One Bright Spot onboard Our MSC Divina Cruise – The Butchers Cut Specialty Restaurant Review!

I know a few readers who are die-hard MSC fans have not been thrilled over my frank review of our recent MSC cruise but the advantage of not accepting sponsored trips as a travel blogger is I can be 100% honest in my reviews. So far we have covered:

• Boarding: MSC in Miami uses the old NCL terminal and it was a mess. <-Read more
• Balcony Cabin: Dirty, old and filled with cigarette smoke each day.
• Service: So hit and miss it became almost funny (in a sad way).
• Food: So disappointing I was told many times “please don’t order that”
• Specialty Restaurants: Only two “real” ones – what gives?
• Drinks: There is one bar that has drinkable wine – just one!
• Drinks 2.0: Pay retail (not the difference) sucker if not on your package.
• Entertainment: Ever see a 25 minute show in the main theater?
• Seating: From sports bar to venues to deck – just why so bad?
• The Guests: The worst of Europe in four languages.

Not exactly a ringing endorsement so far but there were a few small bright spots that made the cruise better and one of them was the stunningly good Butchers Cut specialty restaurant.

As newly minted MSC Diamonds, due to our status match, we each got $50 onboard credit. We used them to pay for a package for $70 that included a visit to the steak restaurant as well as the sushi specialty (we don’t like raw fish but for the price we tried that too – more on that later).

We were really excited about this visit and desperately hoping the food was better than the swill that was being served in the main dining room.

The menu certainly looked impressive but at the same time the main dining room menus wove a yarn of amazing things to come only to be let down over and over and over.

We were taken care of by the same simply amazing young man, Marvin who we met on the first day of our cruise who was so kind and took the time to help book our first visit to this restaurant. Let me tell you he was as good as any server I have had on any cruise including many visits to the NCL HAVEN restaurants.

We started with a shrimp cocktail and we were assured it would be nothing like the one in the main dinging room and boy what a striking difference (see MSC can serve shrimp with the poo removed). The photo above is actually of the second visit as the first round the shrimp were served on a bed of ice cubes – while visually striking it made eating them a real pain so next round we ordered them again without the cubes and it was a perfect appetizer as you can see. Num!!!

One of the days my wife chose not the shrimp but a salad for the appetizer and it was very good and a proper size as again you can see from the photo. So far so good. What is next?

Not only was the steak we ordered beautiful but the option of many sauces and coarse salt was just perfect. Oh and compare this real loaded baked potato to the one in main dining? (no don’t – just don’t)!

The filet mignon was one of the best I have ever had. It was near perfect in flavor, a perfect medium, and cut like butter. My mouth could not believe I was on an MSC ship and eating this perfection! (then again for a $50 upcharge one would think it should be good right vs. what I already paid for all meals included in main dining with my ticket price).

Our stunning server even took the time to walk outside the restaurant (only a few steps away) to the wine bar to get our favorite red wine that was simply excellent. Again just tops from the moment we walked in to the last bite of ice cream to end a stunning night.

As a “meatitarian” I also simply loved the beef themed everything inside the restaurant. If you like steak you will – like me – fall in love with this restaurant onboard.

As mentioned we returned here a second time because we were so “graciously” gifted another night due to our cabin being uninhabitable for the better part of 5 days but to me it is sad that we only had 3 nights of decent dining out of 11 and what it cost us to have those 3 good meals! – René