Slogging down the Amazon or breaking ice in Antarctica? The gourmet meals are on Malcolm Green
Photos: Elchanan Kotler, Personal archives
When caterer Malcolm Green and his wife Diane made aliyah nearly four decades ago, he faced a tough market with little appreciation for his high-end talents — until he realized that wealthy glatt-kosher vacationers in the most far-flung places want more than field rations. It wasn’t long before he added ocean cruises to his portfolio, and today, whether it’s on the sandy shores of the Carribbean, slogging downstream on the Amazon, or breaking ice in Antarctica, Malcolm is there with five-star service
From serving birthday cake in an ancient Scottish palace to perfectly plated duck confit on a luxury cruise ship in the Amazon, 75-year-old riverboat chef Malcolm Green isn’t showing any signs of turning down the steam. In fact, he says he’s just getting the engine revved up.
As co-owner and master chef for Kosher Riverboat Cruises, he’s literally traveled the world; but while his passengers are out exploring exotic ports — from the sun-drenched beaches of the Caribbean to the icy shores of Antarctica — Malcolm Green is doing what he does best: running a glatt kosher kitchen in the far-flung corners of the globe.
Despite the picturesque scenery and luxurious surroundings, Malcolm prefers the insular world of the galley. “Yeah, I don’t see much of that,” he says, referring to the cerulean waters and sandy shores that others rave about. “I’m in the kitchen. That’s my office. The ship’s out there, the guests are luxuriating, but I’m working.”
Well, maybe that’s true for the actual week of the tour, but getting all that fresh, mehadrin food onto the boat in far-off locations is often an international project in itself.
But that doesn’t scare him. For the past three decades, Malcolm has been at the forefront of international kosher expeditions. Years before he established his cruise business, he launched a company that brought kosher food to private parties and tours in some of the most unlikely places.
“I once catered in Disney World for a Satmar chassid and his family,” Malcolm relates. “And then, since we were already in Florida, we were asked if we could cater for a group in Jamaica that would be arriving the following Sunday. So I went to the butcher in Boca Raton and asked him if he could deliver the meat to Jamaica. He agreed, and I thought, ‘That was easy enough.’ Our plan was to fly from Miami to Jamaica that next Sunday, except that when I opened my emails after Shabbos, I found an urgent message: Apparently, customs in Jamaica had destroyed all of our meat. Every single package. Because someone hadn’t filled out the proper forms. But since there’s no option for panic in the catering business, I immediately changed the menu to fish for the first day, ran out and bought some hard-shelled suitcases and met the butcher at the airport, where we filled my suitcases with meat and loaded them through the baggage drop. In Jamaica, as I held my suitcases that now had condensation running down the sides, the customs official asked me what was in my bags.
“Scuba gear,” I said, and they waved me through.
Out of the Oven
Malcolm Green didn’t just fall into kosher catering — it’s in his blood. Born into a food-loving family in 1950, he was steeped in the flavors and traditions of the kosher kitchen from a young age. His grandfather was the landlord of the Crown and Angel pub in Whitechapel, a staple in East London. Meanwhile, his father worked in catering, running a food bar at London’s Yiddish theater.
But Malcolm’s early career trajectory was anything but straight. He recalls how in the 1970s, he took over the kosher catering at the last kosher hotel in Brighton, The Kings, as a favor to his family, as his aunt had been managing the hotel for 20 years. In the 1940s, there were dozens of kosher hotels and boarding houses in Brighton, but this was the end of the era. Five years later, the hotel closed, and Malcolm became the main kosher caterer for the city. It was hard work, but it seemed that he was destined for a life behind the kitchen doors.
Yet Malcolm’s story truly begins with a bold move: his first attempt at aliyah to Israel in 1983.
“But you know, Israel wasn’t ready for top-tier catering at that time,” he remembers. “I had been focusing on the Israeli market and that market was hypercompetitive, plus it was a bad time financially. I sold everything I’d invested in and returned to the UK with £1,000 in my pocket.”
He and his wife, Diane, with their two-year-old son and baby daughter, had to start over.
“Diane was incredibly strong,” he remembers. “She went right back to her job in medical insurance and supported us, while I stayed home with the children and sent out over a thousand letters telling all of England that I was back and looking for work.”
Malcolm ended up starting a kosher Meals on Wheels for the elderly.
“I’d pack up the double pram: babies on one side, food piled high on the other, balancing our way through deliveries,” he says.
That tided them over for several months; all the while Malcolm was building up contacts for his eventual comeback.
“I’d made the mistake of not looking toward the Anglo market the first time, but I was better prepared the second time around,” he says. And so, in 1989, Malcolm, Diane, and the children made aliyah once again. This time, they would cater for the Anglos. And the Anglos were welcoming and enthusiastic.
“We had been headhunted while in England to come settle in the northern town of Maalot,” Malcolm shares. “There was a social service organization that was in charge of this whole flock of teenage boys from Ethiopia, who had been rescued in one of the operations. As a dad with social work training and as an experienced hotel manager, they felt we were qualified to assist.”
The boys of Maalot would help Malcolm with deliveries and errands for his fledgling on-the-side catering business. “They were warm and friendly and we loved them,” Malcolm says, remembering how they would come to him looking for asimons — pay-phone tokens — in order to make phone calls.
After two years, the Greens bid the boys and the Galil goodbye and moved to the more centrally-located city of Netanya, where they tried to boost their business. It took time for their name to get out there, but they doubled down and lived frugally while they built up their food contacts.
Slowly, Malcolm’s reputation spread, and he found himself becoming the go-to caterer for Anglos in need of reliable, high-quality food for their simchahs. The Green family settled into life in Israel, this time their roots taking hold as Malcolm began to make a name for himself in this discerning market.
“We did every type of event, be it a bris, a wedding, a bar mitzvah, 900-people banquets and embassy dinners,” Malcolm says. “If someone needed kosher food for an event, I gave it to them.”
Nothing Too Far
As Malcolm’s reputation grew, word spread to friends and relatives beyond Israel’s borders, and he started catering for wealthy clients vacationing in spots all over the world.
His first global event came with a call he received from a past client, an Englishman living in Israel, who wanted his 70th birthday party in an ancient castle in Scotland. “He was thinking of having the party on a yacht, but his kids didn’t get along with each other, and he said he was afraid they’d try to drown each other,” Malcolm says dryly. “He was kidding, of course, but it did give me an incentive to make a really nice party and do my share in keeping the peace.”
He was once asked to cater for a party of 11 who were touching down in Barbados on their private jet from South Africa on the way to L.A. for a short visit. Could he provide gourmet meals for them for two days on this Carribbean island, both on the way and on the return flight? Green, who never balks at a challenge, was happy to comply, for the right price. The following week he flew to Barbados, where he kashered a section of one of the fancy hotels and catered for the group, both on the outbound and on their return.
That client was so pleased with the service that he hired Malcolm to cater for two weeks on their family vacation in Mauritius.
After a few more similar events, seeing that he could break into this niche market, Malcolm launched what he called Kosher Services Worldwide, a company that would bring kosher food to some of the most unlikely corners of the globe.
International events meant that Malcolm had to quickly hone his ability to adapt and handle pressure in the face of unexpected challenges. He recalls a wedding originally planned in the Bahamas that had to be relocated to Key West after a hurricane destroyed the original venue. Despite the last-minute change, Malcolm and his team pulled it off — shipping in all the food, kashering the kitchen, and delivering a wedding meal that impressed even the most discerning guests. At another wedding that was originally scheduled for the Cayman Islands off Cuba, the hotel at the last minute wasn’t able to operate, so Malcolm quickly found an alternative option in Key West, which proved to be an easier venue. Malcolm chuckles at the memory of that particular event: Most of the guests had never been to a traditional Jewish wedding before, and devoured the pre-ceremony snacks and shmorg, down to the last crumb. They hadn’t realized that a full dinner would be served later.
He was once mistaken for a thief by a chef he’d hired in a distant locale, as he was unloading supplies; and he even found himself stepping in as the officiant at a destination wedding (the couple was already married by law, but now wanted to arrange a halachic marriage, and the rabbi they hired missed his flight).
With his success in the international tourist market, it wasn’t long before Malcolm added ocean cruises to his portfolio — an industry that was just beginning to recognize the need for kosher options.
Upstream
The challenges of keeping kosher on the high seas are immense. The kitchens are small, the equipment is often inadequate, and yet Malcolm never compromises.
“The equipment on board is sometimes laughable,” he admits. “But we make do. We bring our own utensils when we can. You can’t just rely on what’s on the boat — that’s not the way it works when you’re cooking glatt kosher.”
For five years, Malcolm was employed as the kosher executive chef on the cruise ship Marco Polo. “During Pesach,” he says, “the ship we catered on hosted a Reform group and served kosher chickens. The group wanted the Pesach experience, too, so the ship’s chef decided to make matzah balls for them, but they kept collapsing, and no one could figure out why. When I came on board for a kosher cruise of ours, they showed me the packets of instant mix. Unfortunately they had been using falafel mix by mistake.”
Cruise ships are like entire cities on enormous boats, carrying up to 3,000 passengers, and kosher catering on a cruise ship consists of cordoning off a “Jewish section” amid an entire existing universe.
Malcolm recalls a particular challenge in his early days of kosher catering on ships. “One time,” he says, “I told the sous-chef to make sure the chicken wasn’t salted too much because kosher meat is saltier by nature. Well, I took a wing out of the oven to taste it and had to spit it out — it was full of salt. We had to boil the whole batch in sauce just to make it edible. That’s the kind of thing you learn along the way.”
It was on a cruise about ten years ago that he met David Lawrence, a travel agent and US-based business partner; together they started what they called Kosher Cruises Enterprise, a kosher cruise division, and that segued into Kosher River Cruises — exclusive kosher riverboats rather than a “kosher section” on giant cruise ships. Unlike other kosher Jewish cruise programs that take place on larger ships — where several dozen kosher passengers share a vessel with thousands of other guests — Kosher River Cruise tours host from 50 (expeditions vessels) to 140 (established waterways) guests on a 5-star luxury vessel reserved exclusively for glatt-kosher vacationers. With the new business taking up most of his time, he now limits international destination vacation catering to large parties and more limited times.
“Everything on our kosher riverboats is geared toward a religious atmosphere,” Malcolm explains. “Religious travelers are no longer relegated to a corner. The entire dining room is ours. On Shabbos we sing Shalom Aleichem, Eishes Chayil, zemiros, and bentshing.”
Malcolm’s company offers a diverse array of destinations, most of them focusing on European waterways. Their itineraries include the Danube River, with stops in cities such as Budapest, Vienna, Bratislava, and the Wachau Valley; the Rhine River, with explorations of Jewish communities in Germany, France, and the Netherlands; and cruises along the Seine and Rhône rivers, including stops in Lyon, Avignon, and the beaches of Normandy. But he also does cruises along the Mekong River, journeying through Vietnam, Cambodia, and other sites in Southeast Asia.
On a recent cruise, 14 of the passengers were return customers, a testament to the strong sense of community in a industry where there’s often very little Yiddishkeit.
The logistics of running kosher kitchens on the water can be daunting, but Malcolm has built a system that works. For starters, his team brings everything along — six pallets of food including kosher meat, fresh vegetables, and accessories like an extra oven, Shabbos urns and warming trays, and even the chafing dishes. He oversees every detail, down to the smallest knife and carving station insert. For logistic convenience, he often stores equipment in various locations around the globe.
“We have our own equipment stored in places like Austria and Manaus, but sometimes have had to buy new gear for a trip,” he says.
On Europe-based cruises and other events, Malcolm’s team would ship all their kosher goods from Golders Green in London and then drive into Europe. They’d fill a 40-ton truck with meat, vegetables, and kosher supplies in a finely-tuned operation, with everything sourced from the highest quality suppliers.
“We had it down to a science,” he says. “The butcher was there, the baker just down the road, and the wine merchant in Wembley. The driver would pick up everything, load it up, and be on his way. A £50 note here, a £50 note there. Everything ran smoothly.”
But then came Brexit, and the old system came to an end. With new challenges in customs, tariffs and supply chains, it became too complicated to take food out of the UK into Europe, so Malcolm had to adapt quickly and find new suppliers.
“We moved storage to Austria and began sourcing food in Budapest,” he says. “Pastries and chocolates now come from Paris. One of the biggest challenges is the massive amount of fresh fruit and vegetables we use, particularly for our elaborate salad bars. On a recent cruise to the Mekong, everything had to be flown in from abroad, with the help of the Chabad rabbi, piggybacking on the shipping containers of dry food he receives. We’re currently planning cruises to Japan and Antarctica, which come with immense logistical hurdles.”
The food had to be fresh, mehadrin — all meat is glatt kosher, dairy products are chalav Yisrael and baked goods are pas Yisrael — and meeting the expectations for a discerning international clientele who are paying top dollar for a luxury, as well as an immersive educational and meaningful vacation. Each tour has a rav hamachshir and additional rabbinic and educational staff in addition to entertainment.
“On these ships, it’s not just about the food; it’s about the experience,” Malcolm explains. “We’re catering to Jewish families who want to enjoy the same kosher standards they have at home, no matter where in the world they are. One client, a Mexican, came up to me and said, ‘I have to tell you I own a five-star hotel in Mexico and the food here is better.’ ”
Malcolm says that in addition to tailoring a theme menu to each destination, there are certain staples his guests have come to expect. Everyone loves the French onion soup, and another favorite is Diane’s lemon meringue pie. Either she makes it herself, or she oversees the production so no guest will leave pie-less.
Every Connection Counts
Catering kosher meals around the world isn’t just about cooking — it’s about navigating complex logistics and handling the unexpected at every turn. Whether it’s a cruise from Panama to Costa Rica or sourcing ingredients from Hungary to Thailand, Malcolm Green’s business is as much about adaptability as it is about food.
One of his most recent ventures was catering a cruise from Panama to Costa Rica. While the scenic beauty of Central America was the draw for passengers, for Malcolm and his team, it was all about the logistics and the guests. They worked closely with local kosher supermarkets in Panama, spending around $62,000 to source ingredients for the trip. But it wasn’t just about the money.
“We really hit it off with the folks at the kosher supermarkets in Panama.” Malcolm relates. “They invited us for Friday night dinner, and it was such a beautiful gesture. You build relationships like that, and they last.”
One time, a boat they were scheduled to use on the Danube River was unable to sail due to low water levels. Instead of letting the situation ruin the trip, Malcolm called in a favor from a hotel in Vienna, bringing in his team and cooking for the passengers there for one night. “It cost us €25,000, but we had to do it,” he says. “The passengers would not have been happy if we didn’t find a solution.”
From vendors to local communities, every connection counts when you’re running a global kosher catering business.
“We work for six months on just one menu cycle, constantly adapting everything from kashrus requirements to how we bring in equipment. Without a strong relationship with headquarters, we’re essentially dead from the start,” Malcolm relates. “One partner we chose not to use couldn’t accommodate a cruise in India due to meat restrictions conflicting with their beliefs, but his son came on board with his new bride to visit even though we didn’t use that partner’s services. Our partners go out of their way to help us because they know we do everything possible to minimize problems. For an upcoming cruise on the Lower Danube, they’ve gone above and beyond — providing all necessary contacts and even sending staff so our team can visit sites and build connections. It’s a true partnership built on mutual respect.
Where’s the Cream?
When preparing for a cruise, Malcolm’s days start early, often by 5 a.m. On the first day, the galley is kashered by three rabbanim, who also help bring in the necessary equipment. Once the guests are on board, Malcolm begins preparing breakfast at 5:30 and continues working straight through lunch. After a short break, he returns to set up for tea and begins dinner prep, which keeps him busy until dinner ends around 8:30.
He oversees a team of 12 chefs, nine of whom “come with boat,” plus three of his own crew, one who is an expert on kosher meat. And nothing leaves the galley unless Malcolm has tasted it first. “My most important tool,” he says, “is my teaspoon, to take a little taste of everything.”
Very rarely has he tasted something and had to call it.
“If something isn’t perfect, it needs to be taken off menu,” he admits, but qualifies that, “I trust my own chefs completely. I have great respect for them.”
Each of these cruises takes up to two years of planning.
“We’ve already been working on the next one for a year, and there’s still another year to go,” Malcolm says. “And while the hard work pays off, there are still moments that make you question all the effort you put in — like the time we were in Manaus in the Amazon. We shipped our equipment from London — only to find out, too late, that the shipper routed it through Miami without telling us. When it arrived, customs in Miami demanded an unexpected extra payment, and I told them to just leave it. We flew into Manaus, went straight to a local wholesaler, and ordered brand new equipment on the spot. The new equipment turned out to be excellent, and we received everything within half an hour. But this is a very remote place, and don’t ask how we turned somersaults to get kosher meat, produce, and other food there. One of our guests asked for cream in her coffee, and when I explained that it was one of the few items we weren’t able to procure, she said, ‘If I’d known that, I wouldn’t have come.’ ”
Malcolm’s riverboat itineraries are inspired by his past experiences catering on other cruises — Tahiti, Alaska, the North Cape, Vietnam, Bali, the Philippines, Antarctica twice, and the Greek islands. On those first few trips, their kids came along.
“My son was pre-army then and went ashore wearing a cap,” Malcolm remembers. “We told him, ‘Whatever you do, don’t speak Ivrit — don’t let them know you’re Israeli.’ But then he heard a vendor call out, ‘Bo, heinah hachi zol [Come, here I have the cheapest prices]!’ ”
Today, though, the atmosphere is more charged. Malcolm’s team had organized a cruise in France, just a few months into the war in Gaza. Safety concerns were high, and Malcolm took extra precautions by arranging for armed guards to accompany the guests ashore. They also worked closely with local authorities, ensuring that every step of the journey was carefully coordinated. “We had our own armed guards, and we always inform the local authorities. You have to be careful, especially with everything going on in the world right now.”
Food for Thought
So, who are the people who actually sign up for these luxury cruises? “It’s mostly retirees, about ninety percent American. But recently, we’ve seen more young people as well,” Malcolm says. “These guests are used to traveling anywhere as long as they have access to prepacked kosher meals, but what they really want is fresh, hot food and a genuine Jewish atmosphere. They don’t want to feel like a tiny part of a huge mainstream cruise. Here, when guests arrive, the first thing they ask is where they can daven Shacharis, not what breakfast options are available. And if someone misses weekday Krias HaTorah because of traveling, we offer Minchah leining on Monday to accommodate them.”
Over the years, Malcolm has learned that good food is only part of the equation.
“Creating an experience — one that’s seamless, memorable, and above all, personal — and the ability to bring people together through food, is what counts most.”
That’s one reason he’s always the first one on the site and rarely leaves his post. “The passengers expect the highest standards, and that’s what we deliver,” he says. And he’s not kidding. Here’s a sample of what’s on the menu for one meal in the upcoming Northern Italy cruise, scheduled for the end of October:
- Salad Bar and Starters: Couscous, egg salad, grilled vegetables, spicy carrots, coleslaw, fresh vegetable platter, fresh fruit platter, chicken liver pâté, cornichons, onion marmelade, vegetable caponata, Spaghetti Bolognese;
- Soup: Cream of pumpkin with apricot and ginger, chicken soup with dumplings and chives;
- Main: Salt beef, roasted breast of duckling, spare ribs, roasted fillet of halibut, pareve chili, roast chicken;
- Sides: Roasted stuffed potatoes, string beans, yellow zucchini;
- Dessert: Lemon meringue pie (the one the repeat customers have been waiting for), mixed fruit crumble, pareve custard, fresh fruit salad, pareve ice cream.
With such a selection several times a day, no wonder Malcolm never leaves the galley.
(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1074) https://mishpacha.com/meals-on-keels/
