Yes, We're Oohing and Ahhing Over OCTOPUS in Disney World

There are some seriously underrated restaurants in Disney World that we love to talk about.

Swan Reserve

With hundreds of places to dine across the theme parks, resorts, and Disney Springs, it can feel near impossible to choose where to eat on your vacation. But we’re willing to guess that there are plenty of spots you haven’t tried before! And recently, we got to dine at a restaurant that people really don’t talk about enough.

The Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Hotels are home to some criminally underrated restaurants, and recently, we were invited out to sample some of the culinary offerings at the Walt Disney World Swan Reserve. During that visit, we got to try out some menu items from Amare, the hotel’s Mediterranean restaurant!

Let’s go to Amare!

Amare’s menu is stocked with Mediterranean fare, including seafood, chicken, and various flatbreads. We’ve been here for a full dining review before, but now it’s time to sample some of their best eats.

Amare Menu

We started off with the Charred Octopus, which is $19. It’s served on a fennel puree and topped with pickled onion, crispy potato shards and a pistachio gremolata. Sounds fancy!

Charred Octopus

We really loved this dish! The octopus was nice and meaty but not fishy or too salty, while the fennel puree was so smooth and earthy — it paired well with the octopus. The crispy potato shards reminded us of shoestring french fries, and they were perfectly crisp and delicious. We would totally order this again!

YUM

For the main course, we had The Amare for $20. This is a flatbread topped with leek, potato, lardon, roasted black pepper, and gruyere.

Amare Flatbread

This is a favorite of AJ’s and we can totally see why! The crust was absolutely absolutely perfect. It was crispy but light and it was just enough to carry all of the delicious toppings without being overwhelming. The gruyere was delicious and really subtle, and we loved how thinly shaved the potatoes were. All of the ingredients balance each other out well, and that black pepper sends it over the top.

Get yourself some of this pizza!

Finally, we rounded out the meal with dessert! The Citrus Cannoli isn’t listed on the online menu, but surprise surprise, it was another one of our faves.

Citrus Cannoli

The shell was soft and crumbly, but held the cannoli filling incredibly well. The filling was a wonderful creamy texture with just a bit of oranges and citrus fruits in it. If you’re averse to pulp-like textures, it might not be for you, but it didn’t bother us.

Inside the cannoli

Ultimately, we had some really yummy eats at Amare, so don’t pass it up during your next trip to Disney World! It’s an underrated gem for sure.

Click Here to Read Our Amare Review!

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Disclosure: In nearly all circumstances, Disney Food Blog writers and photographers pay full price for their own travel, hotel, food, beverage, and event tickets. We do this because it’s important to us as journalists to ensure not only that we give you unbiased opinions, but also that you can trust us to do so since we’re paying our own way. On rare occasions, when we are invited by a company to attend a preview as media, and when we choose to accept that invitation, we will always make you, our readers, aware of that situation. Today, we were invited by Marriott to attend their media preview of Amare. Note that when we attend events as media we are 1) Not required to review that event/food on any of our channels, and 2) Not required to review that event/food favorably. You can always count on DFB to give you a 100% unbiased and honest review of any event that we attend, food that we eat, or beverage that we drink. You can see more in our Disclosure Policy. Thank you for reading. — AJ