REVIEW: Garlic Kissed at the 2026 Disney California Adventure Food & Wine Festival

It’s time to dive into a garlic-kissed dish — and more! — at the 2026 Disney California Adventure Food & Wine Festival with a stop at the popular Garlic Kissed Festival Marketplace Booth.

Cuties Mandarin Orange & Blackberry Punch

What makes Garlic Kissed such an in-demand spot? Well, we’re pretty sure that the Sirloin Gruyère Mac & Cheese has something to do with it. But we’re sipping on some cocktails, too, as we make our way around to all of the Festival’s Food Booths to bring you our full reviews. Let’s see if Garlic Kissed lives up to its great reputation once more!

Eats

The Sirloin Gruyère Mac & Cheese is back for $9.50. The booth’s star ingredient is presented in the black garlic chimichurri and garlic butter crunch, and the dish is garnished with Fresno chile slices. Now, we’ve had this before, but this year it’s a little different. Last year, it had more chimichurri on it, and we found that it didn’t seem as creamy as before. Although the noodles are soft, the steak is kind of chewy, and we thought the entire dish was a bit too salty.

Sirloin Gruyère Mac & Cheese

The bread crumbs offer a nice crunch, though, and we appreciated the little bit of kick from the chile slices. However, we wished it had more of the chile slices and less of that tough, chewy steak.

Drinks

Let’s check out the new Cuties Mandarin Orange & Blackberry Punch for $8.50. This non-alcoholic option is made with house-made Cuties Mandarin orange purée, blackberry and strawberry purées, blackberry syrup, Simply Fruit Punch, and grapefruit juice. It’s garnished, naturally, with a Cuties Mandarin orange! The orange flavor is VERY strong with this, so much that it overpowers the blackberry and lemonade. That’s probably because of the orange that sits on top of the drink. However, it is refreshing, and we’d probably still drink it again.

Cuties Mandarin Orange and Blackberry Punch

The new Bourbon Peach Tea Lemonade gives you a chance to imbibe for $18.00. This cocktail features Joffrey’s Coffee & Tea Co. Ceylon Black Tea-infused bourbon, peach purée, Simply Lemonade, and Simply Fruit Punch. It’s garnished with a peach ring. That peach flavor really comes through with just a subtle flavor of bourbon in the aftertaste. We really couldn’t taste the tea. The peach ring is cute, but doesn’t really add a lot of flavor. But it gets hard because of the ice in the drink.

This is a great summer drink, though, and it’s another one we might return if we need something refreshing on a hot day.

OVERALL

We’ll admit the mac and cheese disappointed us this year, so that means we really wouldn’t recommend coming to this booth for food. The drinks are refreshing, though, and if you’re looking for something to parch your throat on a hot day, they’ll do the job.

Full Spread 2026

Thanks for joining us at the Garlic Kissed Festival Marketplace Booth! And remember… there’s a LOT more where that came from!

Click here to see FULL reviews of EVERY. SINGLE. BOOTH. at the Food & Wine Festival at Disneyland Resort!

Trying to plan the PERFECT trip to the Festival? We’ll be keeping you updated on all of the latest. Click our links below for the information you need to know: