenhagen a few extra days after the cruise and I cooked it there.
We tasted beer in every port of call, sampled bratwurst, and checked out all the chocolate and coffee we could. The countries that make up both the Baltic region and Scandinavia have become very focused on farm to table ingredients and the produce was so fresh and vibrant it was even better than the best farmer’s market at home.
The trip has inspired me to import a couple of new beer discoveries, and I adored the Danish “Smørrebrød,” open-faced sandwiches on sturdy grain bread with a shrimp or fish topping. We may well introduce a pop-up at our biergarten in Arkansas and serve them there.
And if you visit Copenhagen, you’ve got to try the incredible Danish hotdogs. I also recommend a visit to Magasin, the city’s historic department store. For culinary enthusiasts, we loved Mad&Vin, its vibrant food market in the basement, and the Danish cafes on the top floor.
One last question: Any Windstar advice you want to share?
You’ve got to incorporate Windstar’s fabulous laundry service into your travel budget. I felt so pampered, and loved how it was delivered, neatly tucked into boxes and packages (or in hanging bags). It’s the ultimate luxury, a real game changer.
