Rojo by Razzle Dazzle is the Spanish restaurant on Brilliant Lady, and it is on Brilliant Lady only. Order the jamon iberico, the pulpo and the patatas bravas, and think hard before you order the chorizo.
I dined at Rojo six nights in a row until we had worked through every single item on the menu. Between us, JC and I have eaten there about fifteen times.
We also disagree about a lot of it, which is useful for you. Where we disagree, I will tell you both sides and let you pick.
Everything below is included in your cruise fare except the one treat yourself item and the alcohol. So the real question is not what it costs, it is what is worth the space in your stomach.
What Is Rojo by Razzle Dazzle?
Rojo by Razzle Dazzle is the Spanish restaurant on Brilliant Lady. It is not on Scarlet Lady, it is not on Valiant Lady, and it is not on Resilient Lady.
That is deliberate. Virgin Voyages is moving toward a different dining experience on each lady ship, which is why Scarlet Lady got Lucky Lotus and Brilliant Lady got Rojo.
The format is tapas. Sharing is the whole idea, the plates are small on purpose, and you are meant to order several.
Here is the part first time sailors get wrong most often: all of it is included in your cruise fare. There is no specialty dining fee on Virgin Voyages the way there is on other cruise lines.
The only two things you pay extra for are the single treat yourself item, which is the seafood paella, and alcohol.
And because it is included, you can order as much as you want. If you want ten orders of the gambas, they will bring you ten orders of the gambas. Nobody is counting.
Book Rojo First, and What to Do If You Did Not
When your dining reservations open, book Rojo first. It is the newest restaurant in the fleet, everybody on board is excited about it, and it is the hardest table to get.
If you did not get a reservation, you are not out of luck. Walk-ins work, but only at the edges of service.
Go right when they open or close to when they close. If you roll up at 7:15 or 7:30 in the evening, forget it, and that is true of any restaurant on the ship.
Now the tip most sailors never think to use. If they are full, ask whether they can seat you somewhere other than a standard table.
At Rojo there are two options. There is the bar area at the back, which is not always open, and there is the lounge space, which most people assume is only a waiting area. JC and I have eaten dessert in that lounge and it was lovely.
Restaurants naturally assume you want a proper table, so they will not offer these. You have to ask.
The Menu, Section by Section
The menu runs in four savory sections, then desserts, and knowing the shape of it makes ordering much easier.
Jamon y quesos. Six items. Your cured meats and cheeses, and the smallest plates on the menu.
Tapas. Five items. Still small, still meant for sharing, and this is where a few of the best things live.
Platos grandes. Five items. The big plates, and none of them are small portions.
Treat yourself. One item, the seafood paella, and the only dish on the menu that carries an upcharge.
Desserts. Five to choose from, and they are not the same as the brunch desserts. More on that below.
There is also a Sip and Savor option, which pairs a recommended drink with a dish and costs less than buying the drinks separately. You can swap the dishes and add more on top of it.
One last thing worth knowing. Rojo has its own cocktail and wine list, unique to this restaurant, the way all six restaurants do.
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What to Order: Start With the Small Plates
Jamon iberico. Order this one. It is the single dish JC and I both put at the top, and we agree on almost nothing.
It looks almost too simple on the plate: ham and marcona almonds, and that is it. It is genuinely delicious, and it is not a small portion. Grab some ham, grab a few slivers of almond, and you will understand immediately.
Patatas bravas. This is the one that surprised me most. I would never order potatoes at a restaurant, and I do not eat potatoes often.
I tried them here and they were insanely good. Crispy, and the flavor is right and tight. They are now my number two dish on the whole menu, and JC put them away just as fast.
If you are nervous that everything here is spicy, it is not. You will see a lot of red sauces and pimenton aioli on these plates, and none of it read as spicy to me, and I do not eat much spicy food.
Jamon croquettes. Delicious, with roasted garlic and a porcini aioli that has a real mushroom flavor. I love mushrooms, so I started asking for that aioli on the side and putting it on other things.
Oxtail montadito. Comes as two pieces, and I am calling it a must order. Caramelized onion, cheese and oxtail on crostini, fired in the oven.
It is heavy, and honestly it does not look very pretty on the plate. Order it anyway. The amount of time they put into stewing that oxtail down shows up in the first bite.
Gambas en escabeche. Shrimp with fennel and red pepper, and it arrives as just two pieces. Simple and a really nice flavor.
JC’s honest take is that it needs more sauce. Mine is that the small portion is the point, because it leaves room to try more. This is one to order if you like clean, simple seafood, and to skip if you want something saucy.
Conservas. A nice array of preserved items, and not a small portion. This one depends on whether you like goat cheese and beets, because the smoked goat cheese is forward.
The roasted cauliflower is also worth your attention. I was not excited when it arrived, and the golden raisins are what make it, along with lemon, brown butter and almonds.
The Pulpo, and the Dishes We Completely Disagree On
The pulpo is my favorite thing in the tapas section, and JC does not like it at all. So you are getting both sides of this one.
It is a beautiful piece of grilled octopus on a brown butter potato fondue. I assumed the fondue was mashed potato the first time it came out. It is not, and it is very rich, because there is a lot of cheese in there.
I did not share this dish. Not once, across six nights.
The steak tartare is the other one worth talking through, and it is one of JC’s two standing orders.
If you like beef tartare you will like this. It is beautifully served, it is a good portion, and it comes with a perfect egg yolk on top.
JC removes the egg every single time, with a level of precision I have described on camera as surgical. If raw egg is not your thing, you can simply lift it off.
The one thing I genuinely wonder about is the potato chips on the plate. Chef Justin told me they are his interpretation of authentic, approachable Spanish dining, and I respect that.
I still think a sailor who has not read the story behind the dish may not understand why chips are there, and I would not be surprised if that element gets elevated to something else later. JC, for the record, does not like potato chips at all, which I find hard to accept.
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What to Order: The Big Plates
None of the five platos grandes are small. Order one between two of you unless you skipped the tapas.
The grilled ribeye. My pick of the big plates. A lovely cut, served with charred shallots and a chorizo sauce that pulls the whole thing together.
The baby back pork ribs. JC’s standing main, and he thinks it will be the most ordered dish in the restaurant. I think it is a tie between the ribs and the ribeye.
Here is my honest caveat. The ribs come with a harissa honey, and that flavor is genuinely unfamiliar to me. I am Filipino, harissa is not in my cooking, and I had a harder time with it than JC did. The meat itself falls off the bone.
The cider braised chicken. I do not order chicken when I am out, and I really enjoyed this one. Beautifully presented on short grain rice, with the chicken juices running through the rice, and it is not a small portion.
The Arctic char. Crispy skin, bright salsa verde, artichokes on the side. There is a sweetness to it that I could not place, so I asked Chef Levi: it is lemon zest rolled in sugar.
Use this tip on any fish on the ship. When they ask how you want it prepared, ask how the chef prefers it. For this one the answer is medium, and medium is how you should eat it.
The calabaza asada. The vegan option, a roasted butternut squash with romesco and a green cilantro and parsley sauce that I loved. Be warned that it is heavy and it is not a small portion.
On that note, if you are vegetarian or vegan, Rojo is better for you than the complaints in my inbox suggest. Between the calabaza, the roasted cauliflower, the watermelon and sesame cream, and the nutty gazpacho, there are real options here.
The Seafood Paella Is the One Upcharge Worth Paying
This is my favorite dish on the entire menu, and it is the only one that costs extra.
It is a proper paella, with a large portion of Maine lobster and a uni aioli over the top. The value on it is genuinely hard to argue with for the amount of seafood you get.
It is a big dish. On a hungrier night I would put the whole thing away by myself without help.
The misperception I want to clear up about treat yourself items generally: sailors assume they exist because the rest of the menu is thin. That is not it. There are 17 included savory dishes on this menu. The paella is there for the night you actually want to treat yourself.
What to Skip, or at Least Think Twice About
I am not going to pretend every dish landed. Four of them come with a real caveat.
The chorizo. This is the one I would steer you away from, and I gave it more than one try. The medjool dates bring sweetness, the chorizo brings spice and depth, and then there is cheese and a vanilla note on top of all that.
Too many things happening at once for me. The flavors never came together, and it is the only savory dish on this menu I would not order again.
The queso. I love cheese and I have mixed feelings about this one. Several Spanish cheeses are mixed together, the goat cheese flavor dominates, and the romesco gives it a color that surprises people when it arrives.
Worth trying if you are a cheese person. Skip it if strong goat cheese is not for you.
The flan. It has goat cheese in it. That is going to be a hard no for some sailors and a delight for others, and I suspect it will divide people the way the blue cheese dish at Test Kitchen does.
The passion fruit sorbet. A nice flavor with a sour edge, and not sweet enough for me. If you like a tart dessert this is your one. If you like dessert to taste like dessert, order something else.
One thing that is not a complaint, just something to expect: the same dish can look slightly different from night to night. A slivered almond instead of a whole marcona, a bigger onion on top, a different cut on the potato. Same dish, same portion.
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The Desserts, Honestly Ranked
Get the cheesecake. It is the one I expect to be most popular and JC picks it over everything else. Lovely portion, creamy in exactly the right way.
It has a burnt layer across the top that puts some people off on sight. You do not taste burnt. Try it before you decide to cut the top off.
The arroz con leche is my personal favorite, and JC took one bite and stopped. It is a rice pudding with coconut and a bruleed, crispy top.
I am Filipino, so rice and coconut for dessert tastes like home to me. What stopped JC was the cinnamon, so that is your deciding factor.
The churros, with one important warning. These are Spanish churros, not Mexican churros, and people assume a churro is a churro.
Mexican churros are rolled in cinnamon sugar and very sweet. I grew up in San Diego, so that is the kind I love. Spanish churros are fried bread that is not sweet, served with a dark chocolate dip rather than milk chocolate.
They are correct for the restaurant, and they are not what you are picturing. Still try them, and it is a generous portion.
And the Razzle Cake is still on the menu, which was a relief. It is so sweet it makes my cheeks suck in, which is exactly why I love it. One catch: it is brunch only.
Rojo Brunch Is Still Razzle Dazzle Brunch
This is the biggest misperception about the restaurant, so let me settle it. Sailors see a Spanish dinner menu and panic that brunch is now Spanish too, and that their eggs and waffles are gone.
They are not. Brunch is the Razzle Dazzle brunch you already know, with a few items swapped out for Rojo dishes.
You still get the bacon. You still get the scrambled eggs and the waffles. JC has had brunch there twice and ordered nothing but standard Razzle Dazzle breakfast both times.
What came over from the dinner menu: the jamon croquettes and the roasted cauliflower under the starters, the calabaza butternut squash under the mains, and the churros under desserts.
What left: the avocado toast. I am from California and I did not like it anyway, because it was very citrusy.
If you are vegetarian, brunch is where Rojo quietly shines. Four of the six mains are vegetarian or vegan.
Two last brunch notes. The desserts at brunch are not the dinner desserts, which trips people up constantly. And only two of the six restaurants serve brunch at all: The Wake and Razzle Dazzle.
The Design Is Muted On Purpose
If you loved the original Razzle Dazzle look, brace yourself, and if you found it too loud, you are about to be very happy.
I have heard one thing loud and clear from you for years: a lot of sailors could not stand the colors in the original Razzle Dazzle. Too fun, too loud, too much.
Rojo is muted, and the same thing happened with Lucky Lotus on Scarlet Lady. They did not just tone it down, they warmed it up. Softer, more inviting, more elevated.
The details are where it shows: the soft seating, the flatware, the plates. Shout out to Jamie and Aaron, who did a lot of work reimagining this space.
They also removed 24 seats to add a lounge area. It reads as a waiting space, and it is a genuinely nice place to sit and have dessert.
And the music is right. Proper Spanish music in the room, which does more for the Barcelona feeling than any design choice in here.
The food comes from Chef Justin, whose own restaurant is in Pittsburgh and who is rarely on board, along with Chef Nate and Executive Chef Levi. What Chef Justin is going for is approachable, authentic Spanish cooking rather than a fine dining interpretation of it, and once you know that, the menu makes more sense.
Rojo by Razzle Dazzle FAQ
What ship is Rojo by Razzle Dazzle on?
Brilliant Lady only. It is not on Scarlet Lady, Valiant Lady or Resilient Lady.
Is Rojo included on Virgin Voyages, or does it cost extra?
Included. There is no specialty dining fee. The only extras are the seafood paella treat yourself item and alcohol.
What should I order at Rojo?
The jamon iberico, the patatas bravas and the pulpo from the small plates, the grilled ribeye from the big plates, and the cheesecake for dessert. If you are treating yourself, the seafood paella.
What should I skip at Rojo?
The chorizo with medjool dates is the one I would not order again. Approach the queso and the flan carefully if strong goat cheese is not for you, and skip the passion fruit sorbet if you like sweet desserts.
Can I walk into Rojo without a reservation?
Yes, if you go right at opening or close to closing. Prime time around 7:15 in the evening is not realistic. Ask about the back bar area or the lounge space if the dining room is full.
Is Rojo brunch Spanish food?
No. Brunch is the standard Razzle Dazzle brunch with a few Rojo items swapped in. Your eggs, bacon and waffles are all still there.
Are there vegetarian options at Rojo?
Yes, more than sailors expect. At dinner the calabaza asada is vegan, and the roasted cauliflower, watermelon with sesame cream and nutty gazpacho are all options. At brunch, four of the six mains are vegetarian or vegan.
Can I order more than one of the same dish?
Yes, as many as you like, at no extra cost. The plates are small on purpose. If you want ten orders of the gambas, ask for ten.
So, Is Rojo on Virgin Voyages Worth Booking?
Yes, and it is the reservation I would make first on a Brilliant Lady sailing. Six nights in a row through the entire menu and there are only four dishes I would steer you away from, which is a better hit rate than most restaurants manage on land.
What makes it work is how simple the best dishes are. The jamon iberico is ham and almonds. The patatas bravas are potatoes. Neither should be as good as it is, and there is a lot of beauty in that simplicity.
If you are picking a Brilliant Lady sailing and want help getting the dining, the cabin and the deal right, that is what we do all day. Ask us, and we will tell you straight.
