The question comes after the price and before the dates, almost every time: what do you actually eat on a crewed yacht in Greece, and is it included? Americans ask it because the only yacht food they have seen is a cruise buffet or a bareboat galley, and neither is what happens aboard a crewed catamaran at anchor off Hydra at one in the afternoon. This is the honest answer, from the crewed yachts this house represents, the contract they are chartered under, and the official results of the two Greek charter shows where their chefs compete.
I am George P. Biniaris, Founder and Managing Broker of George Yachts Brokerage House, an IYBA Charter Active Member working to MYBA standard terms from a desk in Kifisia, Athens. I eat aboard these yachts more often than I eat in restaurants, and I keep a registry of their awards from the shows' own published results, not from brochures.
Is food included in a crewed yacht charter in Greece?
The cooking is included and the ingredients are not, and once you see how that works it is the better arrangement.
The base fee of a crewed yacht buys the yacht, the crew with their wages and their own food, and the insurance. The chef, or on the smallest catamarans the cook and hostess, is part of that crew: breakfast, lunch and dinner aboard are their job for the whole week, and no line on the contract charges you for the cooking. What you pay for is what goes on the plate: the ingredients, the wine, the water, the coffee, bought from the APA, the Advance Provisioning Allowance, which is your own money held aboard and reconciled against receipts at the end of the week. On a catamaran the APA runs 25 to 35 percent of the base, on a motor yacht 30 to 40 percent, and it covers fuel, berths and shore services as well as the galley. The APA explainer has the mechanics and the list of what a catamaran charter includes has every line.
Why it is better than a fixed menu: a family that eats simply pays for what it eats, a family that wants lobster twice pays for lobster twice, and the unspent balance comes back to you.
Who cooks on a crewed yacht, and what have they won?
On the yachts this house represents the crew runs from two to ten. Two crew means a captain and a cook who is also the hostess, as on EFFIE STAR; three means a captain, a chef and a stewardess or deckhand, the shape of most crewed catamarans; four and above means a dedicated chef with a stewardess serving, and on the 30 to 50 metre motor yachts a galley with a sous chef. The piece on crew roles explains who does what; the point here is that above three crew the person cooking does nothing else.
Then there is the question of how good they are, and for that I do not use adjectives. Every spring the Greek charter yachts gather at two shows, the EMMYS, the East Med Multihull and Yacht Charter Show, and the MEDYS, the Mediterranean Yacht Show, and their chefs cook for a jury in a formal competition with published results. Sixteen yachts on our list hold thirty culinary distinctions from those results, by name and year, and I keep them in the awards registry. The ones that matter most for your week:
- ABOVE & BEYOND, Sunreef 80: 1st Place Diamond in the Chef Competition at the EMMYS 2025 and 2023, 1st Place Platinum at the MEDYS 2022, and 1st Place Diamond in Tablescaping at the EMMYS 2026 and 2024. The most decorated galley on the list.
- ALENA, Fountaine Pajot Power 67: 1st Place Diamond in the Chef Competition at the EMMYS 2026, 3rd in 2024. Her table at anchor is the photograph at the top of this page.
- APHAEA, 2nd Place Diamond, Chef Competition, EMMYS 2026. SAMARA, 3rd Place Diamond, EMMYS 2026. AD ASTRA, 3rd Place Diamond chef and 1st Place Diamond tablescaping, EMMYS 2025.
- SAHANA, Bali 5.4: 1st Place Emerald in the Chef Competition at the EMMYS 2025 and 1st Place Emerald in Tablescaping in 2026, with a chef who cooks family style, everyone around one table.
- PI 2: 2nd Place Emerald chef and 1st Place Emerald tablescaping, EMMYS 2025. SERENISSIMA: 1st Prize, Best Dish, EMMYS 2024.
- MELITI, the only Garcia 86 in existence: 1st Place, Category A, at the MEDYS 2025 and 3rd in 2024. NOVA: 1st Place at the MEDYS 2024. AZUL: 2nd Place, Category A, MEDYS 2025. SAMELI: 3rd Place, Category A Platinum, MEDYS 2024.
- The water on the table is judged too: ELLY took 1st Place Diamond in the Designer Water competition at the EMMYS 2024 and 2nd in 2026, CHRISTAL MIO 1st in 2026, KIMATA 3rd in 2024.
Off the podium, the cards carry the training: KIMATA's chef is a Le Monde Athens graduate with twelve years in Greek creative cuisine, EXPLORION's chef has twenty two years across Greek and Spanish kitchens, LA PELLEGRINA 1's chef trained in a two star kitchen, and LIBRA's chef gives cooking lessons aboard, which food loving groups tell me becomes the week.
What does a day of meals look like aboard?
Breakfast on deck at about eight, where the yacht spent the night: Greek yoghurt and honey, fruit, eggs the way each of you takes them, bread from the last port, coffee from the machine the card lists. A swim, then a short passage, and lunch aboard at about one, at anchor, which is the meal the Greek chefs are best at: grilled fish or a plancha of the morning's catch, salads that are a meal, cheeses, the Pareaki salad that guests on PAREAKI II ask for again (gorgonzola, fig, hazelnut and crisp prosciutto, from her card). Dinner is either aboard, with the table laid on the aft deck as the light goes, or ashore in a taverna the captain knows, and the rhythm of aboard versus ashore is yours to set. The hour by hour account of a crewed day has the timings.
Three meals aboard every day is the norm and it is what the chef expects; the evenings ashore are the exception you choose, not the rule.
How does the preference sheet work?
Before the charter, usually with the final payment, the house sends you a preference sheet and the chef cooks the week from it. It asks the things that matter: allergies and intolerances, the children's breakfast, the wines you drink at home, how you take your coffee, the one thing somebody will not eat, whether the dinner on your anniversary is aboard or ashore. Fill it honestly and in detail. A chef who knows on Tuesday that one of the eight is pescatarian and another hates coriander provisions for exactly that in Athens before you board, and the week has no awkward table.
Dietary rules are handled the same way. A fully kosher week with supervised catering is achievable on the right yacht, and the kosher piece explains how; halal, vegan and gluten free weeks are a matter of the sheet and of confirming with the specific chef before you sign, which this house does. Where a yacht cannot do what you ask, I say so before the deposit, not in June.
What does the galley on a catamaran look like?
Smaller than you fear and better equipped than you expect. On the Fountaine Pajot 67s the galley is on the main deck, so the chef cooks beside the saloon rather than below it; MAJESTY OF GREECE has an upper level galley where you watch the chef work while the islands pass, and STEPHANIE, ALMA and SERENITY list the same galley up arrangement. ALENA, ELLY, APHAEA and CHRISTAL MIO carry a plancha on the aft cockpit, which is how the chef works at anchor; most of the list carries a barbecue. Water is made aboard on the majority of the catamarans, and ELLY, APHAEA, STEPHANIE and ALOIA list filtration that produces still and sparkling water on tap, with no plastic bottles. SOL MADININA carries an eighteen bottle wine cellar and two wet bars; the 30 metre motor yachts carry ice makers, wine fridges and galleys that would not embarrass a restaurant.
What a catamaran galley cannot do is feed twelve at a formal sitting with four courses plated hot; for that you are on a motor yacht with a crew of seven or eight, and the four couples price ladder shows where that money starts.
How much should you budget for food and drink?
Honestly, I cannot give you a food line on its own, because the APA is one account for fuel, provisioning, berths and shore services and the captain keeps it that way. What I can give you is the shape of it. On a crewed catamaran with a base of EUR 17,000, the APA at 25 to 35 percent is EUR 4,250 to 5,950 for the week, and because a catamaran at eight knots burns little diesel, most of that account is the galley and the berths. On a 30 metre motor yacht the fuel takes the larger share and the food is a smaller part of a larger number. Standard wine, beer and spirits come from the same account; a case of Champagne comes from it too, only faster. The unspent balance is refunded, so a week of simple lunches at anchor returns money.
Two things sit outside the APA: the meals ashore, which you pay at the table, and the crew gratuity, customarily 10 to 15 percent of the base at your discretion, which the gratuity guide explains.
Where do you eat ashore, and who pays?
You do, at the table, and the saving stays in your APA because the chef has not cooked that evening. The captain books the taverna: in the Saronic, the harbour front at Hydra or the fish tavernas of Poros; in the Cyclades, the one on the quay at Sifnos that has been there longer than the marina. The tender takes you in and brings you back, and the chef, having the evening off, is usually at the next table. Two or three evenings ashore in a week is the average on this desk; some families do none, because once they have eaten what the chef does with a grouper and a lemon they stop looking for restaurants.
Which yachts for a food first week?
The ones above, chosen by budget, with the base rates from their 2027 cards and the APA and VAT to add:
- From EUR 19,500 to 27,500 base: SAHANA, Bali 5.4 from 2024, four cabins for eight, a crew of three, family style cooking with an Emerald first place behind it.
- From EUR 20,000 to 26,900 base: AZUL, Lagoon 55, 2nd Place Category A at the MEDYS 2025, with a hostess who makes children feel like royalty.
- From EUR 31,500 to 42,500 base: KIMATA, Alegria 67, the Le Monde trained chef and Greek creative cuisine.
- From EUR 34,000 to 48,000 base: ALENA, the EMMYS 2026 Diamond winner, on a 2023 power catamaran that runs on solar and lithium.
- From EUR 56,000 to 77,000 base: ABOVE & BEYOND, Sunreef 80, the most decorated galley on the list and the tablescaping winner two years running.
- From EUR 98,000 to 115,000 base: PAREAKI II, 39 metres and a crew of eight, chef driven dining for twelve.
The Charter Index carries every card. Tell me the party and whether food is the point of the week, and the proposal will lead with the galley.
When is the food not the point?
Three honest cases. On a two crew catamaran the cook is also the hostess, and the cooking is good home cooking rather than a competition menu; EFFIE STAR at EUR 17,000 to 22,000 is a wonderful week for a family of ten who want a new boat, and I do not sell her as a chef's table. On a week long on passages, Athens to Santorini and back, the chef cooks under way and lunch at anchor becomes lunch on the move. And on a party of twelve who want a plated dinner every night, a catamaran is the wrong platform however good the chef; that is a motor yacht with a crew of seven.
If you have read this far, send me the party, the week and the three things your family will not eat, and I will send you three yachts whose chefs have already won something, with the all in figure beside each.
