Disney World – Planning Food Part 2 – The Places to Eat
As I mentioned in the last post, planning for dining at Disney World (and all Disney Parks) is a must if you want to experience the best or most fun places to eat in the parks. There are a lot of options for restaurant choices, how many you ask, there are over 200 places to eat. And if you count snack carts and other snack places the number is more like 400. For table service the number is well over 100. So, while that sounds like a lot and you might think that a reservation isn’t necessary – think again – with over 120,000 people a day visiting the park, that’s a lot of mouths to feed.
So, ok you get it, I want you to make reservations if you want to eat at a sit down restaurant. But what kind of restaurant? And which ones? Lets start with a simple question what do you want from your meal experience – this is Disney after all. Character meals are very popular, do you want to try a heavily themed place – like eating in space, or sitting in a vintage car in a drive in theater, or eating in a foreign country. These are the choices that are what make this planning fun – at least we enjoy doing it because of that. Each of the parks and Disney Springs have their own specialty restaurants and signature places to eat. And just because we aren’t kids doesn’t mean we don’t like character dining. I have a lot of pictures with Minnie Mouse and with Cinderella.
So where do we eat, and this is JUST A LIST OF OUR FAVORITES and not meant to be all inclusive or a specific recommendation. We just like these places and eat at them regularly. So, without further ado;
Some of our favorites by location are (all table service restaurants):
Magic Kingdom Park/Area
Chef Mickey’s – it’s in the Contemporary resort and is character dining
Cinderella’s Royal Table – its inside Cinderellas Castle and its Princess Dining
Be Our Guest – the Beast’s Castle character dining
California Grill – at the top of contemporary – it’s a steakhouse with amazing views
The Plaza Restaurant – main street with great ice cream sundaes!
Victoria and Alberts – in Grand Floridian resort – see my next post all about this place!
Epcot Park/Area
Chefs de France – French food served by French people in the France pavilion
Space 220 Restaurant – definitely an experience – prix fee themed dining
Tutto Italia Ristorante – Italian food served by Italians
Via Napoli Ristorante e Pizzeria – see above
Le Cellier Steakhouse – great steakhouse in Canada – always busy
Yachtsman Steakhouse – fantastic steakhouse in the Yacht Club resort
Animal Kingdom Park/Area
Tiffins Restaurant – a very unique restaurant with an unusual menu – right near Pandora
Yak & Yeti Restaurant – an Asian themed restaurant right in the middle of Asia at Animal Kindom
Disney Hollywood Studios/Area
50’s Prime Time Café – themed to be a 1950s home with fun servers and good food
Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater Restaurant – a must for lunch – sit in a car in a drive in theater and watch 1950’s sci-fi movie trailers
Disney Springs
The Boathouse – casual and on the lake
City Works Eatery & Pour House – sports bar with good food – pure and simple
Enzo’s Hideaway – Italian Eatery tucked in a “hidden” location underground
So, this is a short list really, we have eaten at a ton more places in Disney World, but these are our go to places. We know that when all else fails these will be a sure thing. One thing that is common for us is to frequently eat in Epcot – with the varied cuisine of each country there are a lot of choices.
