Review: Epcot’s Food & Wine Festival Part 1

Earlier this month, my friends Adam and Kaila and I had the opportunity to attend the annual Epcot International Food & Wine Festival, held every fall at Epcot in Walt Disney World. This year, in celebration of Epcot’s 35th Anniversary, they went all out and had 35 booths throughout World Showcase, Showcase Plaza, and Future World where one could eat and drink a variety of dishes representing different countries or regions. In addition, some regular venues had special item offerings, bringing the total number of areas one can visit this year closer to 40.

 

 

For this review, I am going to break my festival experience down into four parts. In this first part I am going to focus on the locations within Future World, including the Festival Center and Epcot Legacy Showplace.

 

Note that during my adventures, my Chef Remy Pop! Mini from Funko and my Chef Gusteau Vinylmation, both from the Pixar movie Ratatouille, joined in on the fun. Enjoy the photos!

 

Food & Wine Festival Passport

 

 

Before delving too much into the review, I would like to highlight the Festival Passport, which is given out to guests at Epcot for the festival. Inside the Passport, guests will find menus from the different locations throughout the Festival, as well as stickers to mark when they eat or drink at a certain location. There are 40 stickers in all, one to represent the actual Festival and the other 39 to represent different locations throughout Epcot. It was a goal of ours to eat or drink one item from each of the 39 locations and we did that over the course of the vacation. It would’ve been more expensive if I did this on my own but by dividing the cost between three of us, it actually made a little more cost effective.

 

Festival Center

 

Located at the former Wonders of Life Pavilion, the Festival Center is the hub of all the Food & Wine Festival activities. In addition to holding special food and wine events, there is also the largest Festival gift shop in the park and locations for Annual Passholders to get special buttons and items. This year, Annual Passholders can get one of three special buttons for the Festival, each carrying an image of Remy. There is one button for each of the three months that the festival is taking place: September, October, and November. The September button features Remy with the Eiffel tower made out of cheese as shown in the picture below.

 

 

One of the highlights of the Festival Center for me was the Ghirardellii chocolate area where, in addition to getting free chocolate, you can view special chocolate sculptures made by Disney artists. My favorite, of course, was the chocolate renderings of the Kakamora. Click images to enlarge.

 

 

Tasting Sampler

 

 

One purchase we all made during our visit to Festival Center was a tasting sampler badge. Each badge had attached to it eight vouchers which could be redeemed for a food or drink item at a participating location. Additionally, a special exclusive pin was included. Now, dividing up the cost, if each voucher was used for roughly $8 worth of food or drink at the Festival, you made out and then some. While I am not a big drinker, I do like to eat. Between the three of us, we all were able to get enough value out of the tasting sampler to make it worth buying.

 

 

Note: If you are just into the food portion of the Festival, the sampler badge might not be for you. There were less menu items out there that topped the $8 mark. Most of the items that gave you the value were drink items.

 

Epcot Legacy Showplace

 

 

Located in the former Odyssey Restaurant (at the edge of Future World near the Mexico Pavilion), Epcot Legacy Showplace currently has an exhibit showcasing concept art and a variety of other images from the history of Epcot over the past 35 years. Below are images from the exhibit, which include the announcements for the new Guardians of the Galaxy and Ratatouille attractions. Also included in this area is a small gift shop as well as the Craft Beer Festival location. Click images to enlarge.

 

Future World

 

 

World Showcase

 

 

Craft Beer

 

The first location to review in this part is the Craft Beer location, located inside Epcot Legacy Showplace in Future World. In addition to having some beers from the state of Florida, there is also a non-alcoholic drink called Bright Horizons, which is a Sprite drink with multi flavor Boba pearls on the bottom. This drink is served in a glowing glass, which made the appeal of this drink more inviting. Two of us ended up having this drink in order to get the glass, which you could take home.

 

 

Also at this location were some food items that took inspiration from flavors of the past. Our group tried the Chilled Scotch Egg and the Zesty Cheeseburger and Cheddar Cheese Macaroni Handwich. While both were tasty, the Handwich was a little on the spicy side and the Scotch Egg only came with three of the four slices of the egg, which seems like a little bit of a rip off.

 

The Annual Passholder Button Stops

 

The final eight locations I will review today are ones where Annual Passholders can get special commemorative buttons for visiting and purchasing a food or drink item. Each of the small buttons features the Annual Passholder logo and a Food & Wine Festival inscription. All of these locations are within Future World West, making them easier to get for those on a crunch of time.

 

 

Flavors from Fire

 

 

This location featured food and drink inspired by heat, both actual heat and taste heat. Food-wise we tried the Smoked Corned Beef dish which was delicious (I would have gone back for seconds if I felt I could stomach it as the heat was a little intense) as well as the Chocolate Picante Mousse dessert which was also pretty good. Both had a bit of a kick to them. We also tried the Swine Brine drink option, which featured bourbon and was topped with a roast pork wing. It was tasty and I could have drank more of it given the chance… and I am not a fan of alcohol.

 

Light Lab

 

 

The Light Lab, located in the building behind the Epcot Character Spot and the Coca-Cola Cool Club, featured a special room lit in black light, where they serve drinks that reacted to the lighting. Unfortunately, regulations forced them to keep the room more lit then they were planning, making the actual black light experience a bit lackluster. Personally, I did not care for any of the drinks that we got there (actually the Beverly in the Coca-Cola Cool Club next-door tasted better in my humble opinion… and that is very bitter), but I did like the special Glownut that was being served in the Lab. This special doughnut was not on the passport menu but you could purchase it as a special option.

 

Earth Eats

 

 

The next stop was a trio of locations located just outside of the Light Lab. One of these locations was Earth Eats, inspired by ABC’s culinary TV Show The Chew. At this location we got the Grilled Beef Skewer as well as the Peanut Butter and White Chocolate Mousse. Both were tasty, but for me neither one was a standout. We also got the Raspberry Mead located at this location. I do not drink mead but Adam said it was good.

 

Activate Eats

 

 

Next to Earth Eats was Activate Eats. At this location the only dish we got was the Loaded Mac & Cheese dish, which was a little spicy due to the pepper bacon. However, it was very delicious and I would recommend people going to get that when they visit.

 

Coastal Eats

 

 

The last location in this area was Coastal Eats and featured seafood. We tried all three of the dishes here my personal favorite was the Lump Crab Cake. However we all had a delicious bite of all three dishes.

 

The Chocolate Studio

 

 

The last three locations of this review were The Art of Pairing locations. The first of the three was The Chocolate Studio. At this location we got the Liquid Nitro Chocolate Almond Truffle. It melted pretty quickly because of the heat and we could not necessarily taste the almond over the chocolate, but it was very good nonetheless.

 

The Cheese Studio

 

 

As some of you know, I like cheese and probably could have devoured all of the dishes at this location. However, I kept myself at bay and we only got the Braised Beef Stroganoff. This dish came with a delicious cheese sauce, hence why it was part of this booth. We all enjoyed it.

 

The Wine & Dine Studio

 

 

At this final location, we got both the Duck Confit and the Trio of Artisan Cheese. Since none of us are wine drinkers, we did not partake in any of the wine. I will say that I could eat the Point Reyes Original Blue cheese all day long. It was such a good blue cheese. In fact, everything at this location was good. Another must stop for those who visit.

 

Well that concludes Part 1 of my four-part food and wine festival review. Stay tuned for Part 2 coming later this week.

 

If you are following along with our culinary adventure through the Food & Wine Festival and have been there yourself… what do you like most out of what we have tried so far? Least? Let me know below.