Australia Booth Review & Menu: EPCOT Food & Wine Festival

Australia is the next booth in World Showcase during the EPCOT International Food & Wine Festival at Walt Disney World. This Global Marketplace review looks at menu prices, shares food photos, and offers thoughts on what is–and is not–worth your money.

Australia is one of the longer running booths at the EPCOT International Food & Wine Festival (since 1997!). This Global Marketplace has done lamb for a number of years, plus a shrimp dish, and a rotating dessert option that rounds out the trio. Beer and wine options are also on the menu.

You’ll find the Australia Global Marketplace in a prominent location near the entrance to World Showcase, as you head towards Mexico. Thanks to a mix of its popular menu and lots of foot traffic, you’ll usually encounter a line at the Australia Global Marketplace…

One thing to note for the start of the EPCOT Food & Wine Festival is that Australia is using the tent pictured above as opposed to a classier, permanent marketplace kiosk. This isn’t a result of cost-cutting of penny-pinching on the part of Walt Disney World. To the contrary, Australia is getting a brand new booth!

It just isn’t ready yet. Once the permanent booth is completed, it’ll be a stone’s throw away on the exact same side of the promenade, but a bit closer to Mexico. It’s actually already installed, it just doesn’t have signage up (it’s fairly nondescript–nothing excited). It’s our understanding that it’ll open before October.

Anyway, here’s the menu for the Australia booth–regardless of whether it’s the temporary tent or permanent kiosk when you visit…

Now our photos and reviews of each item from the Australia Global Marketplace at the EPCOT International Food & Wine Festival.

Grilled Bushberry Spiced Shrimp Skewer ($7) – The shrimp is a staple from the Australia booth, but the EPCOT Food & Wine Festival mixes things up a bit, with the skewer featuring sweet-and-sour vegetables and coconut chili sauce.

For the longest time, our loose rule for EPCOT’s Food & Wine Festival was to get the scallops or salmon, but skip the shrimp. That was a nearly-universal truth that could be applied with at least 75% success regardless of the year. Shrimp dishes were almost always overpriced, undersized, and rubbery or tough due to being slow-cooked under a heat lamp.

You’ll notice that’s past tense, as something has changed in the last couple years. For one thing, the scallops and salmon are mostly gone. (That saddens me–the event could use more seafood and less heavy dishes.) For another thing, Disney has gotten good about shrimp preparation, and nowhere is that more apparent than the freshly-grilled bushberry spiced shrimp skewer.

This is a fantastic option due in large part to the preparation, which brings a smoky flavor and wonder texture to the shrimp. Then there’s the rub and coconut chili sauce, adding both texture and a bit of a kick to really put this skewer over the top. It’s a playful mix of sweet and heat, and makes this dish a winner. The vegetables mirror this contrast, while also adding a nice crisp crunch that’s an enjoyable contrast to the shrimp. This skewer is literally the best it has been in at least the last decade–I looked through my old photos when updating this, and so many are downright sad by comparison. Highly recommended out of pocket–and it’s a borderline good use of a DDP snack credit.

Roasted Lamb Chop with mint pesto and crushed salt and vinegar potato chips ($8.75) – As noted above, Australia has been doing a lamb dish for as long as I can remember, and it seems like every other year or so, it’s changed up considerably, to varying degrees of success. This version–the one with Mint Pesto and Potato Crunchies–is my all-time favorite incarnation of the lamb chop.

This year’s version is both a heartier and leaner portion of meat, but also perfectly roasted to a medium pink. The natural gamey flavor is enhanced with light seasoning, and the pesto and potato make this an inventive and interesting dish with subtle notes. I really like the refreshing mint pesto contrasted with the rich lamb; the potato chips aren’t necessary, but a little texture never hurts.

All in all, this is one of the few EPCOT Food & Wine Festival dishes that offers something for everyone. It’s completely approachable for picky eaters (it is, after all, a “meat and potatoes” dish) yet it’s nuanced and sophisticated for those wanting something more from their cuisine. We highly recommend this.

Given the higher price tag, Australia’s Lamb Chop is always an objectively good use of a snack credit on the Disney Dining Plan–we’ve found ourselves frequently burning those on it in the past.

Lamington ($4.75) – The dessert at the Australia booth is a yellow cake with raspberry filling dipped in chocolate and coconut. This is a mixed bag. On the one hand, it’s a relatively sizable cake with a variety of flavors and textures at a price point that’s not terrible by Food & Wine Festival standards. On the other hand, it’s a relatively basic cake. We’ve had slices that have been moist, and others that have been dry. We could go either way on this one–it’s safely skippable if you’re not willing to gamble or have limited stomach space for desserts.

Overall, the Australia Global Marketplace at the EPCOT International Food & Wine Festival is a winner solely by virtue of the lamb chop, which is one of the very best dishes at the event every single year. This year is no exception to that longstanding rule. The pleasant surprise is that the grilled shrimp skewer is almost as good as the lamb chop, which I can’t recall ever happening before. We could take or leave both the cake, but you may like it more than we did (it’s a menu mainstay for some reason). No matter how you slice it, Australia is one of the elite booths during the EPCOT Food & Wine Festival!

Check out our EPCOT Food & Wine Festival Booth Menus post if you want to see and read more about every menu this year. You’ll also want to read our full Guide to the 2025 EPCOT International Food & Wine Festival before you go to get an idea of what to do, strategy for the festival (yes, you will need a strategy), and much more!

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YOUR THOUGHTS

What do you think of the Australia Global Marketplace? Have you tried any of the food items at this booth? Any thoughts on these items? Portion-size or quality-wise, did you have better or worse luck than us with what you ordered? Questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!