Ate here last night in the Water Room. My quick take its that it’s probably Disney World’s second best restaurant in terms of quality (behind V&A), and probably a better value than V&A.
The food ingredients are, of course, very good. The creativity and presentation were exceptional. The unexpected thing that impressed me the most was that each course was slightly more intense in flavor than the one before. That makes the wagyu and vegetables the stars of the show. And they were. I said to my dining companions “You know, I think that if this cow knew how happy it made us, it’d be okay with how things turned out.”
A complete tasting menu meal took 2.5 hours, so it’s definitely not for kids. There’ll be a 6-person minimum for the Water Room, which they didn’t enforce either because (a) they recognized me, or (b) they needed the practice. Ordering from the standard menu in the other rooms is likely to be a shorter meal.
Dinner for 3, with one wine pairing, a carafe of sake, and several non-alcoholic cocktails, was $750 before gratuity.
Thank you - we are very much looking forward to trying this on our next trip. The dishes look and sound amazing, and I’m so glad to hear that it’s as good as we were hoping!
I saw the TP article. Thanks for the review. I’m always skeptical of previews though, as they tend to put their best on display. I’m more interested after a place has been open for a year+ if they can maintain quality and service. I’ll keep my eyes on this one for my next WS adventure. Looks great!
That’s funny - I’m the opposite. I expect most restaurants to still be finalizing some aspects of food and service during soft openings, so the experience isn’t as polished as the final product. For example, I remember lots of people were outraged that Via Napoli didn’t allow any menu substitutions at all during their soft opening. Not that it bothered me - I loved it so much I went back two days later and had the exact same pizza!
To be clear, I’m not hating on this new place at all. I’m excited for it. I’m just taking the rave review with a grain of salt. I’m pretty certain that a well known blogger / podcaster is going to get an amazing service during a preview night. I’ve waited tables at a couple new restaurants and seen “the slide” into mediocrity a few months after opening. Let’s see what an average guest thinks in Fall 2020.
I said exactly this in the next edition of the Unofficial Guide. We can’t rely on the opening-week experiences of people Disney knows are active on social media. “The Slide” is real. See also: Tiffins.
There’s no way at those prices it will be on the Dining Plan, surely?
This is the review from the Disney Food Blog (it’s lengthy, be warned). You can see some of the prices on the menu, for the entrees it varies from$40 to $100. That’s just no way possible on the Dining Plan. Unless it’s a severely restricted list of options.
And at the end there is this paragraph.
“Currently, there’s no Disney Dining Plan redemption option available, but annual passholders and DVC members can get a 10% discount, and Tables in Wonderland members and cast members get 20%. We were told that you can’t use a discount on the tasting sampler, but we did the math and it seems like we did get the discount on it”.
Disgusting. Once again, decadent coastal elitists force their outlandish, even freakish, foreign food on the simple heartland folk from the heartland of U.S. America, in sneering contempt for their humble heartland values. It’s getting to be impossible to find any decent, wholesome American food anywhere in the parks. Will no one speak for the modest pizza? Will no one defend the humble wiener?
