Disneyland Food & Wine Festival Food Guide
I’ve been to the Disneyland Food and Wine Festival every year it’s been offered the past few years! And just as a side note, the festival is actually in Disney’s California Adventure – Disneyland is just easier to type! This year I took my three siblings along with me for opening day and we had a blast trying everything on the Disneyland food festival menus! Having all four of us trying things out will hopefully mean these reviews are sound and well-rounded, not just my picky no-onion eating opinions! Along with the menu for this year, I’ve also included a photo of the food and our reviews from this year. There were a couple of items that were returning from previous festivals but instead of just assuming they were the same as years in the past, we tried them all again and I’ve updated my reviews on many of them! I’ve broken this guide out by festival marketplace booth and other food locations so it’s easier to find everything you’re looking for! Let’s get onto the Disneyland food!
Sip and Savor Pass Disneyland
One of the key things to note is that Disney brought back the Sip and Savor Pass this year, which is a way to get discounted food items if used correctly. The Sip and Savor Pass is $52 for Magic Key Holders and $57 for non Magic Key Holders. It gives you a lanyard and eight little tabs to pass for food and non-alcoholic drink items at the park. The break even point is $6.50 for Magic Key passes and $7 for non Magic Key Holder passes. The best items to use your Sip and Savor pass on value wise from the marketplaces are:
Disneyland Food & Wine Booths
These are the booths at this year’s festival! Each marketplace has a specific theme to the booth’s eats!
Avocado TimeBerry PatchCalifornia Craft BrewsCluck A Doodle MooD-LishGarlic KissedGolden DreamsI Heart ArtichokesLA StyleNuts About CheesePeppers Cali-enteUncork California
In addition to the actual marketplace booths, there are a number of festival specific food items at other restaurants in California Adventure, and I’ve included those at the bottom of this post. I recommend not skipping those as they were actually some of our favorites!
2022 Disneyland Food and Wine Festival Menus
We just got back from the festival and let me tell you – most of everything on the menus was delicious! Some obvious standouts and some that we wouldn’t get again but in general, things were yummy! I’ve included our agreed upon rating (out of 10) as well as a photo and our review for each of the food and non-alcoholic drink items below. One thing to note – taste buds are subjective. We may have loved something that other people on the internet didn’t, and we definitely didn’t like some of the things I’ve seen people raving about. It happens – we’re all different and can only give you our personal opinions on things. If you don’t agree, that’s okay.
D-Lish
First up is D-Lish, which is one of the first booths you’ll find, tucked away right before Avengers Campus.
Black and Tan Beef Potato Puffs: Karl Strauss Wreck Alley Stout Gravy and Lager Micro SpongeCubano Slider: slow-roasted mustard crusted pork and sliced smoked ham with melted swiss cheese and slice of pickle on a Hawaiian roll Central California Cooler: Peach, apple, orange, and lemon juice
Everyone thought the potato puffs were good but not amazing, gave them a solid 7/10. If you’re a big fan of tots, I recommend just getting some from Pym’s Test Kitchen instead! The cubano slider was a favorite for two out of four of our group (and the two who didn’t love it don’t like Cuban sandwiches so don’t really count). Gave this a solid 8 out of 10 and one that we’d get again! The Central California Cooler was light, refreshing, and our favorite festival drink we had all day. Our favorite was Schmoozie’s Watermelon Lemonade, but that doesn’t count since it’s not part of the festival! 7/10
Nuts About Cheese
Out of all of the booths, I was the most excited about the nuts about cheese booth – a sweet mac, a chocolate macaron, and grown up cheese and crackers!? Luckily, most of the hyped dishes lived up to my excitement.
Peanut Butter and Jelly Mac: mac with brown sugar streusel and strawberry crackle (NEW)Next Level Crackers & Cheese: house-made herb crackers with white cheddar infused fromage blanc, spicy prosciutto spread, and cherry jam (NEW) SNICKERS Caramel-Peanut Milk Chocolate Mickey Macaron: Chocolate Mickey macaron filled with caramel ganache and SNICKERS pieces
The peanut butter and jelly mac was one of those things that you eat and think what is going on here, why am I eating peanut butter with mac and cheese. Two out of four of the group hated it, and two of us tolerated a few bites but didn’t finish it. It made our short skip this list. The best part were the Pop Rocks on top. 3/10 The next level crackers and cheese was one that I wasn’t quite sure what to expect but it was surprisingly good. A unique concept, unique flavors, and it all really worked well together. One of our top 10! 8/10 Last but not least is the Snickers Mickey Macaron. This was similar to the one they had in 2020 but with the addition of Snickers pieces in the middle. We all wanted to be amazed with this, and it was good, but we weren’t blown away. It’s possible because we were comparing it to the Raspberry Rose Mickey Macaron (on my list of best Disneyland food), which is mind-blowingly good. But it’s good if you like Snickers and still not to be skipped. 8/10
Uncork California
Similar to years in the past, they are offering a gourmet cheese selection and this year the amazing chocolate hazelnut crunch has been moved here (one of my favorites from the 2020 festival). Here’s the full menu:
California Artisan Cheese Selection: Habanero Jack and TomaProvence Chocolate Hazelnut Crunch: Chocolate hazelnut mousse topped with chocolate hazelnut glaze and a gold leaf.
The California Artisan Cheese Selection was one of the two things we bought two of because it was a nice refreshing break from all of the warm, heavy, and rich food we got everywhere else. It came with two different cheese that we all enjoyed, plenty of crackers, blanched almonds (not a favorite), caramelized pecans, and grapes. The picture below is from the 2020 festival so the cheese are a bit different this year but everything else is the same. The cheeses this year were an herby one and a Habanero Jack that had a bit of spice. 8/10 In the past, the hazelnut crunch was my personal favorite dessert. It looked and tasted like a big fresh Ferrero Roche – one of my favorite chocolates ever! The outside had that nice crunch, the middle was smooth and creamy, and the center was one big crunch. So good! It was still good this year but not quite as good as I remember. It was a little rich for the rest of the group and almost makes me think I was biased last time because of my love for Ferrero Roche. The group consensus was a 6/10.
Golden Dreams
Golden Dreams had a brand new menu this year with two cold dishes – a salmon and a gazpacho!
Honey-orange glazed salmon with citrus vinaigrette (NEW) Mango carrot gazpacho with grilled shrimp and jalapeno crema (NEW)
The salmon was a bit surprising because it was a cold salmon, propped as a salad, and our group wasn’t a huge fan. The salmon was cooked okay, but they didn’t love that it was a full piece of cold salmon. 5/10 The gazpacho was fine and as my sister put it, could live without getting either but not terrible. The shrimp was cooked well, and that was probably the star of the dish. 5/10
California Craft Brews (just past Buena Vista Street toward Cars Land)
The craft brews menu is mostly beverages, but they did have one food item this year, which was actually one of our group’s favorites!
IPA Sausage Dog on a soft pretzel roll with onion-pepper jariniere, cheddar cheese sauce, and malt vinegar jalapeno crunch (NEW)
The sausage dog was one of the first things we tried at the food festival and even toward the end of the day, it was one that everyone remembered liking (and we’d tried a lot of things). The combination seems like a lot but it really worked together. 8/10
Peppers Cali-ente
This year’s menu is brand new and included some great Mexican flavors and specialties including one of our top dishes of the entire festival!
Chile Relleno Empanada with arbol pepper salsa and Oaxaca and Cotija cheese (NEW) Aji de Gallina: Spicy yellow chile creamed chicken with jasmine rice and olive tapenade
The empanada was easily one of our favorite food items of festival! The outside was well cooked, the inside was flavorful, and it had a nice little kick without being too much! Plus, that sauce on the outside finished it off great! 9/10 The Aji de gallina reminded me of a typical Spanish chicken gravy and rice dish with a nice hint of heat. It was good but not necessarily something I’d say is a must-try, especially when compared to its marketplace counterpart, the empanada. 7/10
LA Style
In the past LA style offered a number of different tacos but they’re changing it up this year with a totally new menu! And the new menu was a hit across the board for our group!
Glazed BBQ pork Belly with furikake togarashi mac salad (NEW) Gyro-inspired Flatbread featuring impossible ground beef with chipotle hummus, tazatziki, and spiced crispy chickpeas (NEW)
The glazed pork belly was another one of our top food items of the festival. Well seasoned, well cooked, and just delicious. We could’ve done without the mac salad on the side but it luckily didn’t have any impact on how good the pork belly was! 10/10 The flatbread was easily the best of the plant-based options that we tried at the festival and all three of my siblings said that it was good regardless, not just if you’re looking for a plant-based option. All of the elements worked really well together and the crisped chickpeas added a really nice texture to the whole dish. 8/10
Avocado Time
Disneyland always seems to come up with some crazy ways to use avocado for the Avocado Time menu! This year’s menu looked promising and was easily our least favorite of the entire festival. There’s so many ways you can use avocado that are delicious and unfortunately these just didn’t work for us.
Petite Impossible Avocado Burger with dairy-free pepper jackFrozen Guacamole: Avocado paleta with lime crema, pico de gallo, and chile-lime seasoning Ruby Grapefruit Sparkling Beverage: grapefruit juice, raspberry syrup, agave nectar, and mineral water
The impossible avocado burger was our least favorite of the plant-based options we tried during the day. Even if you’re looking for something plant-based, our personal opinions are that this one should be avoided for something else like the flatbread mentioned above. 4/10
The frozen guac sounded so intriguing but for us it was a mess. The avocado ice cream bar itself was good and the toppings were good but the two of them just didn’t work together well. And definitely didn’t get the sense of this being guac. 4/10
The Ruby grapefruit drink was one that I personally loved in past years – it was refreshing and had a nice flavor. This year was a bit different, and I’m not sure if it was an execution issue or what, but it was just not good. Two of my siblings couldn’t take more than a sip and the other two of us didn’t feel the need to finish the drink. My recommendation would be to skip this one unless you like Grapefruit LaCroix because it tasted something like that.
The one plus was that the raspberries on top are a nice fresh addition! 3/10
I Love Artichokes
There are two brand new artichoke items this year and both pretty successful with a few reservations.
Fried Artichoke Dip: Chicharron-crusted fried artichoke dip with smoked pepper cream and Oaxaca cheese (NEW)Artichoke Toast with Olive Tapenade: Toasted sliced baguette with artichoke cream cheese, topped with olive and artichoke tapenade and drizzled with olive oil (NEW)
The fried artichoke dip was a bit confusing. It was cooked well so that it was crispy on the outside and the inside was nice and creamy, just like I was expecting. But the inside wasn’t what I would call artichoke dip. I was thinking it was going to be a spinach artichoke dip or even just a basic artichoke dip. It’s actually more of a southwestern artichoke dip (or a taco dip) with corn, black beans, and artichoke. Not bad but not at all what I was expecting. We all enjoyed it, just know going into it what you’re getting. 8/10 The artichoke toast on the other hand was exactly what I was expecting – artichokes and olives chopped up on top of a creamy cheese topping on top of crisp toast. It was flavorful and delicious. 8/10
Cluck-A-Doodle-Moo (just past Little Mermaid)
I am so excited to see that Cluck-A-Doodle-Moo is bringing back the ranch wings and that they were serving a lavender lemonade (similar to the strawberry lavender lemonade I made a few years back). The booth overall was good but not our favorite and not worth the crazy line the entire day.
Ranch wings with a hot sauce drizzleFrench onion grilled beef tenderloin slider: Grilled beef tenderloin topped with a gruyere cheese and caramelized onions served on an onion roll Blackberry Lavender Lemonade: Blackberry, pineapple juice, lavender syrup, and lemon juice (hope this one is like the strawberry lavender lemonade from a few years ago!)
Okay, so let’s start the wings. I’ve included two photos below – one from the 2020 festival and one from this year’s festival. The wings were good this year but I felt like they were just basic wings and missing the actual ranch flavoring. If you look at the photos below, you can see all that ranch flavoring on the 2020 photo that’s not there on this year’s wings. Not sure if that was just an execution error or what, but it made a huge difference in the wing flavor. Instead of the wings being in our top 10, they were on our okay but not in the top list. The ranch flavoring really took them up a notch in the past and reminded me more of these garlic parmesan wings with a flavorful crispy outside. 8/10 The French Onion slider was another one that my siblings had high hopes for (I skipped it because I don’t like onions) and it was just okay. The caramelized onions were good but the actual slider itself was mediocre, making the entire dish one that they likely wouldn’t order again. 6/10 Finally, the blackberry lavender lemonade was good but a little on the sweet side for us. There also wasn’t really a distinct lavender flavor, so I’d call this one more of just a sweet blackberry lemonade. If you like sweet lemonades, you’ll like this one. 7/10
Berry Patch (Near the Golden Zephyr)
This year’s menu has two brand new food items and one was definitely better than the other but both were serviceable.
Strawberry Cheesecake – with lemon chantilly (NEW) Blueberry-Buttermilk Pie (NEW)
The strawberry cheesecake definitely wasn’t what I was expecting for a cheesecake. It was nothing like these strawberry cheesecake bars and more like a mousse combined with a jello topping. The flavor was okay but it just wasn’t our favorite with that layer of jello on top. 4/10 The blueberry pie on the other hand was a winner! It would’ve been better served warm but even chilled this buttermilk pie was one of my brother’s favorite desserts of the entire festival. Good flavor, good combination of textures, and just yummy. 7/10
Garlic Kissed (Near the Golden Zephyr)
Garlic Kissed has been a fan favorite for years with their mac and cheese options and this year’s menu looks just as divine!
Grilled top sirloin with roasted garlic chimichurri (NEW) Carbonara Garlic Mac & Cheese with peppered bacon
The grilled top sirloin was surprisingly so much better than anyone was expecting. My brothers both raved about the smashed potatoes under the sirloin as well as about the sirloin itself. This is definitely one that I think has the chance to be a sleeper hit at the festival this year so definitely one to check out! 8/10 The carbonara was good but exactly what you would expect from a bacon mac and cheese. It was at the festival a few years ago as well and one of my favorites but compared to some of the other innovative dishes this year, it didn’t make our top 10. It is good though and a safe favorite if you want something for the kids! 6/10
Other Food at Disneyland Food & Wine Festival
In addition to the actual festival marketplaces, there are typically food and wine festival food offerings at the restaurant Disneyland restaurants throughout the park! I’ve included my reviews of all of these items below!
Willie’s Churros
Willie’s currently has a speciality mango Churro with mango sauce, chile-lime sugar, and tamarind chamoy. This was our least favorite churro and actually made our skip this list for the festival. While the mango tamarind chamoy combination works well for things like Dole Whip, it just made for a mess on the churro. I’ll take the fluffernutter churro back please. 3/10
Redwood Creek Challenge Churros
The churro cart near Redwood Creek Challenge (and just to the left of golden dreams) is serving up a maple bacon churro during the festival. This was easily our favorite of the churros we tried and was delicious. If you like maple bacon cake or maple bacon donuts, you’ll like this one. 8/10
Smokejumpers Grill
Smokejumpers (right by Soarin’) has two festival specific items – a pepperoni pizza slider and a peach-blueberry lemonade. The pepperoni pizza slider was a good concept with poor execution. My brother had the pizza burger at Black Tap the night before and said while that was amazing, this slider was just not great. 5/10 The blueberry peach lemonade was another one of those good but not great. Half the group enjoyed the blueberry boba balls at the bottom, half didn’t. And the blueberry was much stronger than the peach flavor, making this a sweeter drink than we were all looking for. It was good but not as delicious as the watermelon lemonade at Schmoozie’s. 7/10
Sonoma Terrace
Sonoma Terrace is offering a combination of a toasted fig and proscuitto sandwich along with a white cheddar lager soup. Don’t skip this – it was one of the favorite items for our entire group! The toasted sandwich itself was good enough but the soup was a big winner. My brother even carried it with us until he could find something (the empanada) to dip into it. 10/10 for the soup, 8/10 for the combo together
Cocina Cucamonga
The only offering here is a strawberry horchata, which sounded a much better than it tasted. It was basically a normal horchata but with huge chucks of strawberries added in, which ended up in it not really tasting like strawberry horchata but instead just being horchata with strawberries all sunk to the bottom. Not great and pretty hard to drink. 4/10
Lucky Fortune Cookery
Lucky Fortune has a mushroom bao with hoisin glazed mushrooms, asian slaw, and jalapeno that was a good concept but just okay execution. The flavor was good but the whole thing was a bit soggy and hard to eat. It’s still a good option if you’re looking for something vegetarian or just over all the meat. 7/10
Pacific Wharf Cafe
The cafe has an avocado toast with smashed avocado on toasted sourdough bread as well as a lemon blueberry bread pudding that may not be festival specific but was on the seasonal/festival menu on the mobile order app, so I’m including it here. The avocado toast was another case of good concept with poor execution. Unfortunately ours was pretty soggy (you can almost see the soggy in the picture below), which made it difficult to eat. I think if you got this one fresh with crispy bread it could be a homerun but as served, it was a miss for us. 5/10 The lemon blueberry bread pudding was one of our favorite desserts. Unlike a lot of bread puddings that are soggy, this one wasn’t at all. The actual bread pudding still had a nice texture that was soft but not soggy and almost a bit crispy on the outside. The lemon topping, whipped cream, and fresh blueberries all worked really well to make this a fresh and flavorful dessert. 8/10
Pym Test Kitchen & Tasting Lab
Pym’s has a speciality pretzel for the festival called an elote pretzel. It’s a regular size pretzel (not their gigantic ones) topped with corn in three ways, cilantro, radish, cotija, and a flavored crema. You can probably tell from the picture below why this one just didn’t work at all. First of all, eating this was a nightmare even with a knife and fork. But then the flavors also just didn’t work at all. Popcorn and radishes don’t belong on a pretzel. The parts of this that one person liked the other didn’t like and vice versa. But no one liked it all together, which is saying something. There are much better festival items to try and much better items at Pym’s Test Kitchen to try. 2/10 Next door at Pym’s Tasting Lab they have a new snack mix with spring inspired flavors. I actually just tried this when we were at Disneyland with my family a few weeks ago and it’s a fun but kind of odd mix and one that my kids didn’t really enjoy. Not good, not bad, just kind of a throw away. No picture of this one – sorry! 6/10
Terran Treats
Terran Treats is home to a handful of fun galactic desserts and the festival has added a new item to the mix – a raspberry spiral ration that’s basically a yellow colored strawberry spiral churro with a raspberry compote on top. This was one of the first things we tried all day and I’m happy to report it’s a good one, the raspberry compote really makes this treat. I’m also happy to report that it’s better than the other spiral ration that’s normally served at Terran Treats. 7/10
Festival Snack Carts
The festival snack cart right near Paradise Garden Grill is offering up pretzel bites with a cheese dipping sauce and berry cotton candy (also available at various snack carts throughout the park). The pretzel bites themselves were okay (but plenty of better pretzel options throughout the park) but our entire group thought the cheese dip was gross, almost inedible gross. And since it only comes with five pretzel bites, this is definitely one of those not worth the value snacks. 4/10 The berry cotton candy was the last thing we ate in Disney’s California Adventure and surprisingly delicious. Disney has a way of making cotton candy taste great and not like normal super sugary cotton candy, and we all loved how it had a hint of berry flavor while it dissolved in our mouth. 7/10
Paradise Garden Grill
Like always, paradise garden grill has a huge menu of festival specific items, enough that they get their own list! One thing that’s important to note is that they offer entree size portions of many of these AND they offer tasting menu portions that are eligible to use your Sip & Savor pass. Make sure you order the right one or you’ll end up with full-sized entree portions like I did. Also, sorry for the sad photos. I ran out of sun at Paradise Garden Grill and didn’t get the natural light photos I’d hoped for.
Brisket fries (NEW) Char Siu Ribs (NEW) Impossible Gyro (NEW) Jerk Chicken (NEW) Beer-battered fish tacos (NEW) Strawberry Shortcake
The only thing on the menu that we did not try was the impossible gyro but if it’s anything like the one at the Shwarma Carts (one of the worst foods in Avengers Campus), I’d steer clear. The char siu ribs looked like they should be amazing but unfortunately tough, chewy, and just not good. These made it on our skip this list. 3/10 The jerk chicken was as my brother put it, not jerk enough for me. We ordered an entree size of it and the group only wanted a few bites because the flavor was lacking. It wasn’t bad, just lacking. The side dishes themselves were decent, although I’m not sure if those accompany the tasting portion or not. 5/10 The beer-battered tacos on the other hand were crisp, flavorful, and good for fish tacos. Just make sure to eat them quickly because I can see them getting soggy after sitting for a few minutes. 7/10 The brisket fries were the biggest winner for the entrees from Paradise Garden Grill. Like my siblings said, while brisket fries isn’t a hard thing to do, these were well executed and flavorful. They could’ve done without the cheese sauce but overall these were a hit. 7/10 Last but not least was the strawberry shortcake, and this was my personal favorite dessert of all of the festival offerings. Two pieces of light pound cake served with fresh strawberries, strawberry sauce, and light and fluffy mascarpone cheese. This was the perfect way to end our night and definitely not to be missed. 9/10
Lamplight Lounge
The only food that we did not try for the festival was at Lamplight Lounge. They’re offering a ribeye for two meal and cookies and cream donuts. If they’re anything like the regular cinnamon sugar donuts at Lamplight (on my list of the best Disneyland food), they’re worth getting!
Downtown Disney
There are a handful of food items that are festival specific being offered in Downtown Disney’s dining district as well. I won’t be trying those unfortunately, but here’s what you can look for!
La Brea Bakery Cafe – Avocado Toast TrioBallast Point Brewing Co – Striped bass, Nashville portobello, and olive oil cake Black Tap Craft Burgers & Shakes – Banana pudding shake Splitsville Luxury Lanes – Turkey Clubettes Uva Bar & Cafe – Tapas Menu including avocado shrimp toast, grilled ham and cheese, and crispy duck wings Catal Restaurant – Sunday Supper on Sundays from 5PM to close including fried chicken, meatloaf brisket short rib, and chicken pot pie
Disneyland Food Festival Top 10
I did this the last time I covered the festival so that if you don’t have time to read everything, you can at least get a good snapshot of I should try these things for sure when I go! These are our personal top 10 favorites of the festival! These are not in any particular order, just a list of our top 10 food items from the festival!
Disneyland Food and Wine Skip This List
I just gave you my top 10 list that I highly recommend. Here are the five that I highly do not recommend spending your money on when there are so many better options out there!
Disneyland Food and Wine Festival Best Of List
Also, since there are so many similar dishes being offered during the festival, I thought it’d be fun to do a best of list that includes our top choices for particular categories. So for example, if you’re going to eat just one churro, which one should you choose. And so soon.
Best Churro – Maple Bacon Churro from the churro stand near Redwood Creek Challenge CourseBest Dessert – Strawberry shortcake from Paradise Garden GrillBest Non-Alcoholic Drink – Central California Cooler from D-Lish Best Meat Dish – BBQ Glazed Pork Belly from LA StyleBest Plant-Based Dish – Gyro-Inspired Flatbread from LA Style
More Disney Planning Tips
If you’re planning a trip for the Disneyland Food and Wine Festival, you might as well check out these other Disneyland planning posts to!
Disney packing list – this extensive Disneyland packing list is perfect whether you’re going for one day or an entire week!Disneyland Halloween Guide – everything you need to know about Disneyland at Halloween Time! Disneyland Halloween Food – The best Disneyland Halloween food including treats, drinks, and more! Oogie Boogie Bash – a guide to Disneyland’s Halloween party – Oogie Boogie Bash! Best Disneyland Food – the ultimate guide to Disneyland food, reviews of anything and everything!
