Is there anything really, really special about the food in WDW?

[Beer Me]

If you’re talking only about the food itself I tend to find it mediocre and overpriced. But I think many comments in the thread are overly harsh. If you think WDW quick service is “vile” I don’t know how you could eat any fast casual food anywhere, especially at a theme park. We were at Bush Gardens this summer and the food (and service) was terrible. I realize the bar is pretty low but Disney is miles better.

I have so many good memories of meals at Disney. You’re in a special place with truly unique theming and atmosphere with friends and loved ones. Sometimes the food is average and sometimes it’s really good. That doesn’t necessarily make or break the meal. It’s the whole experience and it’s something completely different from the experience in a michelen starred restaurant in nyc or whatever. It’s its own thing.

 

[chris benton]

Which ADRs are a must just for the food?

Do a fair amount of research, and very much temper your expectations. Like, REALLY, temper your expectations. You might get pleasantly surprised a few times. For the most part, my opinion is that if you call yourself a "foodie," you're not gonna be that impressed, but then again, "foodie" means about 1000 different things to a zillion different people. You're probably on the right path with choosing theming over what's on the plate, but you'll be pleasantly surprised at a few different places. The quality control is haphazard at best, but if you temper your expectations, you'll be just fine. My M.O. is to just choose the best place for us for where we'll be when it'll be a mealtime, and throw in a few special meals / experiences based on reviews/research. My issue is that I LOVE to research, and find the cheap, hidden gems when I travel, and I love to cook, so, it's hard for me to pay up for mediocrity.

- In my opinion, stay away from, (or really research) anything that you'd think would be a decent "ethnic" food from different countries. More than likely, it'll be "Disneyfied" ethnic food. You've officially now been warned about that.

There's a ton of youtubers that will help you out. Disney Food Blog, Paging Mr Morrow, and a bunch of others.

If you're looking to make ADRs just for the food, and the price / location is no issue, I'd suggest looking into:

Homecomin'
Citricos
Kimonos (this is a hidden gem, imo)

Again, that's just for the food, like you requested. The logistics of if things are worth the time/effort for you to get there is different. I just choose the best place at the best time for where we'll be. I don't really go out of my way for restaurants in Wallytown, because they are mostly just not worth paying the upcharge for. I live in a big city where I can get tons of better stuff for a much better price. That's not me puffing my chest out at ALL. I'm lucky to live where I live, sounds like you are a traveler, and have lived in some areas with big cities, so if you consider yourself a "foodie," just temper your expectations, and you'll hopefully be pleasantly surprised a few times.

 

[Isamar]

The Thigh High Biscuits at Homecomin are amazing.
We like Jaleo too - mostly for the tapas, which are better than the mains in our experience.
If you like oysters, The Boat House is a heavenly place to spend an afternoon on the dock beside the water, and the oysters are always great.

 

[jimmymc]

Disney World has a very wide range of food, from standard theme park chicken nuggets to 10 course fine dining. There are some places that I would consider great restaurants in a big city, and other that are overrated or overpriced standard food.

Places I think are a must solely for the food, not for atmosphere or characters are:

Hollywood Brown Derby
Jaleo
Wine Bar George
Il Mulino
Shula's Steakhouse
Steakhouse 71

And while there are no reservations, Satuli Canteen in Animal Kingdom has great food that I would order back home if the restaurant existed.

 

[Stratman50th]

In our (my family's opinion) No.
Over the years we have been there the consensus is the food is pretty much crap in general, especially to a foodie. Even the expensive restaurants fall into the same category as the deluxe resorts, only mediocre if outside the bubble. This was the only place we had vacationed where everyone said they craved a salad when we got home. It is what it is.
Opinions may vary....

 

[chris benton]

Also -
When you start narrowing down your choices of restaurants that you think you'd like to try, whenever you wanna get into actual plates of food, ping the crowd here or on other forums, or check the other websites that do a lot of research on WDW foods. You might get a better idea of what things get high praise from a decent amount of folks. It might help you avoid going to a place and ordering things that you could have been warned about, especially if that same place has some great things on their menu.

 

[Dulcee]

We love good food. We frequent primarily signature restaurants on our trips to WDW. Is it hands down the best food I've ever eaten anywhere? nope. Is California Grill or Jiko a really great meal? Sure is.

AND I can bring my kids without stares and without worrying they won't have SOMETHING for me to feed them.

We did Washington DC this summer and there was a long list of restaurants my husband and I would have loved to have dined at. Many had to be scratched off the list for fear of bringing our 3 relatively well behaved kids, whether due to a vibe of young kids not being welcome, a complete lack of kids options, or no menu options that we could easily pare down to make friendly for kids who have limited palettes (despite our very best attempts).

 

[holden]

The majority of the food ranges from bad to ok. There are a few places that I consider “good.” Those are: Narcoosee’s, Homecomin’ and Shula’s. I haven’t yet found a place that is outstanding.

 

[mikeamizzle]

If you think the food is all awful at Disneyland then you're obviously not going to like the food at WDW.

 

[picktails]

I hear ya, big time. But after 20+ trips to WDW, we've found some very good options. We live just outside NYC, and my daughter lives in DC, where we've enjoyed some truly great meals.
The quick service in Morocco, at Epcot, is really good and enough to share. Santulli Canteen in HS has really good quality options. The lounges at the parks, specifically Nomad at AK and Brown Derby at HS are a true respite with drink flights and quality dishes. We've had wonderful meals at California Grill, but for our upcoming trip at the end of September we're trying Citricos and Morimoto Asia, both with stellar reviews.
We always brought our kids to the "better" restaurants, it is Disney after all.

 

[KateDrake]

I don't mean this rudely at all, so I hope no one takes it that way...

I think Disney food is "exciting" to people who live in areas where they don't have a lot of outside culinary influences. I live in NJ. I go to NYC a lot. There is literally no food in any part of Disney World (with the exception of V&A) that is better than, or more exotic than anything I can get at home. People living in places like Kansas (just using this as an example, no hate on Dorothy's home state!) or overseas perhaps may not have that, so to them, its a "foodie paradise." People living in land-locked states would most likely be more excited over "fresh seafood" than someone like me who lives within walking distance from the ocean, and 20+ restaurants who serve truly fresh fish.

Just my two cents - And don't get me wrong, I love Disney World food! Its still a great vacation, and its great that they put so much effort in their themeing (I do not know how to spell this word obvs lol) and the food is more than decent! I just think anyone's level of excitement about the food depends on their life and where they've lived.

I completely agree with this! I think so much of it is what you are used to. For some, the EPCOT restaurants are something really new and exciting. Maybe they've never had the chance to have teppanyaki and have their food cooked on the table. Or they've never had wood-fired pizza, either because they haven't been to Italy or they haven't had that experience at home. They've never been to Hawai'i, so O'hana is really exotic.

We're lucky enough that we've got great dining options and have traveled to several foreign countries, so that kind of thing is less special for us. (We also live closer to Disneyland and agree their food options are much better!) So we tend to look for restaurants with food that will be decent, but that has a uniquely "only in Disney" theme.

 

[rwdavis2]

I don't mean this rudely at all, so I hope no one takes it that way...

I think Disney food is "exciting" to people who live in areas where they don't have a lot of outside culinary influences. I live in NJ. I go to NYC a lot. There is literally no food in any part of Disney World (with the exception of V&A) that is better than, or more exotic than anything I can get at home. People living in places like Kansas (just using this as an example, no hate on Dorothy's home state!) or overseas perhaps may not have that, so to them, its a "foodie paradise." People living in land-locked states would most likely be more excited over "fresh seafood" than someone like me who lives within walking distance from the ocean, and 20+ restaurants who serve truly fresh fish.

Just my two cents - And don't get me wrong, I love Disney World food! Its still a great vacation, and its great that they put so much effort in their themeing (I do not know how to spell this word obvs lol) and the food is more than decent! I just think anyone's level of excitement about the food depends on their life and where they've lived.

I 100% agree here. If one’s local dining is not great WDW can seem like paradise. But having lived outside of D.C. we’ve had our pick of excellent restaurants so WDW is nothing special. Most food barely rises above TGI Fridays or an Outback steakhouse.

 

[seashell7290]

WDW doesn’t have the snack options like Disneyland has. There are quality places that you can get a good meal while simultaneously being in and around the parks. No they aren’t life changing but here are some highlights:

Toppolinos for character breakfast (best character option for a preschooler currently until all the princesses come back at Cinderella’s

Be our guest is a decent option because the scenery is something you’ll only get in WDW

Tiffins/ Nomad lounge

Wine bar George is a must if you are wine drinkers

I find that there are more lounges in WDW that are accessible with a preschooler. May be the way to go if reservations don’t pan out.

In my opinion, options are leaps and bounds ahead of what’s offered at Universal. I guess that’s something

 

[danceintherain]

It's a lot easier to find solid options at Disneyland....if you like food. If you're picky or very not a foodie (like most of my family) then WDW does fine.
As for the "where your coming from" comparison....it's definitely more convenient to find a variety of options at Disney than there is where I live in Kansas. So, it can be fun to try a bunch of different styles of dining. But, I tend to skip it, because if I really want to try different food, I can do it for a lot cheaper closer to home. It's just not convenient.

We typically only do 2 or 3 table service meals on a weeklong trip. I find character meals distracting. Buffets are the worst option with little kids to me, when you add in characters wandering around unexpectedly, it's more work than I want to put in for a meal. The rest of the options are ok, but I don't feel bad about missing them. We'll prioritize dining more again once the kids are older.
Counter service is something to eat. I tend to go with what's convenient, because it's hard enough to get my kids to eat without running around trying to find something special. I do make a list of highly rated items that I'd like to try, and if it works out to try them, then I'm happy.

 

[tguz]

We have only had one thing on our last 4 trips that we did not like. Not to say the food was bad, we just didn't care for it. We look forward to Disney Dining and the best meal I had last trip was at Yak & Yeti!

 

[ilovebassets]

Definitely not. You're paying for atmosphere and convenience. There are only a handful of restaurants that had truly good food the last time we went (not just good for being Disney food)--

1. Ale and Compass
2. Via Napoli
3. Boma--kind of. Food was very good but still could have been more flavorful for the ethnicities it was representing.

Most of the food tastes perfectly fine if not a little high on salt. But unique and interesting flavors or higher spice levels are hard to find.

 

[disneyseniors]

There's nothing in WDW that is a must do "just for the food." Well, maybe Jaleo, but you can do that in Vegas.

The ADRs book up because there are a lot of people, some restaurants are cooler than others, and you have to eat somewhere.

It seems that most of the "good" ones that are mentioned here are all at disney springs. I wonder if any of them are owned by disney? We love the Boathouse, and there are great places to eat in DS, but I always thought they were independently owned restaurants, not disneys?

 

[Where’s the beef]

I guess it depends on what a “foodie” is. Do I enjoy trying new things and consider myself to have a pretty open palate? Yes. When I’m freaking starving is a quick burger and fries the best thing I’ve ever tasted? Also yes. Do I come from the best bbq on the planet (hi Eastern NC bbq lovers!)? Yes. Is Flame Tree a must-do every AK trip? Also yes. The most important thing is to probably temper your expectations. As others have shared, there is great dining out there and F&W festival has some seriously excellent options. But “foodie” doesn’t mean everything has to be 4 stars 24/7, right?

 

[RoseGold]

It seems that most of the "good" ones that are mentioned here are all at disney springs

Actually, the "bad" ones are the ones that are always booked. You can get into any of the DS stuff on this thread, including wonderful Jaleo. But they're in DS. Good luck getting into Space 220 or BE My Guest. I don't think anyone expects either of these to be better food, that isn't the point.

 

[nolatravelgirl]

The food at Disney is good for food at a theme park (much better than say your local Six Flags) but none of it is outstanding that I would seek it out if I were not going to WDW. Even the "good" food is grossly over priced for the quality. The character dining food is priced for the character interactions and unless your kids are die hard [insert character here] fans it is hard to cough up the $$$ when Disney considers a 10 year old an adult. We are skipping a lot of table service dining simply because we can get much better food at home and will spend time/money on experiences that we can't do at home.