EPCOT is known for being one of the best Disney World parks when it comes to dining.

Unlike in Magic Kingdom and Disney’s Hollywood Studios where it can sometimes feel like a challenge to find something that’s really tasty, EPCOT is full of great quick service and table service restaurants, not to mention the four different festivals that happen throughout the year. With so many great spots, some go underrated, and while part of us wanted to keep this gem to ourselves, we figured it was time to make it known just how much we LOVE this EPCOT spot!

Over in The Land Pavilion, you’ll find iconic attractions like Soarin’ and Living With The Land, as well as a popular quick service location called Sunshine Seasons. Upstairs, where you enter the pavilion, you’ll also find a film called Awesome Planet, but the main event on this top floor is the table service restaurant.

Garden Grill is a fantastic, family-friendly character meal that’s open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and is so much more than just your average all-you-care-to-enjoy character meal.

Atmosphere

Garden Grill is a slowly rotating (verrrrry slowly) restaurant that sits right above Living With The Land, the relaxing boat ride in the pavilion.

The seating is almost all booths, which are nice and comfortable, especially when you’re dining with a larger group. We also love how everything is bright and welcoming, without being too intense or overwhelming.

By far, one of our favorite parts of this meal is getting to look over into scenes from Living With The Land as you rotate! Again, this is not a rotation that will make you feel queasy or motion sick — it’s extremely slow, so slow that you don’t notice it until you look up and realize you’re looking at a different spot.

And, of course, we can’t forget about the characters! Here you’ll be able to meet Mickey, Pluto, Chip, and Dale as they prepare for Chip and Dale’s harvest feast!

However, we will warn you that as you turn further to the back of the restaurant, where you’ll see scenes from Living With The Land, the restaurant does get a little darker, so if you require or prefer plenty of light to dine, you may want to be ready to use the flashlight on your phone!

Menu

The menu here is an all-you-care-to-enjoy meal that almost reflects Thanksgiving dinner, in a way! This means that you can ask for seconds or thirds of whatever you’d like for no additional charge. For breakfast, you’ll find an assortment of breakfast pastries, fresh fruit, Mickey waffles, skillet potatoes, bacon, scrambled eggs, and more.

For lunch and dinner, which is when we visited, you’ll be served items like cornbread, garden salad, vegetables, steak, mac and cheese, turkey and gravy, mashed potatoes, and more. And now that we’re all hungry, let’s get to the meal!

Food

The first course that’s brought out to you is the cornbread, garden salad, and celery and carrots with ranch. All of the vegetables were super fresh and high quality.

We especially loved the Harvest Inspired Garden Salad and thought that the dressing they had on it was perfect — it was like a mild vinaigrette and was perfectly dressed, plus we loved the addition of olives and red onions! While there are definitely some stronger flavors in the salad, it’s still similar to a classic house salad.

The butter for the cornbread is a honey butter and it is a real winner! It’s perfectly paired with the cornbread, which is warm and in a little skillet to make it extra comforting.

While some people think that carrots and celery are kind of lame, we thought it was an awesome warm up to when you’re going to have a heavier all you care to enjoy meal! Overall, this first course was definitely a winner for us.

As for our main course, it’s the real star of the show! It comes all in one big family style skillet and you can ask for more of whatever you want.

The Chimichurri Steak was really tasty — it was perfectly cooked and thinly cut with tons of that chimichurri that has great garlic and herb flavor. It was so great we DID ask for extra and didn’t regret it one bit. It does have a kick to it, so a heads up to those of you who are spice-averse.

The turkey and gravy has a pretty basic taste, like any turkey and gravy, but we think it’s a very hearty, comforting dish, and the turkey feels like a lighter meat, so even with the gravy it keeps this meal in the realm of kind of light feeling. We love the mashed potatoes though! They were so buttery and so smooth with just the right amount of chunkiness to them. We also went to TOWN on these green beans — they were so buttery and honestly our reporter has craved them since we went. The seasonal vegetables were also perfectly cooked and again, really high quality.

We also really liked the mac and cheese! It was super creamy and super cheesy and it had the goldfish on top as like a little crunch element, but we will admit we were a little hesitant about the Goldfish at first. It was also extra fun because the Chipmunks kept telling us that they put the goldfish on top, and then we had to talk to Mickey and he said the Chipmunks did NOT make mac and cheese, they just put the goldfish on top, making for a really awesome interaction with the characters.

Dessert will be the farmer seasonal pie, and ours was a delicious apple pie with ice cream that was super melty on top.

Our favorite part is that since the meal is hearty, but not fried or anything that sits really heavily in your stomach, you have lots of room for dessert!

Nosh or Not

Head to Garden Grill if:

• You’re looking for a fun character meal with delicious food that should satisfy everyone in the group. The food here tend to exceeded our expectations when it comes to character meal food!
• You LOVE Thanksgiving food and/or the Living With the Land attraction. Comfort food with classic characters and a really fun view? What’s not to love?
• You’re traveling with kids or picky eaters. Most of the food here is very basic while still being delicious, which makes it a good choice for people who don’t want crazy flavors.

Pass if:

• You’re looking for something new and exciting. Like we just said, the food here is very basic and is simply comfort food. It’s good, but you can find a lot of more unique and interesting options out in World Showcase, especially during a festival.
• You want to spend more time in EPCOT itself, not inside a restaurant. There’s a lot to explore in EPCOT, and this dinner will take at least an hour.

Overall

We overall think this is a fantastic meal for almost anyone in Disney World! Got picky eaters? No worries. Got someone who likes a little bit of spice or leveled-up food? The Chimichurri Steak is calling their name. And of course, who doesn’t want a fun character interaction with some of our favorite pals?

Our biggest recommendation though is to go on Living With The Land AFTER you dine here! You really feel like you’ve gotten a behind-the-scenes experience as you enter the greenhouses of some of the food you just ate. Eating and then riding the ride makes it feel like a garden grill “experience,” not just a garden grill restaurant. It honestly changed the way we looked at the ride, which is saying something, since we already loved it to begin with.

We’re always bringing you the latest Disney World dining news and recommendations, so stay tuned to DFB!

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How do you feel about Garden Grill? Tell us in the comments!