Feast with Chip and Dale at Epcot's Garden Grill

Everyone has their favorite Disney Park, and for our family it’s Epcot. We love all four theme parks at Walt Disney World, but Epcot just edges the other three out by a little bit. That may change for Christian on our next visit, though, once he has a chance to check out Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge at Hollywood Studios.

Epcot has so much to offer, fun rides, learning experiences, culture, and of course FOOD! All four parks have great dining options, but Epcot is the place to go for Disney foodies. There are so many great places to eat around the park, especially in World Showcase where you are immersed in the culture and the food of each country!

Our favorite place to eat at Epcot, though, is found in Future World. The Land Pavilion, home to Soarin’ and Living with the Land, is also home to Garden Grill.

The restaurant is located on the second floor, which here happens to be the floor that you enter on. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner are all served family-style here which means that platters of food are brought to the table for everyone to serve themselves and share. If you love something and run out be sure to ask for more! Meals here are all you care to enjoy!

Garden Grill is unique because the tables are placed all of the way around a circle and the whole restaurant slowly turns all of the way around the circle during the course of your meal. Don’t worry, if you’re not paying attention you won’t notice the turning! It takes about an hour for the room to go all of the way around, which is about how long a meal here takes, too!

Once you make it around to the back side of the restaurant you’ll be delighted with views into the Living with the Land attraction! We love this ride, so fun to see from a different perspective. The coolest part of the ride is the greenhouses that show off the many different types of plants that are grown on property. Some of what they grow is served in the restaurant!

For our last trip this was the one place that Christian requested to eat at. He loves getting involved in planning our trips – Disney World and Disney Cruise – from Fastpasses to dining and talking about what we might do on the ships! The main reason that he chose this restaurant was because he wanted to eat with Chip and Dale. That’s right, meals at The Garden Grill come the chance to meet Chip, Dale, Pluto, and Farmer Mickey!

We have eaten at Garden Grill four times now, twice for breakfast and twice for dinner. We really need to make it for lunch in the future! Both meals are great – but the boys wanted to try to get a breakfast reservation for the Mickey waffles with chocolate hazelnut dipping sauce and the potato barrels. We also love getting a pre-park opening reservation so that we can get a few empty part photos, enjoy a delicious meal, and then start the day with slightly less crowds. Since our party was so big – we had 11 people – we were not able to get a breakfast reservation on this trip. I’m glad that we were able to all enjoy dinner together, though, because with some many people we had all gone our separate ways for most of the day and it was nice to come together to enjoy family time, and delicious eats.

The first time we ate dinner at Garden Grill Christian was a baby – we’re talking seven months old – and on this trip he was almost five, so it was about time we checked out dinner again. I’m glad that we did because everything was delicious – seriously, I asked for more of a few things.

Speaking of the food – that’s what you’re here for, right? Let’s talk about it!

The meal - Chip ‘n’ Dale Harvest Feast – is in fact a feast. Like I said, if you love something, be sure to ask for more!

Our meal started with Harvest-inspired Garden Salad – greens with sliced red peppers and tomatoes dressed a vinaigrette dressing.  Soft, fluffy, fresh-baked rolls with whipped butter are also served with the salad. I had two helpings of both!

Following the starters a platters of the rest of the meal were brought out. Slow-braised Pot Roast, All-Natural Sliced Turkey Breast with Turkey Gravy, and Carved Pork with Apple Chutney were all tender and full of flavor. The Pork with apple chutney was my favorite of the three. Pork and apple is just such a good flavor combo. All three meats were delicious, and I ate more than one helping of each of the three. Seasonal Vegetables, which at the time were buttery green beans and root vegetables were tender and delicious. I had more than one helping of each.

The Herb and Leek Stuffing was moist, and fluffy, and reminded me of Thanksgiving. It paired nicely with the cranberry relish that came in a small bowl condiment style bowl. (I ate all of it!) The Buttermilk Mashed Potatoes were smooth and buttery – there’s just something about mashed potatoes that makes everyone love them.

The kids, and kids at heart, at the table enjoyed the creamy, cheesy Macaroni & Cheese and crisp on the outside, soft on the inside, French Fries that also came with the meal.

As if that wasn’t enough the meal ends with Berry Short Cake with Vanilla Bean Whip Cream. Since there were so many of us two of these were brought to the table, and I are about half of one of them. The cake was sweet, but not too sweet, and had a tender crumb to it. The strawberries and blueberries had been macerated and created a sweet syrup with crunch of whole berries that coated the entire cake – so good! It was topped with a sweet, vanilla whipped cream. Had I not eaten so much of the main meal I could have easily eaten the whole cake by myself – it was that good. For those that didn’t want the cake there were also Sugar Cookies with Mickey sprinkles.

Dinner at Garden Grill just might be one of my favorite meals on property. Everything was flavorful and delicious, and there was so much of it. You can truly eat to your heart’s content here. The character interactions were also a lot of fun since we had two little kids (9 and 11 months old at the time), and an almost five year old. We have enjoyed every meal we’ve had here, and we can’t wait to go back again. We highly recommend it for any meal of the day.

Are you ready to start planning your next magical vacation? I’d be happy to help! Contact me at miriyawhitaker@worldofmagictravel.com for your FREE quote and to start planning your next trip on land or sea. For more Disney and travel information follow me on Facebook.