Every year when the Epcot Food and Wine Festival arrives at Walt Disney World, so do we. Focused on trying all the best foods and drinks we just had to do a round-up of our Epcot Food and Wine Festival Favorite Foods. From savory to sweet, carnivorous, and vegetarian, here are all the foods we highly recommend be on your must-try food list. The EPCOT International Food and Wine Festival runs July 15 – November 20, 2021.
Best Food and Wine Festival Foods to Try
What are the Best Foods at Disney’s Food and Wine Festival in 2021? The Epcot Food and Wine Festival is all about the best food and wine! So we thought we’d round up our favorite foods from the festival for you to try! If you’re new to the Epcot International Food and Wine Festival at Walt Disney World never fear! Check out our Disney Food and Wine Festival Beginners Guide, for tips, tricks, and a strategy around the World Showcase! Traveling with little ones? Check out our best tips if you’re traveling to Food and Wine with kids.
As with every festival at Epcot, this year’s Food and Wine festival included both new dishes and old favorites. To check out all the foods on the menu, check out our Epcot Food and Wine Festival Menus so you can get started highlighting your must-try foods!
Warm Chocolate Pudding Cake | Ireland
Warm Chocolate Pudding Cake with Irish Cream Liqueur Custard. We had no idea what to expect with this one, but holy cannoli, it tastes just like a lava cake! So rich, and moist, and completely chocolate heaven on a plate. It’s served warm and it is just absolutely delicious. Quite possibly one of our favorite desserts from Food and Wine this year.
Kenyan Coffee Barbecue Beef Tenderloin | Kenya
Kenyan Coffee Barbecue Beef Tenderloin with Sweet Potato & Corn Mealie Pap and Kachumbari Slaw (gluten/wheat-friendly). This coffee barbecue beef was tender, flavorful and the Kachumbari Slaw on top added an amazing freshness to it. One of our top dishes this year, if you like beef, we think you’ll like this. We actually really liked everything in Africa this year, so if you’re trying to find a good booth to spend all your money on, this might be a great place to start.
The Chimichurri-up Offense | Flavors from Fire
The Chimichurri-up Offense: Charred Chimichurri Steak on a Smoked Corn Cake with Pickled Vegetable Slaw and Cilantro Aïoli (gluten/wheat-friendly). Flavors of Fire is always a festival favorite for us. Even the smell of this booth is incredible! This has made our list before and it’s still just as good. This skirt steak was perfectly cooked and the corn cake and cilantro aioli were the perfect additions to this dish. Honestly, this was one we could eat an entire meal out of!
The S’mores Whoopie Pie-lon | Flavors from Fire
The S’mores Whoopie Pie-lon: Smoked Chocolate Cake, Graham Cracker, Marshmallow, Chocolate Ganache and Candied Bacon. This whoopie pie was smoky and sweet, with just enough graham cracker crumble to make it decadent. A soft marshmallows between two chocolate cakes. yum! We shared this treat, but frankly, it was good enough we could have eaten it on our own.
Maple Boursin Cheesecake | Refreshment Port hosted by Boursin® Cheese
Maple Boursin Cheesecake with Whipped Boursin® Maple Bourbon Cheese and Candied Pecans. This cheesecake was super creamy and rich. We recommend saving it for later in the day though, as it will melt super fast in the hot Florida sun. Topped with caramel and pecan crunch, this cheesecake was the perfect balance of flavor and texture.
Apple Crumble Tart | Appleseed Orchard
Apple Crumble Tart. Appleseed Orchard has a ton of things we like, but this tart was to die for. With soft pie crust, and apple pie filling this tart brings you right into fall. Pair it with the frozen apple pie drink or cinnamon apple cider at this booth. Both drinks were refreshing and a wonderful pairing to the tart! A must try.
Pão de Queijo | Brazil
Pão de Queijo: Brazilian Cheese Bread (gluten/wheat-friendly). This brazilian cheesey bread is a soft dough filled with cheese and while you may not love the carbs, this one is gluten free! We call it healthy. It’s a great snack to have if you’re holding off for a late dinner, or just eating food and wine dishes for lunch. This one is also super kid-friendly.
La Passion Martini Slushy | France
La Passion Martini Slushy: Vodka, Grey Goose Le Citron Vodka, Cranberry and Passion Fruit Juice. This frozen pink drink is super sweet, and refreshing. Frankly, you won’t even know your drinking alcohol. Dangerous indeed. But super yummy.
Apple Strudel with Vanilla Sauce | Germany
Apple Strudel with Vanilla Sauce. this strudel from Germany is wonderful. It combines light flaky pastry with fresh apples, and tops it with vanilla sauce. Considered a staple at the Food and Wine Festival, this treat is a mainstay that is worth the try! It’s consistent and never disappoints.
Warm Indian Bread with Dips | India
Warm Indian Bread with Pickled Garlic, Mango Salsa and Coriander Pesto Dips. This bread dish is wonderful. With flavorful dips, and easy to share the Indian Bread is great by itself or paired with both the Korma Chicken and Madras Red Curry at the India Booth. Frankly, these dishes were all good. If you’re looking to substitute lunch, then this booth should be all you need.
Grilled Chicken Ravioli with Alfredo Sauce | Italy
Ravioli: Grilled Chicken Ravioli with Alfredo Sauce, Romano Cheese and Prezzemolo. We aren’t usually huge fans of the Italy Pavilion at the Festivals. We want to like it so bad, but coming from an Italian family, we have high expectations. This ravioli is probably one of the best dishes we’ve had from this pavilion. It’s creamy, it’s rich, it’s big enough to share or for a small meal.
Bomboloni Cream-filled Italian Doughnut | Italy
Bomboloni: Cream-filled Italian Doughnut with Raspberry Sauce and Powdered Sugar. We love Italian treats. This is an old-fashioned Italian dessert we sometimes have during the holidays. These little doughnut holes were warm, soft and perfectly filled with cream. Drizzled with raspberry sauce and powdered sugar, thsi treat goes great with a red wine or espresso. We loved it!
Spanish-style Paella with Rice, Chorizo and Shrimp | Spain
Spanish-style Paella with Rice, Chorizo and Shrimp (gluten/wheat-friendly). We love a good paella and honestly weren’t sure a festival dish of it would make the cut for us. But we were wrong! This was so good, with the perfect amount of flavor, cooked just right, and a complete winner in our book.
Teriyaki Chicken Bun | Japan
Teriyaki Chicken Bun: Steamed Bun filled with Chicken, Vegetables and Teriyaki. With chicken, vegetables, and sweet teriyaki, this little bun will please even the pickiest of palates. (Unless of course, you don’t like teriyaki) Wrapped in a steam-filled bun, the filling was delicious, it was easy to eat and super portable too, so you don’t have to stop your around-the-world showcase travels if you don’t want to.
“Le Cellier” Wild Mushroom Beef Filet Mignon | Canada
“Le Cellier” Wild Mushroom Beef Filet Mignon with Truffle-Butter Sauce (gluten/wheat-friendly). We know everyone raves about the Cheddar Cheese soup from Canada, but we find it a bit overrated. The filet, though? Perfection! I don’t even like mushrooms and I highly enjoyed this. Perfectly tender and perfectly seasoned, AND at $8 can be used as a snack credit. We think this is one of the best things you can get at the Food and Wine Festival.
Food and Wine Festival Foods to Skip
Now, what about a few things you should skip? We’ve got you covered there. We tried so many things, and didn’t love all of them, so here are a few foods we think you won’t miss by passing them up.
Blueberry and Almond Frangipan Tart | The Alps
Blueberry and Almond Frangipane Tart with Crème Fraîche. We love blueberries. And almonds for that matter. But both of those flavors were really overpowered by lemon. We wanted to love this, but it just wasn’t that good.
Warm Raclette Swiss Cheesw | The Alps
Ok, ok, hear us out on this one. Everyone was talking about this within the first few days of Epcot International Food and Wine Festival as if it was the BEST thing. Sadly we weren’t that impressed. To appreciate this dish, you need to know what raclette is. It’s basically cheese that is melted and then scraped off the block. So it’s melted cheese. With potatoes and bread. Who doesn’t love cheese right?! Well, there are two main reasons we say skip this one and here they are. The idea of melted cheese with bread and potatoes may sound glorious, but if you get one that’s been sitting in the window (like we did) for who knows how long, it’s not really melt-y anymore. It’s kinda just strange and clumpy.
Considering you’re also not at a restaurant sitting down, but rather probably fighting for a place to sit or stand at the festival, it also makes this kind of difficult to eat. Plus, we’ve seen it both ways, and it seems you’re either given too much cheese or too much of the other things. So the proportions of cheese to bread and potatoes is way off. Which leads you to either eating a huge chunk of kind-of melted cheese or bland bread and potatoes by themselves. We’ll let you decide on this one. There were just too many variables here to get wrong for us to make this a must-try.
Epcot Food and Wine Festival Favorite Foods
We update this list every year after visiting the Epcot International Wine Festival and every year we’re so excited to share new and old favorites. Hopefully, this gives you a good idea of what little dishes deserve your hard-earned Disney dollars. One thing to be aware of is that there can be inconsistencies from cast member to cast member, so sometimes even the presentation you see in our photos may differ from what you get. We actually found at times, dishes changed from day today! So be aware! No matter what, we hope you enjoy the festival. And if you find any Epcot Food and Wine Festival Favorite Foods, not on this list, let us know!!!
