Jamie’s Italian onboard Royal Caribbean: Any good?
That’s right, ‘Jamie’s Italian’ isn’t a brand new, innovative restaurant concept. Yes, I hadn’t seen this on a cruise ship prior to my first time cruising with Royal Caribbean, but I had actually dined in this brand of restaurant in the centre of Glasgow some years prior! If you don’t recall this brand ‘on land’, Jamie’s Italian was a chain of Italian restaurants, which unfortunately met their demise in 2019 when they made the decision to close 22 outlets and axe around 1,000 jobs. On land, I did enjoy this restaurant, but I wasn’t hugely fussed by their closure - there are so many other decent Italian options, right?! To that end, the ‘at sea’ version of this restaurant would probably be decent and quite a ‘safe bet’ for a cruise line, but it wouldn’t be amazing, right? Well, let me tell you about my experience!
I dined at Jamie’s Italian onboard Royal Caribbean’s Symphony of the Seas when I was onboard in 2023. I didn’t have the highest of hopes for this one due to the aforementioned fact that I’d tried the chain before, but to be perfectly honest, I was completely blown away by my experience in here. One of my hopes for this website is that someone will find it useful for their future cruise planning - if you’re in the position of planning your future Royal Caribbean cruise as you’re reading this, PLEASE book an evening meal in this restaurant! Let me walk you through our experience…
Before we get to the food, let me tell you about the venue itself. The vibe in here feels almost exactly what the land-based restaurants did - informal and unpretentious dining is the overall feel in here, and it delivers on exactly this. Yes, this is a restaurant you’ll need to pay extra for on a Royal Caribbean ship (and it’s not overly cheap), but it’s got a much more relaxed atmosphere to some of the other fee-paying restaurants onboard. If you’d like to check out the physical surroundings before reading more of this post, all you need to do is head over to my YouTube ship tour, and jump forward to the point of touring this restaurant (15 minutes 10 seconds into the video!):
Ok, so let’s get started on the food. Here’s the menu that was given to us in Jamie’s onboard Symphony - I believe this menu is used fleet-wide, so you should expect something similar, regardless of which ship you’re booked to sail on:
The menu’s really simple to digest - it operates as a starter, main and dessert venue, so it’s really easy to navigate your order. I sometimes find these ‘pay extra’ restaurants on cruise ships can be a bit more fancy, where you’re trying to figure out what they want you to order. There’s also the option to finish your meal with hot drinks, or alcoholic liqueurs, as shown in the image above.
Now, I dined in Jamie’s with a group of solo’s - we all met onboard. We opted to have our own individual main courses, but to share some starters - that way, we could sample some of many options, rather than just sticking to one option for each (talk about having a fear of missing out…!). Here’s what we opted for as our shared starters:
Okay, you’re hopefully getting the picture - we ordered LOTS of food. In our defence, there were four of us at the table, and this meal was technically for research purposes so that I could tell you if it was any good, right?! Anyway, excuses aside, everything we ate for our starters was absolutely excellent - all so fresh, and some of the tastiest things I’ve eaten from Royal Caribbean (bold claim, I know!). My personal recommendation would have to be those Garlic Buns - LOOK at the colour of them - that alone should have your mouth watering…
Moving on to the Main courses, this is where I do need to ‘hold my hands up’ and make a confession - I ordered two Mains. One thing that I simply cannot resist from the world of Italian cooking is an Arrabbiata, and it just turned out there was one staring me in the face on this menu! That, doubled with my curiosity to try the ‘Super Salmon’ resulted in the waiter offering a double effort, which I obviously jumped at the chance to go for:
One thing that I should confirm now is that both of these dishes disappeared from my plate, which serves as testament to how good it all tasted. It also serves as a decent reasoning as to why I managed to put on some weight living mostly on cruise ships last year, but we don’t need to explore that right now…! Both of these courses were absolutely perfect, especially that pasta (but, take it from me, that’s a SPICY sauce they they’re using on there!).
After the Main Course (or, in my case, plural…), it was time to investigate what was on offer from a dessert point of view. In my opinion, the offerings on the menu (Chocolate Brownie, Banana Split, Lemon Cheesecake and Tiramisu) were a little predictable and non-exciting for an experience you’re paying a decent amount of money for, and so this was the course I was least excited about. However, the Chocolate Brownie came with ‘caramelised popcorn’, and so that was enough for me to take a punt. Here’s what arrived:
Okay, you’ve got me - this was absolutely excellent too. Whoever thought to pair a brownie with hot chocolate sauce, cold salted caramel ice cream and the novelty of caramelised popcorn deserves some sort of promotion - very good, indeed. That said, I do think that this part of the menu could be a little bit more adventurous - this felt a little like something I could pick up from a nice coffee shop, or maybe even the Windjammer buffet on a good day.
Finally, before we look to wrap up on this post, let’s talk pricing. With Royal Caribbean, it’s much cheaper to buy Speciality Dining packages before boarding your cruise - on Symphony, it cost about 30% extra per meal to book once you were onboard! Prior to the cruise, I purchased a 3-meal package, which allowed me to dine at Jamie’s, Chops Grille and also Wonderland, and this cost me £/$110. In my opinion, what we received at Jamie’s was well worth this price - look at the quality of food we got, and also how much we had! In short, if you’re considering doing these restaurants on your cruise, get it booked before you leave home!
Hopefully you’ve enjoyed reading about my experience at Jamie’s Italian onboard Symphony of the Seas. If you have, then please come and check out the experience ‘live at the table’ over on YouTube - the video link is below!
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