Day 3 Dinner at Les Chefs de France
After a decent to great lunch at Coral Reef, it was time to switch gears from a new, first time restaurant visit to our family's favorite WDW restaurant, Les Chefs de France.
WDW is very much a family vacation for us, and Chefs is our "family" restaurant. It was the first WDW TS restaurant the three of us ever ate at together, way back in 1993 on my first trip. We did not go to Epcot in 1996, so we did not eat there that year. Our 2005 trip was the year we walked up to Chefs as always on two different days only to find they were booked solid. That's what started our use of ADRs. I particularly was heartbroken about it, and I promised myself I'd never end up in that situation again. We have eaten dinner at Chefs at some point during all of our other trips, adding up to a total of 9 dinners here. I love the atmosphere, I love the food, I love it all! I don't particularly love the wait, though! Sometimes even with an ADR, there's a hefty wait time here. No problems like that this time, thankfully. We were seated and given menus within ten minutes.
By and large, Chefs is another place where we have a set order that we pretty much stick to every trip.
and I always get the French Onion Soup, while
either gets that or the Lobster bisque. We almost always get at least one dessert. The last couple of years, we've also added something extra to split between the three of us. 2008 was the Gratin de Macaroni entree. Wasn't sure if I wanted to get that again or order something else, so we browsed the menus for a little while. Here is the menu as it was that night:
And here is a shot of my view of the restaurant, when looking to my left:
The Reviews:
After some thought, we placed our orders and were served very quickly. First up was dinner rolls:
Again, I believe these are the same as the ones served at Brown Derby. Regardless of whether they're frozen and pre-made or not, they're very good. A little on the hard side on the outside, but soft on the inside. A little flakey on the outside. Good flavor, and a good thing to munch on while you wait for your actual meals.
This time we all ordered the "Soupe a l'oignon gratinee." This is their classic French Onion Soup, using Gruyere cheese. At the time, one bowl cost $6.50. Here is a picture of mine:
If you like cheese, and can stand onions (I love them), this is for you! While you may need to schedule an artery de-clogging procedure after your meal, this is fabulous. As much as I love cheese, I'm not the best at describing it, but I'll try! Gruyere is a strong, flavorful cheese. It's not bitter, but it definitely has some "umph" to it, and much more flavor than, say, Mozarella. If you try to buy it in the grocery store, at least around here, it's very expensive. The soup has some type of bread in it, and obviously has some type of beef bouillon in it as well. Most importantly to my cheese loving self, it has a ton of cheese in it! Lots of fresh onion as well. It's just amazing. I want to drool just thinking about this! I've tried the French Onion Soup at all of the French restaurants around here, and I have yet to find anything on par with Chefs' version. It is probably my favorite food item in all of WDW. To me, because there is so much cheese, it's incredibly filling. There's no way I could eat this and an entree. Same for
and
They both loved the soup as well, and gave it comments similar to mine. The soup takes me a long time to eat though because it's brought out boiling hot. If I eat anything hot, I get a soar throat. We would finish meals here even faster if not for me.
No one else really had an opinion on our extra food, so it was up to me to pick something. Because last time the combo of the French Onion Soup with Gruyere and the Macaroni entree with Gruyere was just
too much cheese to the point of being nauseating, I decided we would try one of the flatbreads instead to go with our soups. We ordered this at the same time we ordered the soup, and they were all brought out within a couple minutes of each other. And kudos to our waitress for asking when we wanted everything brought out! Not all of the waitstaff in WDW does that.
I mulled it over and decided to order the onion and bacon, brick oven-cooked flatbread, an Alsace province specialty. The menus describes this as "a la Flame Alsacienne - Alsace specialty. Flatbread baked with creme fraiche, onion and bacon." At the time of our meal, it cost $9.95. Here is a picture before we dove in:
I took one bite and
. Oh dear. I had now found yet another "Must Have!" WDW food item. Before I know it, I'll need an extra stomach to eat all of my "Must Haves" on any given trip. I had no Earthly clue what creme fraiche was at the time, although it sure tasted good! Looked it up later and discovered it's a French version of sour cream. This flatbread was so Heavenly! Crisp bacon, fresh onions, very thin and light crust. I ate two or three small slices in addition to my soup, and I never eat that much! This better be here when I get back next month! It was great. Also further solidifies my desire to never eat WDW CS pizza, ever again!
After we finished our soups and the flatbread, we asked for a dessert menu. Chefs almost always has several great looking desserts, but that night I was the only one who wanted anything. I mulled over the menu for awhile, wondering what to order:
The Chocolate-Orange Mousse Cake with lemon cream sounded the best to me. The problem was it came with coconut ice cream. After all the cheese and onions I'd just eaten, I really didn't think it was smart to add coconut ice cream to the mix! I asked if I could have the orange and mandarin sorbet in its place, and that was thankfully no problem. For some reason, the prices are not on my menu picture. I'm thinking everything was the same cost, and the price must have been at the bottom. I want to say everything was $6.95, but I'm not entirely sure. Just a guess.
My dessert wasn't just delivered, it was delivered in style! I was turning 26 in a few hours, and
had noted my b-day on the ADR. Our waitress brought it out with a lit candle (and a hot pink one to boot, one of my fave colors!) and most of the waitstaff of Chefs with her. They sang "Happy Birthday" to me in French.
I took French for many, many years in school, so that was extra special to me. Normally I want to crawl under the table and hide when stuff like this happens, as I don't like attention in public! But I really enjoyed this. One of the neater parts for me was that our favorite Chefs waiter still worked there and was part of it. He hung around with our waitress afterward and chatted with us a little bit. I wish I knew his name, but sadly I don't. He's an older gentleman and has worked there for years, if anyone knows who I'm referring to. It turned out it was his birthday as well, which was really neat to me! We told him he had been our waiter years before and had helped give us one of the most memorable moments in all of our WDW trips. It was probably either 1998 or 1999 when it happened. It had started pouring down raining at Epcot that day, and it wasn't supposed to. So, we had no umbrellas, no ponchos, nothing. We ran to Chefs because it was close to dinner time anyway. This was back before the ADR craze, so you could do walk-ups just about anywhere. We asked to be put on the list. They weren't that crowded, so we didn't expect a wait. Much to our horror, the not-so-friendly hostess rudely informed us it'd be an hour. And by rude, I mean
major 'tude going on in terms of a snappy tone and glaring. We were dripping wet and cold, and our faces just fell. In swooped "our" waiter, and he said "What? An hour? I have space for them right now!" Rushed and got menus and then hurried us back to a table near the windows. Then he ran and got us tablecloths to wrap ourselves in. He was so nice, and that was so unexpected and appreciated. Never forgot him. When we told him this time about that, he said he did remember us and it was great to see us again. It was just really nice. He's a great waiter and such a friendly man. I wish I knew his name so that I could recommend him to you all, assuming he's still there! Our waitress this time was great as well.
Now, onto the dessert, which is what I'm sure y'all want to hear about the most anyway!
This was great. I'm not a big chocolate person, but the chocolate and orange combo was great. I especially liked this dessert because it was light. After all of the cheese, I needed something light if I was going to eat any dessert at all. The mousse had a good flavor and didn't taste dry or bitter or powdery like some do. The orange and mandarin sorbet was yummy, and the fresh fruit was, in fact, fresh. I wish Chefs didn't change their dessert menu all the time and kept this on there! You know at the time going in you're likely never to get the same dessert there ever again. But they do a good job of coming up with something yummy every time.
The Ratings:
Food: 5x
I can't speak to the quality of the average entree here, but the soups are fabulous and always have been. The flatbread was an unexpected surprise, and the dessert, as always, was great.
Atmosphere: 4x
I wouldn't say Chefs is deafeningly loud like, say, Crystal Palace is. It's definitely noisy though. To me, this is one place that the noise adds to the charm! It's a hustling and bustling French casual restaurant. I really enjoy it, and if I'm anywhere near a window I enjoy World Showcase people watching. From some tables you can also watch, for example, the Chefs' dessert station. If you want quiet, try the more expensive Bistro de Paris around the corner and upstairs. One of the coolest new atmosphere-related things about Chefs is the Remy AA. Frankly, the exterior of Gusteau's restaurant in Ratatouille reminds me a lot of the exterior of Les Chefs de France. Unfortunately we didn't get to see Remy, since he didn't make appearances at 7pm or later. We knew this though, so it was no sad surprise. Would've been neat to see him, though!
Cost: 5x
Very fair cost for the quality of what we got. Again, you're only looking at roughly a $38 bill pre-tax and tip. We're not on a
super strict food budget, but we are on one. Approaching TS meals like we do this one and Brown Derby works well for us. We get food we like for roughly CS prices. You just have to be willing to eat lighter. This was more than enough food for me, so it's not an issue.
OVERALL: 5x
In 9 trips, I've only ever had one bad food item here, and that was a dessert many years ago. Everything else has always been great. We've consistently had good waiters and waitresses. Sometimes the hostess CM can be a bit snippy, but other than that we've had no problems. Even that hasn't been an issue in recent years. Great food, great restaurant, great service. Can't recommend it enough!
Up Next: Day 3 Snack at Boulangerie Patisserie, the French bakery in Epcot!
We've been to WGPE the past few times at DTD, I might have to go back to Earl...I forgot how tasty everything was!!!
Disney World makes everyting taste better!! 
, I know shame on me. On our upcoming trip we are going to have to eat there, everything looks so yummo!!
I should know better by now because 99 times out of 100, she is right. The Pizza Planet meal was not only not that great, but I also wound up with a terrible soar throat the next day. I only got even sicker as the days went on. I will spare y'all the details, but it was not fun and I was stuck in the room quite a bit for about 4 days, save for mealtimes. Needless to say my atmosphere rating is going to be low on this place! 
