Celebrity Apex Dining Review – Best Bites Onboard, in Spain, Portugal, & London

This is the ninth and final post about our first European vacation. We booked a repositioning cruise aboard the Celebrity Apex, which would depart from Barcelona, Spain, sail west through the Straits of Gibraltar, stopping in Portugal, first Lisbon then two nights in Porto, with a final stop in La Coruña, Spain, before disembarkation in Southampton, England. You can follow along from Barcelona Day 1 – Exhilarated & Snacky or check out the entire collection of trip reports.

Eating, some other things, and more eating

This is not just a Celebrity Apex dining review, but a contemplation of all the eats in which we indulged, both onboard that wonderful ship as well as before and after our time on the Mediterranean sailing. We spent two days sightseeing, shopping, eating and drinking in Barcelona before boarding the Apex, on which we did a lot of eating and drinking. The ship stopped in Lisbon and Porto, Portugal as well as La Coruña, Spain, where we once again saw sights, shopped, and ate a bunch. Finally, we disembarked in Southampton, England and spent two days in London where we, you guessed it, walked around a lot… and also shopped, saw the sights and dined.

We did also eat a pretty big meal at Gatwick airport before flying home, but we’ll set that aside. Eating is a common theme in all our trip reports, and it was a common theme across all these cities and on the cruise. In this short post, we’ll rate our Food Favs.

What’s up with the categories

A word about the categories. There are appetizers and there are tapas, but they are not the same. Appetizers are single-course starters before an entree, whereas tapas are small, shareable Spanish dishes that can be a snack, a starter or even an entree. The only reason for making this distinction is because we ate lots of awesome appetizers and tapas and wanted an excuse to rank them separately.

Speaking of tapas, we had so many of them that they’re categorized by the meal they were part of. Likewise for desserts. We also separately ranked lunch and dinner entrees to give the port cities their fair shot, since we were onboard the ship for dinner on port days.

The Food Favs

Here are the rules. There aren’t any. Sometimes both of us liked the same thing best, sometimes not. Sometimes we felt obliged to pick a runner-up, sometimes we didn’t stop there. Rona wants you all to know that this can be like choosing a favorite child, which as everyone knows is impossible, most of the time. Let’s get on with it!

Starting with drinks, cocktails or otherwise:

• Both – Create your own Old Fashioned at Craft Social aboard the Celebrity Apex. We each had our own favorite, but being able to choose your own ingredients was fabulous.
• Rona’s runner-up – Bloody Mary at the Martini Bar aboard the Celebrity Apex. It’s not a martini, but it is Rona’s go-to cocktail.
• Jay’s runner-up – Martinez (martini) at the Martini Bar aboard the Celebrity Apex. I only remember liking this a a whole lot, but not why.
• Rona’s honorary mention – Fresh orange juice at Mercat de La Boqueria in Barcelona. This ruined all other orange juice for both of us. Also, there’s a few fresh juice stalls to choose from, and I’m sure each is great. There are also excellent juice stands at Mercado do Bolhão in Porto, Portugal, but the juice in La Boqueria was a revelation.

Next up we present anytime or just-a-snack tapas:

• Both – Jamón ibérico and cheese in a paper cone at Mercat de La Boqueria in Barcelona. Much like the aforementioned market juice situation, there are options. Watch a youtube video, read a review, or just pick a place that looks good to you. We watched the videos and read reviews, walked all around the market, and then because we were hungry for our first bite in Barcelona, just picked one that looked good. Jamón ibérico is so very delicious.

• Runner-up (both) – Boiled octopus at Mercat de La Boqueria in Barcelona. It was coated with olive oil and parsely and freaking amazing. There was tons of it and it cost less than $10. Once again, there are multiple stalls that offer freshly cooked seafood, so pick one that looks good to you.

While we’re on the tapas topic, how about tapas for lunch?

• Both – Razor Clams at Puertocillo by Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. This was our first time eating razor clams, and could not get enough. We really liked Puertocillo, because you pick the fish from the case and they cook it to your specification.

• Rona’s Runner-up – Tomato bread w/ basil, tomatoes & anchovies at Meson As Cavas in La Coruna. It was simple. It was delicious. It was free! It also goes great with local beer.

• Jay’s Runner-up – Grilled Octopus at Puertocillo in Barcelona. We ate a lot of octopus on this trip, and I loved how Puertocillo prepared it with olive oil and paprika.

We did, on occasion eat a non-tapas meal, starting with lunch entrees:

• Rona – Highland Scramble (scrambled eggs with smoked salmon) at The Parlour inside Fortnum & Mason in London (Piccadilly). This was our first proper meal in London after disembarking the ship early in the morning. This would be our first experience with the vividly orange scrambled eggs of London, which apparently was not our imagination and based on the chickens’ diet being different in the U.K. than in the U.S. Rona described this meal as f’ing delicious.

• Jay – Arroz del Pulvo (Octopus Rice) at Restaurante Adamastor in Lisbon (Belém). I did say we had a lot of octopus, and this one with the rice was a winner.

The Celebrity Apex won for dinner appetizers, a.k.a. “starters”:

• Rona – Lobster Cocktail at Fine Cut Steakhouse aboard the Celebrity Apex. It was fresh and full of flavor, went nicely with the fruit, and most importantly, it was lobster.

• Jay – Jumbo Lump Crab Cake at Eden aboard the Celebrity Apex. I said it in the trip report covering our meal at Eden. This was flat out the best crab cake I’ve ever had.

We did have tapas for dinner as well:

• Both – Spanish omelette with garlic shrimp at Estel de Gràcia in Barcelona. Our only regret is having eaten this last, since we were quite full. But we forced ourselves and were so glad we did. Garlic shrimp can make most things better, and it made this Spanish omelete the very best it could be.

• Runner-up (both) – Toasted bread, tomato spread, jamón ibérico at Estel de Gràcia in Barcelona. Maybe it was the 80’s music playing in the background or just maybe it was how gorgeous this looked and how much we like jamón ibérico. Either way, this was so good.

The Celebrity Apex won again for dinner entrees:

• Rona – Lobster Casserole at Eden aboard the Celebrity Apex. First, lobster. Second, absolutely everything at Eden was phenomenal, both food and service.

• Jay – Filet Mignon & Mini Short Rib Wellington at Eden aboard the Celebrity Apex. Normally, Beef Wellington is made with beef tenderloin, from which filet mignon is cut. But not here. The combination of buttery filet mignon with the rich tastiness of the short-rib was a winner.

Onto the first dessert category, breakfast dessert (credit to Cruise with Ben & David)

• Both – Scone with clotted cream and jam at the Tower Cafe in London. This was our very first bite in London after disembarking early that morning in Southampton. It was also my first time trying this quintissential British snack, and first time with the butter-like clotted cream. There’s something unique about dining al fresco beside a 650+ year old royal jewel tower.

And then there is the kind of dessert you eat between lunch and dinner:

• Both – Pastéis de Belém at the Pastéis de Belém Bakery in Lisbon (Belém). We had fresh Pastéis de Nata in Porto and they were great, but sometimes you find yourself secretly picking one child as your favorite, but just for that moment. That moment was standing outside Jerónimos Monastery discovering how much better these custard tarts are with cinammon and powdered sugar liberally sprinkled on them.

• Runner-up (both) – Churros and chocolate at Farggi Plaza del Rey in Barcelona. Churros. Thick, hot chocolate you can drink but you should really dip and eat all the churros first. What could be bad? Wandering the narrow streets of Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter, we knew we wanted to try this popular treat, and were thrilled that Google Maps helped us locate it.

For our final category, we give you dinner dessert:

• Rona – Butterscotch Crème Brûlée at Eden aboard the Celebrity Apex. We had a lot of dessert on the ship, and this was her stand-out favorite.

• Jay – Aztec Chocolate Tarte at Eden aboard the Celebrity Apex. This was dark, rich, and deeeelicious.

• Jay’s Runner-up – Double Chocolate Brownie at Fine Cut Steakhouse aboard the Celebrity Apex. Okay, I do like chocolate, because I am a living person. And when they make it in brownie form, throw some vanilla ice cream next to it, and cover the whole shebang with chocolate and caramel sauce, what is a living person supposed to do? The only reason it did not win outright is because I have had a lot of brownie sundaes in my time on earth, and it is rare that they are anything but delicious.

Bonus Questions

If we returned to any of these cities – Barcelona, Lisbon, Porto, La Coruna, and London – where would we definitely return to dine once more? For a sit down meal, we would absolutely re-visit Estel de Gràcia in Barcelona. Our second choice would be to eat our way around Mercat de la Boqueria in Barcelona.

If we could dine at just one specialty dining venue on a pre-2025 Celebrity Edge-class ship (Edge, Apex, Beyond, Ascent), it would be Eden, hands down. However, our next cruise will be aboard the newest Edge-class ship, the Celebrity Xcel, which debuts in November, 2025 (we’ll be aboard!). On this ship, the new Mosaic restaurant replaces Eden. Who knows, maybe Mosaic will be as good or better than Eden!