Chef Michel Chevalier has a boss who likes sweets that are on the healthy side. It sounds like a cooking conundrum—especially for a 50-year-old French chef who was classically trained in the Great Age of Butter—but Chevalier makes it work, and work deliciously well. As the head chef aboard the 177-foot Feadship Hurricane Run, Chevalier adapts recipes and portion sizes to suit whatever the charter guests desire. That includes offering the boss’s favorite chocolate sorbet, which is made with 15-percent sugar compared with the 40- to 50-percent sugar found in traditional recipes—and which tastes 100-percent fantastic.
“I joined the yachting industry in 1989, and one day, I thought, ‘What if I were eating this food every day?’” Chevalier says. “I thought about quantity and flavor.”
That type of thinking, of always putting the guest first, is what has kept Chevalier in the charter industry for so long. He first met Hurricane Run Capt. Emile Coetzee back in 1992, and they have worked together aboard a number of yachts since, always earning a reputation for providing some of the finest service and cuisine in the entire yacht charter industry. In April 2013, Chevalier will celebrate three years aboard_ Hurricane Run_, including the handful of days that I had the pleasure of staying onboard and enjoying his cooking in late 2012.
Table settings, wine selection, portion sizes, quality of ingredients — all of it is impeccable aboard Hurricane Run. Charter clients won’t find over-fluffed place settings or over-layered plates of food on this yacht. Instead, they will enjoy the elegance of simplicity and perfection. Chevalier’s confidence and decades of experience come through on every plate. Each distinct bite is cooked to perfection, and the food is presented in a delicate way that allows the flavors to speak for themselves.
“My specialty is sourcing produce and ingredients,” Chevalier says. “If you have bad rice, you will never make good sushi. When you source good produce, it is very hard to make it bad. You have to work a long time to make good produce bad, and I don’t have that much time.”
Hurricane Run has several weeks of charter availability remaining through April 2013 in the Caribbean, where Chevalier will be in the galley delighting clients no matter what their personal tastes are. The yacht is expected to return to the Caribbean for the winter 2013-14 charter season, as well, and is currently accepting inquiries.
Look for our full-length feature in an upcoming issue of Yachting, and contact management company Camper and Nicholsons International for booking details.
Where is Hurricane Run today? Track her by AIS:
