For the 12th year, Windstar Cruises is bringing some of America’s most compelling culinary voices aboard for its 2027 lineup of James Beard Foundation chef-hosted cruises. It’s a partnership that pairs the line’s intimate, small-ship itineraries with chefs whose personal stories mirror the very destinations they’re sailing to.
“From the Mediterranean to French Polynesia and from East Asia to the Greek Isles, each voyage in our 2027 collection has been paired with a chef whose culinary journey speaks directly to the cuisine and culture that guests will encounter on their voyages,” says Peter Tobler, Windstar’s director of hotel operations.
“Onboard these chefs will lead hands-on cooking demonstrations, intimate dinners, and destination-focused culinary events that bring a level of storytelling and expertise to the table that only chefs of James Beard Foundation caliber can offer.”
Clare Reichenbach, chief executive officer of the James Beard Foundation, experienced a chef-hosted cruise in August, on French Feast: Normandy, Brittany & Aquitaine, when 2-star Michelin chef Gabriel Kreuther was onboard. “What you experience,” she told us, “is that the partnership brings something new and exciting to the cruise experience. It offers an opportunity to get up-close-and-personal with both leading chefs of the world and newer talent in the culinary arts.”
Curious to know more?
In 2027, the James Beard Foundation culinary voyages will include:
- Chef Roel Alcudia, whose path from a Filipino family hacienda to some of America’s top kitchens informs Treasures of the Greek Isles
- Chef Felix Tai, culinary director of Hawaiʻi’s Polynesian Cultural Center, hosting Maori Storytellers & French Polynesian Treasures
- Chef Cara Tobin, of Vermont’s Honey Road, leading an Aegean Sea Odyssey via the Corinth Canal
- Chef Cody Hogan, of Kansas City’s Lidia’s, hosting Enchanting Greece and the Amalfi Coast
- Chef Christine Lau, of Maine’s Ladyfish, guiding guests through East Asian Legends
Read on for the full lineup, including each chef’s story and the voyage they’ll be hosting in 2027.
Chef Roel Alcudia will be host of Treasures of the Greek Isles
The Date: July 13 – 20, 2027
The yacht: Wind Surf
The itinerary: Windstar’s seven night Treasures of the Greek Isles, a roundtrip voyage from Athens’ port of Piraeus, visits places such as Nafplio, Mykonos, Patmos, Kusadasi (which features Windstar’s private dinner Destination Discovery event at Ephesus), Monemvasia and Santorini.
A perfect match for the Aegean
Chef Roel, a Filipino immigrant, says that he has always believed that “food is about connection, bringing people together and creating lasting experiences,” which completely reflects the ethos of the James Beard Foundation’s partnership with Windstar. As someone who’s regarded as a genuine mentor to many of America’s most talented chefs, his passion for teaching and sharing his love for cooking not just with participating guests but also with onboard chefs and galley crew, will inspire.
In addition to Chef Roel’s Filipino roots, he has a great passion for Greece and Turkey as a result of his time as chef at Miami’s Mandolin Aegean Bistro, which enabled him to extensively research, through travel and cooking, Greek and Eastern Mediterranean cuisine.
From family hacienda to fine dining
Born on a family hacienda in the Philippines where his great-grandmother fed neighbors and strangers alike, Roel Alcudia moved to the United States at the age of 13. After studying fine arts at Pratt Institute and Rutgers, a bowl of his mother’s soup redirected him to the French Culinary Institute, where he graduated at the top of his class. The chef trained under some of America’s top chefs like Thomas Keller (Per Se), Tom Colicchio (Craft), and Jonathan Waxman (Barbuto) before moving to Miami.
There, he cooked at The Cypress Room (named one of Bon Appétit’s Top 10 Best New Restaurants in America in 2013) and at the aforementioned Mandolin Aegean Bistro. He later moved back to New York, this time to its Hudson Valley. Part of the James Beard Foundation’s chef community, Chef Roel was part of the opening team at Stissing House, a 2023 James Beard Award semifinalist for Best New Restaurant, and has cooked at Platform by JBF, the Foundation’s culinary space in New York City.
Recently, Chef Roel returned to Miami to work with David Foulquier, founder of We All Gotta Eat, which operates a variety of fine dining restaurants. There he will be creating new menus and dishes for Focq, one of Miami’s top restaurants.
Polynesian Chef Felix Tai hosts Maori Storytellers and French Polynesian Treasures
The Date: September 5 – 16, 2027
The Yacht: Star Breeze
The Itinerary: The Tahiti-based voyage includes visits to Society Islands such as Moorea, Huahine, and Bora Bora (where Polynesian Feast & Fire, Windstar’s exclusive Destination Discovery event, is a major highlight) and also to the Cook Islands.
A Fitting Voice for Polynesian Waters
Based on the North Shore of Hawaii’s Oʻahu, Chef Felix Tai is the culinary director and executive chef of the Polynesian Cultural Center. The Malaysian-born chef’s ethnicity reflects traces of China and India.
His culinary signature? “Great food is inseparable from the place and the people who created it.” To that end, Tai specializes in marrying culinary traditions to contemporary innovations in dishes that span thousands of islands, each with its own relationship to the ocean and the land.
From Oʻahu’s North Shore to the Islands of the Pacific Rim
At the Polynesian Cultural Center, he oversees all culinary efforts, from culturally authentic luau feasts to the Pacific Rim-inspired comfort dishes served at Pounders, an onsite restaurant. Cool fun fact: Pounders was named in honor of a nearby beach.
Chef Felix bridges his culinary operations in Hawaiʻi with national advocacy, mentorship, and high-profile guest appearances through his alignment with the James Beard Foundation’s initiatives. He is a 2026 advisor alum of the Foundation’s Legacy Network program.
The chef was inducted into the Hawaiʻi Restaurant Hall of Fame in 2019.
Bonus: Experts from J Vineyards and Winery, in California’s Sonoma County, will be onboard as part of Windstar’s partnership with Lux Wines. On this cruise, guests can engage in wine tastings, menu pairings and special events.
Chef Cara Tobin Hosts an Aegean Sea Odyssey via the Corinth Canal
The Date: September 8 – 16, 2027
The yacht: Star Legend
The itinerary: On this Piraeus (the port city for Athens) to Istanbul sailing, Star Legend calls at off-beat and iconic islands, such as Greece’s Santorini, Itea for Delphi, Limnos, and Mykonos. Stops in Turkey include destinations such as Bodrum and Kusadasi (which features a Windstar signature, “destination discovery” event at Ephesus).
A Perfect Match for Greece and Turkey
Chef Cara is co-owner and executive chef of Honey Road Restaurant, in Burlington, Vermont, specializing in Eastern Mediterranean cuisine. The dinner-only menu focuses on vegetarian-influenced mezze. Specialties include tahini hummus, sweet harissa chicken wings, kale salad, smashed potatoes with jalapeño labne, and house-made baklava. Dishes change seasonally.
The chef’s food journey began at culinary school in California’s Monterey. A move to Boston with her husband yielded a job at Cambridge’s Eastern Mediterranean restaurant Oleana, helmed by James Beard Award winner Ana Sortun. Tobin rose from sous chef to chef de cuisine there, spending years immersed in the food of Turkey, Lebanon, Syria and the broader Eastern Mediterranean region, traveling often there to learn from local home cooks and market vendors.
A decade ago, she moved to Burlington where she opened Honey Road Restaurant, continuing her passion for the cuisines of countries bordering the Eastern Mediterranean Sea.
Rooted in Eastern Mediterranean Cuisine
At Honey Road, she has been honored as a two-time James Beard Award nominee and three-time James Beard Award semifinalist, including in the, Outstanding Restaurateur category alongside her business partner (and co-owner) Allison Gibson in 2025. She was a Rising Star Chef in 2015 while at Oleana.
Community involvement has played a big role in Cara’s restaurant philosophy. Honey Road supports local organizations that are involved with the arts, LGTBQ+ rights, childhood development and care, animal rights and local food systems.
Fun Fact: The mother of two sons, Tobin and her husband, a scientist, operate their own business called Sunday Morning Mushrooms.
Chef Cody Hogan Hosts Enchanting Greece and the Amalfi Coast
The date: October 14 – 21, 2027
The yacht: Wind Surf
The itinerary: This voyage, from Rome’s port of Civitavecchia to Athens’ Piraeus, calls at ports such as Italy’s Sorrento and Messina and Greece’s Monemvasia and Gythion.
A fitting voice for the Amalfi Coast
Based in Kansas City, Chef Cody is executive chef of Lidia’s, where he has worked with its founder and namesake, Lidia Bastianich, for 28 years. Before rising to the role of executive chef, Hogan, who joined Lidia’s at the start-up, served as pastry chef, chef de cuisine, and then general manager.
Here’s why Bastianich herself has played such an impactful role in the culinary arts: through her first, New York-based restaurant in the early 1980s, she transformed Italian cuisine from its then peasant roots to fine dining. She brought that same magic to Kansas City, where her self-named restaurant, her first outside of New York, opened in a Midwest city.
Rooted in two unlikely crafts
Growing up on a cattle ranch in northwestern Arkansas, he absorbed the importance of local farms and products. Before he embarked on his cooking career, he studied as a classical pianist but was intrigued enough in the culinary arts to begin working at Alice Waters’ famous Chez Panisse. He joined Lidia’s Kansas City in 1998.
Committed to growing community involvement in the culinary arts in the Midwest, he maintains a direct pipeline to the foundation’s fundraising networks and works closely with regional farmers to advocate for the sustainable, equitable food systems the foundation promotes.
Fun fact: As Cody Hogan first heard the adage “performing live music is like preparing an inspired meal” from his piano teacher. Jo Ann Baker, one of the Conservatory of Music and Dance’s cornerstone piano teachers, encouraged students to structure a recital like a meal — an appetizer to open, then a soup, a main course, and a light dessert to close. Hogan didn’t fully grasp the comparison until he discovered cooking himself.
Chef Christine Lau Hosts East Asian Legends
The date: November 4 – 14, 2027
The yahgt: Star Seeker
The itinerary: Sailing from Osaka to Hanoi, this 10-day itinerary visits ports such as Japan’s Ishigaki and Okinawa, Taiwan’s Taipei, and Hong Kong.
A fitting voice for Japan, China, and Vietnam
Chef Christine’s culinary journey has followed a distinctive path: fine-dining Italian at Alto in New York, produce-driven cooking at Centovini, Basque cuisine at Bar Basque, Japanese-American technique at Sea Grill alongside Chef Yuhi Fujinaga, and the izakaya tradition at Bar Chuko. All of these experiences were threaded together by every stretch of vacation she could accumulate across Asia, including Thailand, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, and Korea. That travel built the library of flavor that would become the foundation of her own voice, making her a natural fit to lead guests through the region herself.
From Berkeley to Manhattan to Maine
Though raised in Oakland, Lau is the daughter of parents who emigrated to the U.S. from Hong Kong.
In August 2020, she opened Kimika in New York’s Nolita neighborhood, blending her Italian training with Japanese technique into what she calls Ita-meshi cuisine. As she told the blog Chuboknives, the menu was laid out like an Italian restaurant — snacks, then small dishes, a fried pizza section, pasta and rice, larger plates, a side or contorni, and dessert — shaped by her years in Italian kitchens, her time under a Japanese-American chef, and her stint at an izakaya. The concept earned critical acclaim: New York Times critic Pete Wells praised her deft hand at balancing the two cuisines, and Kimika was named a James Beard Award semifinalist for Best New Restaurant in 2022.
Today, Lau oversees culinary operations for Ladyfish, a seasonal seafood restaurant in Portland, Maine, focused on celebrating Maine seafood simply and thoughtfully — paired, co-owner Jordan Rubin notes, with flavor profiles distinctive enough to surprise even seasoned diners.
Bonus: Experts from Napa’s Louis M. Martini Winery, best known for its cabernet sauvignon, will be onboard to host tastings, wine and menu pairings, and offer engaging educational sessions.
