Politics aside... where are the best places to eat at Disney World?

We are taking our 4 yr old daughter in Oct for the Halloween events.

On Property or off. Lots of places around the Theme Park area, you'd need transportation to off property, uber, cab, rentacar. This link lists places, when to go, how to reserve etc.


On Property

Link - Best places to eat at Disney


Rainforest Cafe Disney Springs

They also have a location at Animal Kingdom, so whichever location you wish to go, kids love it, foods good,

Make a reservation....

There's all kinds of different dining, your 4 year old daughter is probably going to like dining in Cinderellas Royal Table in her Castle, the top link lists all the Character dining experiences, so plan accordingly.


Nothing is inexpensive, make reservations, and have fun it's Disney.

quote:

Originally posted by gpbst3:
Politics aside... where are the best places to eat at Disney World?

We are taking our 4 yr old daughter in Oct for the Halloween events.

We are taking our 5yo in Sept for the same...

Youtube Disney Food Blog (DFB) has some great reviews on the restaurants, both quick service and sit down. Character meals, all that.

We started making some sit down reservations 60 days out, as the earliest you can make dining reservations, and they are almost immediately full. Crazy.

Given the current issues with Disney and their internal strife, I'd avoid them but, sounds like you've already committed funds to this trip. Are you looking for sit-down, fast casual or, counter service?

4yo, they can be super-fickle and moody, Disney isn't my first choice at that age but, they are impressionable. Cinderella's Table and Be Our Guest for theme'd dining for sure. Gaston's Tavern, which is a walk-up, used to be my favorite but, that was when they were still serving the roasted pork shanks.

EPCOT was always my choice for any good food, any of the French restaurants were super-solid, as is the Japanese Tepanyaki (Benihana style) restaurant.

Where exactly are you going? Disney is HUGE

We did The Magic Kingdom for 2 days in 2019 and ate at this place which I thought was good. They lost money on me with the peel & eat shrimp for sure!

The Crystal Palace

For adults, Morocco in Epcot.

Rainforest Cafe!

The first big question is where are you staying, on property or off.

One of our favorites is Steak House 71 at Disney's Contemporary Hotel. Good steaks and the price for it being a Disney restaurant are not bad.

The Turf Club at Disney's Sarasota Springs hotel. Once again good food and the prices for Disney are reasonable.

Ale And Compass at Disney's Yacht Club hotel. Same as above.

If you can get it 'Ohana At Disney's Polynesian hotel however reservations are extremely hard to get.

Chef Mickeys at the Contemporary Hotel. This one used to be a Character meal but I have not been in a while.

Whispering Canyon Cafe at Disney's Wilderness Lodge. They do two or three different kinds of all you can eat skillets to choose from.

For a nice kind of dress up dinner the California Grill on the top of Disney's Contemporary resort. It is a fixed price menu that you choose from. The best part if you can get dinner around the time they do fireworks in the Magic Kingdom you have a great view.

Beaches and Cream over at Disney's Beach Club Hotel is good. It is like an old fashion soda fountain.

If you like German food over in Epcot there is the Biergarten Restaurant. It is a German Buffet and the used to have entertainment while you eat.

At Epcot there is a great Restaurant in Italy called Via Napoli Ristorante e Pizzeria. The pizza was excellent

Down Town Disney has a place my wife and I ate at last week called the Polite Pig. It is BBq and if you like Bourbon they have a great Bourbon menu.

It has been many years but at the Magic Kingdom Tony's Town Square, its Italian.

These are just a few of the restaurants we have eaten at over the last few years.


Make sure you have the Disney app on your phone. Once you have an account you can check availability, look at the restaurant menus and make dinning reservations with it, along with a lot of other things.
There are also counter services restaurants all through out Disney at the parks and resorts.

For Disney Springs:
-Chef Art Smith's Homecoming for good fried chicken and southern dining
-The Polite Pig in Disney Springs for really good BBQ (We sometimes drop by on Sunday after church for this)
-The Boathouse for good seafood
-For kids: T-Rex and Rainforest Cafe

For Animal Kingdom:
-Flame Tree BBQ
-Yak and Yeti restaurant
-Tusker House
-Rainforest Cafe

For EPCOT:
-The San Angel restaurant inside the Aztec pyramid. Best place I've eaten on Disney parks.
-Various food carts. EPCOT has the best food selection, IMHO.
-Coral Reef restaurant (I liked it more than the wife)

For Magic Kingdom:
-Crystal Palace
-Be our guest
-Pinocchio's Village Haus (good flatbread pizzas and salads)
-Casey's Corner for chili dogs

Hollywood Studions:
-Hollywood and Vine (buffet)
-Mamma Melrose Italian food
-Ronto Roasters for Gyros
-The Brown Derby looks good, but I've never eaten there

Hope this helps.
https://disneyworld.disney.go....dining/#/sort=alpha/

Tony.

All dining will be on property.

Politics aside the trip and experience should be about the child having fun and memories generated by everyone.. Enjoy the trip.. .... drill sgt.

quote:

Originally posted by gpbst3:
All dining will be on property.

Have you decided on what resort you will be staying at? Depending on the resort you may have easyier access to other hotels/Down town Disney than others. For instance if you are staying at the Board Walk Resort you are within walking distance to two parks and 5 different hotels.
If you are staying at the All Stars most everything will have to be done by bus or car if you have one.

Will you have a car or are you going to rely on Disney transportation to get around the property?
The parks are easy to get to using the Disney transportation, getting from hotel to hotel can be a little tricky and can take a lot of time depending on where you are going.

Ohana is definitely one of our favorites!

Beaches & Cream Soda Shop at the Beach Club.

I think I remember one of the Sigforum family recently getting thoroughly poisoned by a restaurant at Disney. Avoid the place where he ate.

Be Our Guest in Magic Kingdom is a must.

Are you going to all the parks? Do you want a particular type of food? Are you looking mostly quick service (fast food type stuff) or sit down?

If you get the app you can look at the menus of every place in the parks. That’s pretty handy.

We’ve eaten at almost every restaurant in the parks themselves except for Animal Kingdom. Not quite all but most of them. My favorites are as follows.

Magic Kingdom
Sit down
Liberty Tree Tavern - it’s served family style, all you can eat. Think thanksgiving type foods, pot roast, turkey, stuffing, etc.

Tony’s Town Square - Italian food. Though I’m going to recommend a much better Italian place later.

The Crystal Palace - Buffet wity a wide selection.

Quick service
Cosmic Rays - Burgers and chicken sandwiches.

Pinocchio Village - flatbread pizza


Harbor House - Fish and chicken, think Long John Silvers

Really it’s hard to go wrong with any of the quick service at MK. It’s all about the same quality, which is okay, not great, but not bad.

We didn’t really enjoy the Plaza or Be Our Guest, though a little kid might not care as much about the food and really enjoy Be Our Guest. M

Oh and get a dole whip over in Adventureland.


Epcot:
Sit Down
Mexico San Angel Inn - Mexican food. I’m not sure if they will still have the 50th anniversary special dessert but if so, it’s the best dessert I’ve ever had. They also have a nice selection of margaritas including a nice flight.

Germany
Biergarten - Buffet, classic German food. They have a band that plays so the kid might enjoy that.

Japan
Teppan Edo - Hibachi grill. Good Japanese whisky and sake selection.

Space 220 - I have not eaten there but supposedly the food is good and the restaurant is supposed to look awesome.

As far as quick service, a lot of the countries have walk up booths or small restaurants with food from that country. I like the BBQ place in America alright and there is a Chinese place that’s pretty good too. There are a couple places in France that have good desserts, there’s a pastry place and an ice cream shop. The pastry place also has pretty decent sandwiches. There is very little seating indoors there but there is plenty of ledges around to sit on outside.


Hollywood Studios
Sit down
Sci-Fi Diner - Just burgers and shakes and sandwiches. But it’s themed like an old drive-in and has old movie scenes, trailers and such playing. There are also some tables that are made like cars which is kind of neat for kids.

Hollywood and Vine - a bit nicer food, beef tenderloin, a chicken dish. The food was good but nothing special. I didn’t think it was worth the money but it can be a nice change from burgers and fries if that’s mostly what you’ve been eating.

Oga’s Cantina - If you are a Star Wars fan this is a must. It’s not really a sit down restaurant, it’s mostly drinks but it’s a really cool place. They have some food, but it’s just snacks. The food was good though.

Quick Service
Backlot express is our favorite. Again just burgers and sandwiches but we like it. Pizza Rizzo is okay too, it’s just pizza and Italian style sandwiches. There are a lot of places in the Star Wars area too but I’ve not eaten at any of them.

Animal Kingdom

I’ve only eaten at a couple places here and one is closed. The Flame Tree BBQ place is where we usually eat and it’s pretty decent. You can also find tables behind it with a view of the River and they pretty regularly have character boats running up and down there so the kid should get to see some characters at lunch too which is fun.

There is also a pretzel with a great cheese dip in the pandora area. It’s at a place right outside the exit of the flight of passage ride. I’ve also eaten at the Rainforest Cafe but it’s like any other one. If you want a restaurant like that for the kid, check out T-Rex at Disney springs. It’s the exact same idea, it’s just a dinosaur themed version.

As far as resorts/Disney springs restaurants there are too many to name. I really like Il Mulino at the Swan resort. It’s Italian and its not themed or anything so to the kid it will just be any other restaurant. ‘Ohana at the Polynesian resort used to be really good but I have not been there in years and have read mixed reviews lately.

I’m sure I missed a bunch but if you have any questions about specific places I’ll let you know if I’ve been there.

Epcot will have the food and wine festival while you are there. Eat your way around the world. Stop in one of the gift shops and grab a "passport", it lists all the countries and what they are offering for food and drinks at their kiosks. They are doing Emile's fromage montage, which are cheese dishes. If you eat 5 and get stamps in your passport, you can redeem it for a dessert and a souvenir dish. They also have scavenger hunts. One being Remy's Ratatouille hide and squeak and the other is a limited time Pluto's pumpkin pursuit.

I enjoyed food and wine a couple times and wish I could go back this year as the menu looks fantastic!

As far as sit down food goes, there are many choices in many price ranges. If you want character meals, they are mid priced. We did some character meals and enjoyed them all, and our kids were teenagers.

Non character meals in restaurants are on the pricey side with the quick sits being the cheapest. By no means will it be "cheap" but basically like baseball park prices. However, we mixed it up throughout our vacations so it wasn't all one way or the other.

So, my recommendations are as follows

Hollywood Studios-

The Brown Derby, sit down, no characters, great food

Baseline Tap House, to sample beers and have a quick snack, no characters

Magic Kingdom-

the Chrystal Palace, sit down, characters, good food

I have not eaten here but heard it was great,
Be Our Guest, characters

Animal Kingdom-

Tiffins- sit down, no characters, great food

If you have never been to a Rainforest Cafe there is one there too. I wasn't impressed with it compared to other restaurants on property. No characters except for the usual Rainforest Cafe characters

Epcot-

Le Cellier, in Canada- sit down, no characters, great food

Biergarten restaurant -sit down, no characters, good food, musical entertainment

Food and wine festival- as stated above with this to add. The portions are sample size but you can fill up quick. We shared a dish between the 3 of us so we could eat more samples in a day. Use the passport to keep track of what you had and if you liked it. Go back for 2nds if you really enjoyed it and are still hungry.

We never left a park hungry as portions are generous in all of the places we ate at.

Also, if you like pineapple, look into the Dole whips.

Enjoy your vacation.

quote:

Originally posted by petr:
Epcot will have the food and wine festival while you are there. Eat your way around the world.

Best time to visit, better food options overall.

quote:

Also, if you like pineapple, look into the Dole whips.

One of our 'techniques' was to sneak-in some rum in a plastic flask. Go order the Dole whips in a cup (not cone), go to the bathroom, pour-in the rum, and mix. Get a mild buzz while enjoying the snack on a bench or, watching the Tiki Birds which helped make the soreness in my feet go away...or, more bearable.

quote:

Originally posted by ArtieS:
For adults, Morocco in Epcot.

Agreed. My favorite too.