Virgin Australia Lounge Brisbane Food and Nutrition Review

It is about time I flew Virgin domestically in Australia as it has been many years since I’ve stepped on a Virgin Australia plane. As a Qantas frequent flyer you will usually find me travelling in Australia on Qantas, which is why (along with Covid) it has been so long. I know many of you, my frequent flyer followers, fly on Virgin, so I thought it about time I reviewed their new food offerings. And a great place to start exploring their new food offerings was with a return business class flight from Melbourne to Brisbane where I was able to check out the Virgin Australia Lounge Brisbane.

So how is the food in the lounge? Is it a challenger to its domestic competitor Qantas?

I would say yes, the lounge food is snapping at Qantas’ heels but it isn’t quite there yet. I feel the lounge sits between the Qantas Club and Qantas Business Lounge (domestic) and so a direct comparison is tricky. While there wasn’t anything fancy about the food, the offerings were solid. A couple of things I didn’t love about the lounge where I did miss having a hot food option (other than soup) and the wraps were premade when I prefer to make my own wraps/sandwiches. However to be honest, the hot food options in Qantas domestic lounges at the moment can be very disappointing so they aren’t doing much better on that front either.

Here are two of the main offerings in the Virgin Australia Lounge Brisbane for lunch: wraps and a salad.

What’s Healthy?

• Nice to see a cheese board offering both a hard and soft cheese, and dried fruits. There were also water crackers on offer to go with the cheese. I liked how the cheese board was available during lunch hours and not just as an afternoon snack. This means if you didn’t feel like a heavier meal in the middle of the day then there was still a nutritious option available. It would be better if there had been wholegrain crackers available alongside water crackers.

• Really great to see a bowl of salad and a bowl of mixed leaves served with dips and dressing for flavour. The salad on offer was a Mexican salad which included corn, quinoa, and mixed salad leaves. Quinoa is a great addition to salads as it is a source of protein and fibre, both of which help keep you feeling full. This can be good for travelling as it may help you not be as tempted to snack mindlessly on the plane.

• A bowl of fresh fruit is always a tick in my nutrition book. Fresh fruit is a good bundle of fibre, vitamins and phytochemicals which all help keep us healthy. This bowl seemed to contain only apples so a bit of work to go here in terms of offering variety as not everyone loves apples or can eat them. Eating a rainbow of fruits and vegetables is very beneficial for health so if you visit this lounge frequently then try to eat a range of fruits if they are on offer.

• The wraps were one of the main dishes in the lounge with 3 flavours on offer: Chicken Pesto, Ham and Salad, and Cheese and Salad. This was great as there were other options than just ham (processed meats). Processed meats are commonly found in lounge buffets, especially in sandwiches/wraps and should be limited to once a week.

• The Minestrone soup was fairly chunky, however I did feel it tasted a little on the sweet side. Good to have a tomato based soup with vegetables on offer and not just cream based soups.

Not so great. Caution.

• While I have placed the wraps in the ‘Healthy’ section, I have also placed the ham wraps in the ‘Caution’ section. This is because regular consumption of processed meats, such as ham, is not recommended due to additives such as salt and nitrates. While having ham occasionally is not an issue, if you are a frequent flyer and ham is a regular feature on the airport lounge menu, then it is best to choose other flavours for sandwiches and wraps. Have processed meats no more than 1-2 x/week, which also includes bacon and salami as well as ham.

• If you follow me on Instagram and Tik Tok you will know I can’t stand sandwiches, rolls or wraps which have barely any filling in them, especially salad/vegetables. Without a decent amount of filling, sandwiches and wraps are basically just bread, which can provide a lot of refined carbohydrate without much fibre or protein. These wraps contained a fair amount of filling, with ham, cheese or chicken filling most of the entire length of the wrap (there wasn’t just a small amount of filling at the front of the wrap which is always deceiving). However, on average there was only a small amount of salad in each wrap. An example is the chicken pesto wrap below, which when unrolled it had 2 half slices of tomato and a few baby spinach leaves. This does not even add up to 1/2 serve of vegetables. If you visit this lounge frequently and only eat wraps then it may make it hard for you to reach the recommended 5 serves of vegetables each day.

• Chips (crisps) are an ultra-processed food and considered a discretionary food, which we should limit in our diets. They can be very tempting to eat as a snack at the end of the day before jumping on a plane so try not to choose them often (as once you start it can be hard to stop). Along with the chips there were also two flavours of Cretzel snacks which also are considered a discretionary food and should be limited.

Last word from travel food and nutrition review for Virgin Australia Lounge Brisbane.

Overall I would say a decent lounge offering from Virgin that is competitive. Nothing special, but it had a variety of foods that I would say most people would be able to find something to eat. There were some nutritious options available which was great to see however if the types of foods on the menu don’t change much then I feel flavour fatigue would set in really quickly if you are a frequent flyer with Virgin. Say there are always wraps, soup and cheese available, even with flavour changes I can see how it could get very repetitive.

I look forward to trying the Virgin Australia Lounge Brisbane again to compare the food choices and see what sort of variety in dishes there is.

For more information on my visits to airport lounges, don’t forget to follow me on Instagram and Tik Tok. And I always love hearing from you so if you want personalised advice or consultancy services please reach out.

NOTE: All pictures of Virgin Australia Lounge Brisbane are my own and I review a lounge from just the foods and menu I see during my visit. There may be different options available at other times.