Each Fall Adults flock to the Walt Disney World Resort to check out the latest rendition of the Epcot International Food & Wine Festival.  2019 does not disappoint and Only WDWorld is here to share with you a few tastes that you don't want to miss!

Epcot Food & Wine Festival At A Glance

The Epcot Food & Wine is now in its 24th year as an event that Disney fans schedule their fall travel plans around.  Each year gets bigger and better with more food and drink choices over a longer period of time.  2019 runs from August 29th through November 23rd marking the longest Epcot F&W festival ever.

The festival is FREE to those who visit Epcot during those days.  For no additional fees guests get access to over 40 additional food & drink kiosks beyond what is normally available.  There are also 3 nightly concerts performed well known acts at the America Gardens Theater for no additional charge.

Beyond that there are additional culinary and wine seminars and demonstrations that are available for an extra charge for those that are interested.  There are also signature food & drink pairing specialty events for an extra fee available on certain days.

For the majority of Epcot visitors it means that the World Showcase is filled with literally over a hundred different options for food and drink in sampling size portions to try and experience.

6 Foods To Try During Your Visit

With 40 locations of specialty food & drink options during the Festival it is always a challenge to locate what to try when there is only so much time available.  Only WDWorld will share with you 6 of our favorites that are available during the 2019 Epcot Food & Wine Festival that you should give strong consideration to trying.  As a bonus ALL of these foods are available as snack credits for those that are using one of the Disney Dining Plans during their visit.

No matter what your preference: beef, chicken, pork, seafood, or vegetarian there is something for you!  That is what makes this food extravaganza so great.  The culinary choices are wonderful whether you pair them with the variety of alcoholic libations or not.

Choice #1 at Flavors From Fire

Our favorite kiosk is actually not located in the World Showcase, but rather tucked away in Future World near The Land pavilion.  Everything on the menu here is excellent, but for our recommendation we have selected the Charred Chimichurri Skirt Steak on a smoked corn cake with pickled vegetables slaw and cilantro aioli.

This dish for beef lovers has a wonderful mix of flavors that starts with the wonderful grilled skirt steak.  You cannot go wrong with this dish!

Choice #2 at Japan

Our next selection comes right is the middle of the World Showcase at the Japan kiosk.  Here was our biggest surprise of our visit as this dish did not catch our eye by reading the description.  After hearing the buzz from others we knew we had to try this choice and boy were we blown away.

The Frothy Ramen with Chilled noodles and dashi broth with a light foam topping is something that has to be tasted to be believed.  It won us over and earned a spot in our top recommendations of the year.  It all works together and creates a great flavor combination.  This is not something that you will see everyday which is all the more reason to try it here at the festival.

Choice #3 at The Wine & Dine Studio

Finding our next food choice at The Wine & Dine Studio located on the walkway between Future World and the World Showcase might seem a little odd, but trust us this is an option that you do not want to miss.

The Seared Scallops with truffled celery root puree, brussel sprouts and wild mushrooms is a great choice for the scallop and/or seafood lover.  The scallops were prepared perfectly and the vegetables did a great job of complimenting the flavors.

Choice #4 at Italy

Our next choice was another surprise to us after surveying the initial menus for the festival.  after hearing recommendations we were inspired to try this dish and again we had no regrets and want to share it with you.

The Costine di Maiale is 3 large balsamic glazed and oven roasted pork ribs that are incredibly tender and tasty.  This was easily the largest portion size of all of the dishes that were tried and viewed at the Festival.  The flavor was amazing and if you enjoy ribs then you owe it to yourself to stop in Italy and try these!

Choice #5 at Morocco

It may surprise you that one of the best steak based food items to enjoy at this year's festival is located at the Morocco kiosk.

The NY Strip Steak Green Shermoula Flatbread with fresh radish and tomato salsa has a serious portion of steak on a flatbread with a very flavorful and fresh salsa.  This is a hearty sample that does a masterful job of combining the steak with the bright notes of the salsa which made it one of our favorites.

Choice #6 at Active Eats

Again we venture outside of the World Showcase back to Future World to find the Active Eats kiosk which is grouped together with the Earth Eats and Coastal Eats kiosks to provide a trio of nice options and a combined seating area to enjoy.

Here we recommend the Spice Crusted Verlasso Salmon with Uncle Ben's quinoa & ancient grains medley, crushed avocado, and sherry vinegar. This is a great salmon dish that combines well with the hearty grains on the side.  The flavors and textures in this dish really won us over and that is why it deserves to be one of our top recommendations this year

Be Bold & Taste Outside Your Comfort Zone!

No matter what your normal dining preferences take the opportunity to be bold and try some foods outside of your normal dining choices!  Over 30 countries and regions are represented and this is your chance to try new preparations of food you are familiar with and other foods you may never have tried before.  The cost of trying something new averages around $5-$6 per dish so it doesn't cost a lot to experiment.

Let us know if you agree with our recommendations or if you found something else that should have been listed amongst our top choices!

Disney World launched a new Festival at Epcot in January of 2017 that they called The International Festival of the Arts.  It featured visual arts, culinary arts, and performing arts during several weekends at Epcot.  Only WDWorld was proud to be present for the original Festival of the Arts and we want to share with you why we intend to be there again for the 2018 version and why you should be making plans to be there also.

2018 Epcot International Festival Of The Arts

Dates: January 12th - February 19th, 2018
Location: Epcot Theme Park at The Walt Disney World Resort
Cost: FREE with regular Epcot admission!

What makes this Festival so special?

The Epcot International Festival of the Arts has some of the basic elements that make all Epcot Festivals worth visiting: great food, live entertainment, visually stunning exhibits, and interactive seminars.

The Food REALLY is a work of Art!

One of the amazing parts of the inaugural Festival was the Food Kiosks that were positioned around the World Showcase.  What differentiated these kiosks from what you may have seen before is that each menu item is a culinary work of art and the Culinary Staff working there take their time to make sure that each item you receive is just as visually appealing as the taste.

The food ranged from deconstructed interpretations of favorite dishes to truly artful renditions of enticing ingredients.  Some of our favorites that we tried (and are pictured here) were:

Atypical BLT with Crispy Pork Belly, Tomato Jam and Soft Poached Egg

Deconstructed Breakfast: Twinings® Spiced Apple Chai Tea Shake with Maple Bourbon Cream, a Waffle Crisp and Candied Bacon

Red Wine Braised Short Rib with Parsnip Purée, Broccolini, Baby Tomatoes and Aged Balsamic

Pan-Seared Scallop with Chorizo, Roasted Red Pepper Coulis and a Parmesan Crisp 

White Chocolate and Purple Sweet Potato Mousse, Salted Caramel and Maple Meringue with Coconut

Check out our FULL Review of the Food from Epcot International Festival Of The Arts

Disney World has a new festival to kick off 2017 with the inaugural edition of the Epcot International Festival Of The Arts.  During 6 weekends from January 13 - February 20 Epcot pays homage to the Arts : Visual, Musical, and Culinary.

As a big fan of the Epcot International Food & Wine Festival and the other events that have added food stations and kiosks over the past few years, we were excited that this festival was also going to add 8 different Food Studios with a variety of artistic culinary creations that have not been part of previous Epcot offerings.

During this Only WDWorld review we rate and rank 11 of the dishes that we tasted at this year's festival.  This is but a sampling of the over 40 Festival Food offering and the many special drinks (both alcoholic and non-alcoholic).  We will rank the ones that we tried in reverse order from #11 working our way up to #1, so read through them all or scroll to the bottom to find out which ones were our favorite.  Don't worry, we've included pictures of each of them!

Disney International Festival Of The Arts Food Review

11. Deconstructed Breakfast: Twinings Spiced Apple Chai Tea Shake with Maple Syrup, a Waffle Crisp, and Candied Bacon
This dish from the E=AT^2 Food Studio had a lot of promise, but we were not impressed with the final result.  The waffle crisp was actually a waffle sandwich with a layer of caramel in the middle which unfortunately becomes hard as a rock when inserted into a frozen shake and become very difficult to eat.

The ingredients sounded amazing, but the final result was underwhelming, not awful, but it ranked the lowest of all the dishes we tried.



10. Trio of Savory Croissant Doughnuts
Honestly, this dish was one that we selected before our visit as one that we MUST try.  Again we were not impressed.  The 3 Croissant Donuts each had a different savory filling: Whipped herb cream cheese with sea salt; Chicken mousse with fresh herbs and Everything bagel seasoning; & Spicy tuna with sriracha mayonnaise and sesame seeds.

The chicken mousse was so flavorless that we thought it was the herbed cream cheese.  The other main challenge was that the Croissant donuts were incredibly difficult to bite into without squirting the filling everywhere.

Lastly, this was served at the Painter's Palette inside the Odyssey Festival Showplace.  The plates were made up ahead of time and we missed out on some of the presentation process that made the other dishes so great.


9. Smoked Salmon Tartare, Caviar, Crisp Lavash, and traditional accomplishments
The smoked salmon could be found at the Masterpiece Kitchen located in the Canada Pavilion.  At $12 this was one of the more expensive dishes that we sampled. Although we love sushi and salmon, this beautifully presented dish did have the flavors required to make it stand out.

It was really good, but certainly not great.  It is a very impressive looking dish, but after eating it we were left hoping for more memorable flavors.


8. Roasted Pork Roulade
At the Artist's Table near the American Adventure we sampled this artistic take on comfort food with pork, carrots, potatoes topped with a red wine sauce.  From this dish on up through #1 is where we really noticed the difference between the food at this festival versus the others at Epcot.  There was a significant emphasis put upon creating an edible piece of art and each part of the dish was carefully and individually placed upon th plate in a specific manner to deliver the desired artistic rendering.

Although the ingredients indicate comfort food the flavors indicated that this was well beyond the typical that we were enjoying!


7. Flank Steak Guarache
 Found at the El Artista Hambriento (The Hungry Artist) located in the Mexico Pavilion was this incredibly tasty piece of art.  Consisting of flank steak, black beans, salsa de Chile de Arbol, Frisee lettuce, Queso Fresco, Red Cabbage, Shredded Carrots, and Chipotle mayonnaise on grilled corn dough, this dish tasted as good as it looked.

The steak was plentiful and the flavors of all of the ingredients worked well together to make a well executed dish.



6. Port-wine Poached Pear
We discovered this enticing dessert at the Cuisine Classique Food Studio in the Germany Pavilion.The port-wine poached pear was combined with vanilla panna cotta, pistachio crumbs and a pansy flower.

This dessert had it all, good looks and tantalizing flavors!  Even non pear lovers will find this dessert amazing  The combination of pear, panna cotta, and pistachio worked really well together.


5. Braised Beef Short Rib
Short rib may be a trendy ingredient these days, but this piece of art from the Cuisine Classique Food Studio had incredible flavors to enjoy besides the attractive presentation.

The Braised short ribs was combines with parsnip puree, broccolini, baby tomatoes, and aged balsamic.  Every bite was amazing!


4. Deconstructed Purple Sweet Potato Pie
We have to admit that we were a bit leary about this one.  Visually this is one intriguing dessert.  The purple is supplied naturally from the use of purple sweet potatoes.

Found at the Decadent Delights Food Studio near the entrance to the World Showcase this wild looking dessert combines purple sweet potatoes, salted caramel, bourbon soaked cake, and marshmallow whipped cream.

The perfectly balanced flavors were a complete surprise.  This dessert is so much more that its shocking purple color.  Definitely a MUST try!


3. Wild Mushroom Risotto
Fans of Le Cellier and their famous mushroom fillet are not strangers to the incredible wild mushroom risotto that they offer.  I would dare to say that this stand alone rendition offered at the Masterpiece Kitchen in the Canada Pavilion is the best ever!

The combination of wild mushroom risotto, aged parmesan, truffle shavings, ad zinfandel reduction carefully assembled one cup at a time results in true "Wow Factor!" when it comes to flavors.

Do not pass over this amazing dish, you will regret it!


2. Pan Seared Scallop
When it comes to discovering a combination of flavors that go perfectly together this dish takes the prize.  The beautifully presented scallop dish at The Artist's Table in the American Pavilion almost could be topped.

The pan seared scallop is served on a bed of chorizo and roasted pepper coulis and topped with a parmesan crisp.  Each one is carefully assembled by a culinary artist with exacting care.

We didn't think it could be beat until we tried the eventually #1 dish!


#1 BLT
A re-imagined interpretation of a BLT does not sound like a grand prize winning dish, but for us it was, narrowly beating out the pan seared scallop.

This BLT consists of crispy pork belly, tomato jam, and a soft poached egg expertly assembled at the E=AT^2 Food Studio.  This dish quickly went from something that sounded intriguing to a dish we couldn't get enough of.  The flavors complemented each other well and the appearance was a true work of art.  The chefs carefully assembled each one to get the look just right and to make sure the soft poached egg was intact in its perch atop the pork belly.

Festival Review Summary

Disney World may have a new fan favorite with the Epcot International Festival Of The Arts.  Not only did it deliver with a wide array of visual arts to see and an impressive Broadway themed night time concert, but the food was a big hit.  By bringing new dishes created just for this festival and not rehashing the same Food & Wine Festival tapas, Epcot has created another reason to visit during the Winter season.  Well done!