The Wake on Virgin Voyages: Our Dinner on Resilient Lady

The Wake ended up being one of our best dinners aboard Virgin Voyages' Resilient Lady.

Located at the aft of the ship, The Wake is Virgin Voyages' take on a classic steak and seafood restaurant, but the setting is a big part of the experience. The restaurant spans two levels, with a dramatic staircase leading down into the dining room and huge windows overlooking the ocean at the back of the ship.

There were four of us at dinner, and while we each ordered what sounded good to us, we shared bites so everyone could try different things. Two of us may have gotten a little more ambitious with our ordering than the others, which meant we ended up trying a pretty impressive amount of the menu without every person having to order every dish.

Entering The Wake

The Wake feels different from the other restaurants we visited aboard Resilient Lady. You enter from the upper level and descend into the dining room, with the sweeping staircase, wood, brass, and lighting creating much more of a classic steakhouse atmosphere before you even reach your table.

Inside the Dining Room

The dining room is upscale without feeling overly formal. Warm lighting, wood tones, cream seating, and gold details give it an elegant look, while the large windows keep the restaurant connected to the ocean outside. I especially liked the multi-level layout because it gives the restaurant more character than one large, open dining room.

Dinner With an Ocean View

The Wake sits at the back of the ship, and those huge windows overlook the wake and open ocean. We arrived while the sun was still shining across the water, and over the course of dinner, we watched the sun begin to set and the sky gradually get darker. We even watched a beautiful thunderstorm off in the distance, with lightning lighting up the sky over the water. You can see some of the lightning we watched during dinner in this video.

If you're eating at The Wake, I highly recommend trying to get one of the tables near the aft windows if at all possible. And if you can time your reservation so you're there before sunset and get to watch the evening unfold over the water, even better.

Watch Our Full Video Review of The Wake

Want to see more of our dinner at The Wake? You can also watch our full video review, including a look around the restaurant and everything we tried during dinner.

What We Ate at The Wake

The Wake's dinner menu includes starters, seafood, steaks, lamb, chicken, sides, sauces, and a few premium Treat Yourself selections. With four of us at the table sharing bites, we were able to try many of the dishes on the menu.

Starters at The Wake

We started with several of the starters from the menu, along with the Parker House rolls brought to the table.

Parker House Rolls

These rolls were so damn good. They arrived hot and fresh with whipped herb butter, and between the soft bread, melted butter, and salt on top, I could have eaten my weight in them.

A couple of people at the table had been snacking before dinner, so they didn't want to fill up on bread, and one of my travel partners doesn't like salt on her bread. That worked out pretty well for me because I basically had the rolls to myself, and I ended up eating almost the whole thing.

Clam Chowder

The clam chowder was delicious. It had both clam and shrimp in it and plenty of seafood flavor without having that overly fishy taste that seafood can sometimes get. It was creamy, rich, savory, and really well balanced. I love seafood, and this was exactly the kind of chowder I like.

Corn Custard & Black Bean Salad

The corn custard and black bean salad was another really savory dish. It was completely different from the chowder, but both had that satisfying savory quality that I really enjoyed.

Roasted Bone Marrow

This was my first time trying bone marrow. I'd heard quite a bit about it and had heard that it was supposed to be good for you, so when I saw it on the menu, I figured this was as good a time as any to give it a shot.

Unfortunately, this was probably the one dish of the night I really didn't care for. The texture was gritty and grainy to me, and it didn't have a lot of flavor. It was on the bland side, really.

I'm glad I tried it because now I know, but this isn't something I would order again.

Duck Terrine

I am not a duck person. I've tried duck prepared several different ways over the years, and I've never really liked it because the duck I've had has always tasted very gamey to me.

One of my travel partners ordered the duck terrine, so I tried it, too.

And it wasn't bad.

I wasn't crazy about it, and I wouldn't order it for myself, but it didn't have that gamey flavor I've always experienced with duck before. For me, that's saying quite a bit. The person at our table who ordered it really liked it, so if you already enjoy duck, this may be one worth trying.

Steaks, Seafood, & Main Courses

We tried several of The Wake's main courses, including steak, lamb, seafood, and chicken, which gave us a pretty good look at the variety on this part of the menu.

Filet Mignon

The filet mignon was really delicious. I ordered mine medium, and it came out exactly the way I wanted it, nice and pink inside, tender, and with plenty of flavor.

The steak at Pink Agave was my favorite steak of the cruise, even though I'm normally more of a filet mignon person than a ribeye person. But the filet at The Wake was a close second and was really delicious in its own right. I would absolutely order it again.

New Zealand Lamb Chops

Lamb isn't something I usually choose when I'm ordering dinner, but I do like it, and these were pretty good. The lamb was tender, juicy, and had plenty of flavor.

With all of the different meats and seafood we were able to try, I liked having the lamb in the mix because it gave us something completely different from the steaks, chicken, and seafood.

Caramelized Sea Scallops

I've had some unfortunate experiences with scallops in the past where they were chewy and tasted fishy. I've also had good scallops since then, so I know that's not how they're supposed to taste.

These were good scallops.

They were tender, tasted fresh, and didn't have that overwhelming fishy flavor at all. If you've ever had badly prepared scallops and wondered whether you just don't like them, a well-prepared scallop can be a completely different experience, and these were what scallops should be.

Pan Roasted Salmon

I love salmon, so I had pretty high expectations for this one. It was okay, but I thought it could have used a little more flavor. Some more garlic and butter, or even a little more seasoning, probably would have given it the extra flavor it needed.

Herb Roasted Chicken

The herb roasted chicken was okay, but it was pretty bland. I expected more flavor from something described as herb roasted, but it really could have used more seasoning.

And if you've already watched my video and heard me pronounce the H in "herb," yes, I know how to say herb. I had put the name of the dish on the screen and was reading it while recording my voiceover, and for whatever reason, that's how it came out. I didn't even realize I'd done it until after I had uploaded the video and was watching it.

So yes, I acknowledge my faux pas, but at that point I decided to leave it alone. I wasn't going back to fix the whole video over one mispronounced word. Keeping it real, I left it in for your enjoyment and for anyone who wants to pick on my pronunciation.

The Sides at The Wake

There was a good variety of sides to choose from, and we tried several of them..

Bacon Wrapped Twice Baked Potato

My husband makes twice-baked potatoes for me at home sometimes, and his are really, really good, so this one had some competition.

The Wake held its own.

The bacon wrapped twice baked potato was just as good as the ones he makes at home, which is probably about the best compliment I can give it. It was rich, loaded, and exactly what I wanted alongside a steak.

Brown Butter Roasted Wild Mushrooms

I ordered the brown butter roasted wild mushrooms as one of the sides to go with my filet mignon, and they complemented the steak really well. They had plenty of flavor and were exactly the kind of savory side I like with a steak.

Grilled Artichoke With Saffron Garlic Aioli

I also ordered the grilled artichoke with saffron garlic aioli to go with my filet mignon. Between this, the mushrooms, and the twice-baked potato, I was very happy with my side choices.

The artichoke had a lot of good flavor, and all three sides went really well with the steak.

Dessert at The Wake

We didn't exactly show restraint when dessert came around, either. Between the four of us, we tried all five desserts on the menu.

I've had a hard time ranking the restaurants we ate at on Resilient Lady. Pink Agave was my favorite, but after that, it gets a lot harder because we had so many really good meals. The desserts at The Wake, however, I can rank.

From my least favorite to my favorite: Apple Tatin, The Wake, Coconut Panna Cotta, Baked Alaska, and Meyer Lemon Cheesecake.

Apple Tatin

This was my least favorite of the desserts.

It wasn't bad. It just didn't have a lot of flavor compared with everything else we tried. With caramelized apple, almond financier, and mascarpone cream, I expected it to have a little more flavor than it did.

It was okay, but with four other desserts to choose from, this would be the one I'd skip next time.

The Wake

The Wake is the restaurant's namesake dessert and combines chocolate mousse, shortcrust, caramel cremoso, and hazelnuts.

I'm just not a big chocolate-dessert person. I do like dark chocolate, and I love chocolate and caramel in my coffee, but when it comes to dessert, chocolate usually isn't what I gravitate toward.

I still thought it was good, but it wasn't one of my favorites. If you're a big chocolate-dessert person, though, you'll probably appreciate this one more than I did.

Coconut Panna Cotta

The Coconut Panna Cotta was really good. It was light, fresh, and creamy, and the fruit worked really well with it.

My only issue is really just personal preference. I tend to like desserts with a little more substance to them, but I still really enjoyed this one.

Baked Alaska

The Baked Alaska was really good.

The only other time I'd ever had Baked Alaska was at Bigfire at Universal CityWalk, so I was really curious to see what The Wake's version would be like. Bigfire is an open-fire restaurant, and their Baked Alaska is flambéed at the table, so they literally set it on fire.

The Wake's version wasn't flambéed. It has pistachio ice cream, hazelnut sponge cake, and toasted meringue, and I really liked it. It was different from the version I'd had at Bigfire, but it was still really good.

Meyer Lemon Cheesecake

This was my favorite dessert of the night.

The Meyer Lemon Cheesecake had this really creamy center with a crunchy outer shell, and I loved the combination of sweet and tart. Oddly enough, I hate lemonade. I don't really like any kind of lemonade. But give me a good lemon dessert, and I'm all in.

The berries on the side were the perfect complement to that sweet-tart lemon flavor. This was another dish I could have happily eaten my weight in.

Is The Wake Worth It on Virgin Voyages?

Our Overall Experience

Absolutely. The Wake ended up being one of my favorite dinners aboard Resilient Lady. Pink Agave was definitely my favorite restaurant of the cruise, but after that, ranking the rest of them gets a lot harder. We had so many really good meals that it was difficult to decide which restaurant belonged in second, third, or fourth place. If I had to put them in order, though, I think The Wake would probably take that second spot.

And that's saying quite a bit considering how much we enjoyed the food throughout the cruise.

We tried a lot of different things at The Wake, and while there were a few dishes I thought were lacking or simply didn't care for, most of what we tried was really good. When you're able to sample as much of a menu as we did, you're bound to find a few things that aren't necessarily for you. I don't want those few dishes to overshadow how much we enjoyed the meal overall because there were also quite a few things I absolutely loved and would order again.

There were plenty of things I would happily order again, including the clam chowder, filet mignon, lamb chops, scallops, mushrooms, artichoke, twice-baked potato, Parker House rolls, and definitely the Meyer Lemon Cheesecake.

The setting makes the experience even better. Between the two-level dining room, upscale steakhouse atmosphere, and those aft-facing ocean views, The Wake feels like somewhere you go for a special dinner.

One of the things I really like about the way Virgin Voyages handles dining is that restaurants like The Wake are included in your cruise fare. I've had plenty of really good food that's included on other cruise lines, but typically, if you want to step up to the more premium steakhouse or specialty restaurant experience, you're going to pay extra for it.

Virgin does have a few premium Treat Yourself selections that cost extra, but you don't have to order any of them to have a premium meal. The filet mignon, lamb chops, scallops, sides, desserts, and everything else we tried from the regular menu were all included. You're getting the kind of restaurant and food experience that would often come with an additional specialty dining charge on another cruise line without having to pay extra for it.

Would I Eat at The Wake Again?

Absolutely.

On another Virgin Voyages sailing, The Wake would be one of the restaurants I would want to book again. And after having the chance to watch the afternoon turn into sunset and then evening from those aft windows, I'd absolutely try to time dinner around sunset again.

Pink Agave may have taken the top spot for me on Resilient Lady, but The Wake certainly wasn't left in its wake.

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