We just took our first family trip to WDW, (I am the only one who'd been before.) and our first breakfast/first character meal was Crystal Palace. I chose it for two reasons:
1) It was the Magic Kingdom. Best place to start the first day at WDW!
2) I knew my kids would be shy, maybe even a little intimidated, by characters at first. Pooh & friends are very non-threatening characters they've known for a long time, so I thought they would be an easy and fun way to introduce characters.
We did not dine at Chef Mickey's, so I can't compare. I can say that we had a great experience with food and characters at CP, and I would definitely recommend it.