Star of the Seas Restaurants & Dining Guide

Start with Star’s included AquaDome Market, Basecamp, and Pearl Café, then add a specialty dinner only if that particular meal appeals to you.

Lincoln Park Supper Club is the special-occasion splurge, while the barbecue, Thai, and Latin American stalls make everyday lunches easy without a dining package.

If you only remember five Star dining tips, make them these

• Go to AquaDome Market hungry. Pig Out BBQ, Mai Thai and La Cocinita make Star’s version meaningfully different from Icon’s.
• Do not ignore Basecamp. It is complimentary on Star, so the top-deck burgers and pretzel bites are much more useful than a paid snack stop.
• Try Pearl Café before deciding you need another sit-down lunch. It is one of the best low-effort food breaks on Icon Class.
• Book Lincoln Park first if you want it. A small, performance-based supper club is harder to replace than Chops.
• Specialty dining is optional. Star has enough included variety that a package is only a deal if you already wanted those specific paid restaurants.

An easy AquaDome Market game plan

Make AquaDome Market one of the first lunches and deliberately order from more than one stall. The portions and food-hall setup make sampling easy, which is the entire advantage of the venue.

Pig Out BBQ is the first stall to test

Start with pulled pork or brisket at Pig Out BBQ, then see which sides and combinations are on the menu. It is a useful choice when your group wants something heartier than a sandwich or salad.

Share a portion if you want to sample several stalls. You can always return for a full meal once you know your favorite.

La Cocinita is the easy snack stop

La Cocinita is built around Latin American flavors, with empanadas, arepas and other handheld items. The empanadas are exactly the sort of food you want from a cruise food hall: enough to feel like you tried something, not enough to require lying down afterward.

Try an empanada or arepa as a small first order, especially when dinner is still several hours away. Check the day’s fillings if anyone has a dietary restriction.

Mai Thai gives Star a better savory range

Mai Thai brings pad thai, beef panang and other Thai-inspired dishes into the included lineup. That gives the market a completely different flavor profile from the Mediterranean, barbecue and crepe stalls, which is why Star’s food hall offers a broader mix than a list of five variations on comfort food.

Try it early in the cruise while you still have time to return. Finding your favorite casual venue on night seven is a uniquely irritating form of success.

Feta and the crepe counter are still very much worth your time

Feta Mediterranean remains one of the safest AquaDome recommendations, with bowls and pitas built around meats or falafel, vegetables, hummus and sauces. Crème de la Crepe handles sweet and savory crepes and is dangerously easy to justify as either breakfast, dessert or “I was just walking by.”

The other included venues you should actually build meals around

Basecamp is genuinely useful on Star

Basecamp is complimentary on Star, alongside Surfside Eatery, AquaDome Market, Windjammer, El Loco Fresh and Sorrento’s. That makes the burgers, pretzel bites and other quick top-deck food a much better option when your day revolves around Thrill Island.

This is the kind of venue to use because it saves 40 minutes of unnecessary ship-crossing. Lunch does not become more nutritious because you walked half a mile to obtain it.

Pearl Café is the useful all-hours option

Pearl Café has included snacks, pastries, and sandwiches around the clock on the Royal Promenade. It is a handy stop for early risers, late arrivals after a show, and anyone who wants food without a full sit-down meal.

Use it as your quick snack stop, but check the drink menu separately. Included food does not mean every specialty coffee or other beverage is free.

Surfside is for convenience, not culinary ego

Surfside Eatery and Surfside Bites are family-focused, with burgers, fries, popcorn chicken, pizza-style options, fruit, desserts and the ever-popular churros. Parents can feed children without leaving the neighborhood, and adults can stop pretending they do not want a hot churro too.

If your family is spending the afternoon in Surfside, eat there. Dragging everybody to the other end of a 250,000-ton ship for a supposedly better lunch is how vacations become staff meetings.

Park Café and Windjammer still have roles

Park Café remains the place for the classic kummelweck roast-beef sandwich, salads and a calmer Central Park lunch. Windjammer is the flexible answer for big groups and international variety, especially if you walk past the first familiar food and investigate the Indian and rotating regional stations.

Where it pays to pay extra on Star

Lincoln Park Supper Club is the obvious first reservation

Lincoln Park Supper Club is Star’s 1930s Chicago-inspired multi-course dinner with live jazz and paired drinks. The menu takes cues from historic Chicago dining, with dishes such as crab ravioli, lamb with morel and chanterelle mushrooms, and walleye with artichoke, parsnip and orange.

Book it for a special evening if the music, dressier atmosphere and long-form dinner appeal to you. Do not book it merely because it is the most expensive thing and therefore must be the “best,” which is not how restaurants or math work.

Capacity is small and the experience is synchronized, so reserve it before flexible restaurants. If you miss Chops at 7 PM, there are other steak times; if Lincoln Park is sold out, no amount of emotional bargaining with the app creates another jazz table.

Choose Hooked or Giovanni’s to match your group

Choose Hooked for seafood and Giovanni’s Italian Kitchen & Wine Bar for pasta, pizza, and Italian comfort food. Both are easier to justify when the menu is something your group actively wants.

For two paid dinners, choose Lincoln Park plus one of these and then stop to reassess. Star has too much included food to decide six months in advance that every evening deserves a cover charge.

Pier 7 is more useful than glamorous

Pier 7 serves extra-charge California-style food and all-day brunch in Surfside, including fish tacos and smoked salmon Benedict. Its main appeal is a relaxed plated meal close to the family activities.

Families who already spend time in Surfside may get more out of it than couples who would cross the ship solely to eat there. Context matters more than a universal ranking.

Chops and Izumi are good, but not automatically top priority

Chops is the predictable steakhouse choice, and that is both praise and warning. You know what you are buying, but Star has several newer dining experiences you should prioritize first unless somebody in the group specifically wants steak.

Treat Izumi’s sushi and hibachi formats separately when comparing menus, reservations, and package terms. Hibachi makes more sense for guests who want the chef’s performance as part of dinner.

Useful prices for paid meals

For a smaller specialty purchase, Royal Caribbean’s Izumi sample menu lists sushi rolls from US$14, pork gyoza at US$9 and a US$39.99 prix fixe meal with one small plate, two large plates and dessert. The PDF carries a May 2023 menu code and notes that 18% gratuity and itinerary-specific VAT may apply.

Use it as a published price baseline, then use Star’s own menu or checkout total for the amount you will pay.

The crispy shrimp roll is a useful cooked choice; the champagne lobster roll suits someone who wants a richer specialty roll. Gyoza works as a shared starter.

A single roll is the more sensible purchase for a snack, while prix fixe makes more sense for a full dinner. These sushi prices do not cover hibachi or a private tasting experience, and a sushi booking does not reserve a grill seat.

Lincoln Park Supper Club, Hooked and Giovanni’s use the offers for your booked sailing; a sample sushi menu cannot establish their dinner charges or the supper-club supplement. Compare the total for the meal and party you actually want, including currency, premium dishes and any supplement.

Royal’s package gratuity policy says prepaid dining packages include gratuities, while packages purchased onboard add 18%; compare the final totals rather than just the advertised discount.

Should you buy a dining package?

Price the restaurants you already plan to book, then compare that total with the package in My Royal Cruise. Do not start with the package and then invent enough meals to justify it, because that is the dining equivalent of buying 12 pairs of socks because the 13th was free.

Check the package exclusions, restaurant credits, and any supplements before buying; do not assume Lincoln Park Supper Club is covered by an unlimited package. Use the terms shown for your sailing when comparing the total.

A seven-night Star dining strategy

• Embarkation lunch: Pearl Café or Park Café if Windjammer looks like a convention hall.
• Night 1: Main Dining Room to see whether you enjoy the included dinner program.
• Sea-day lunch: Pig Out BBQ plus La Cocinita or Mai Thai at AquaDome Market.
• Casual afternoon: Basecamp while already near the top-deck attractions.
• First specialty dinner: Hooked or Giovanni’s.
• Big splurge: Lincoln Park Supper Club if the jazz dinner is your kind of evening.
• Family meal: Surfside food where the family already is, not where a spreadsheet says you should be.
• Final lunch: Go back to the AquaDome stall that won instead of completing the rest of the list out of obligation.

Star dining mistakes you should skip

• Assuming Star’s AquaDome Market is the same as Icon’s. Three stalls changed, and the difference matters.
• Ignoring Basecamp because you remember Icon’s mixed pricing. Star lists Basecamp as complimentary.
• Booking Chops before Lincoln Park when Lincoln Park is your actual must-do. Reserve constrained experiences first.
• Eating one thing at AquaDome Market and calling it done. The food hall is designed for sampling.
• Forgetting Pearl Café exists. It is one of the best low-friction food stops on the ship.
• Building a specialty schedule that leaves no time for included venues. That defeats one of Star’s strongest dining features.
• Trying to sprint from a long dinner to a show. Star is very large and the elevators remain stubbornly uninterested in your itinerary.

Star of the Seas dining strategy

Star’s food program is strongest when you treat AquaDome Market as a real dining destination and specialty restaurants as selective upgrades. The newer barbecue, Thai and Latin stalls make the included food hall more varied than Icon’s original version, and that alone changes how much paid dining you can book.

Spend on Lincoln Park for the full evening, Hooked or Giovanni’s for the meal, and then let the included venues carry a large share of the cruise. The result feels less like following a corporate restaurant checklist and more like actually eating on Star.

Continue planning with the cruise tips.

Keep planning Star of the Seas

Use the Star of the Seas deck guide with the things to do and entertainment guide so your dinner times make sense geographically. For room planning, compare the best cabins with the cabins to avoid.

If you are choosing between Star and another mega-ship, the Star of the Seas pros and cons is the next guide you can read. Food is one of Star’s easier strengths to use without paying extra, as long as you know where the good included options are.