Best Counter Service Breakfast at Disney World

We’ve had some great breakfasts at Walt Disney World recently. This comes after years of doing grocery delivery and eating quick morning meals in the hotel room because dining options were uninspired and overpriced–especially in food courts and counter service restaurants.

While we’ve always loved Trail’s End, last year we “discovered” new favorites in Ale & Compass Restaurant and Grand Floridian Cafe. There was also Bon Voyage Adventure Breakfast, which was a way better than expected princess meal.

Then Disney’s Riviera Resort debuted with the best character breakfast at Walt Disney World in Topolino Terrace’s Breakfast a la Art. With that hotel, another excellent eatery also debuted to far less fanfare, even though it’s similarly a top-tier dining option at Walt Disney World…

Note: this review features food that is not on the currently on the menu. As part of Walt Disney World’s phased reopening, menus everywhere have been scaled back for ease and simplicity. Although some modifications are inevitable, the full menus are expected to be restored as Walt Disney World resumes normalcy in 2021.

Given that many of you are now in the midst of planning your vacations for the coming year, we’re switching gears and doing the same, with the expectation that these resources will be relevant by and beyond Spring 2021. If you’re visiting between now and then, menu items that are currently available/unavailable are noted below…

The excellent under-the-radar restaurant at Disney’s Riviera Resort is Primo Piatto. You might recall from our review that effusively praised their dinner menu. While there’s always concern that quality will suffer after the “grand opening honeymoon,” we found Primo Piatto’s menu to be ambitious when we dined there in late February or early March. The food has remained excellent since reopening, albeit with more limited options.

Fortunately, there are still multiple meals that are good to great at Primo Piatto. While there are a variety of counter service restaurants at Walt Disney World that do an item or two well–like the Tonga Toast at Captain Cook’s or the Banana’s Foster French Toast at Roaring Fork–few options are as solid top to bottom as Primo Piatto. The only one that comes immediately to mind is Sanaa, but that’s not really a fair comparison since it’s a table service restaurant doing a quasi-counter service meal.

We’ve done breakfast at Primo Piatto several times, both pre-closure and post-reopening of Walt Disney World. Although this review was actually planned months ago, before this cursed year had other ideas, we’ve added a bunch of new photos from our recent meals at Primo Piatto.

The difference should be fairly easy to spot, as the normal food photos are all on nice plates whereas the newer ones are on cardboard “platforms” from our Mobile Orders. Even though we already have plenty of properly-plated photos of these dishes, we went the extra mile of reconstructing the boring brown boxes into something more photogenic just for you!

Let’s start with the breakfast items that are currently available at Primo Piatto. My favorite of these is the Croque Madame:
Classic French Ham and Swiss with a Fried Egg served with choice of side.

All three times I’ve ordered this, it’s been perfect. Runny egg, thick toast, and covered with cheese. There’s nothing revolutionary or novel about this Croque Madame–it’s just a delicious version of a classic dish. The components meld perfectly and execution is always on point. What I love about it is that it’s a filling and non-sugary way to start the day–most of Walt Disney World’s unique and delicious breakfast entrees are sweet, not savory.

Sarah is a huge fan of the Blueberry-Lemon Pancakes: Three, Fluffy House-made Pancakes filled with fresh Blueberries topped with Mascarpone Cream and Lemon Zest served with choice of side.

Here’s your go-to sweet dish on the Primo Piatto breakfast menu. As the description indicates, these are fluffy-but-thick, and the fresh fruit paired with the cream and lemon zest makes for a delightful contrast of flavors. It’s a really high quality dish and far more filling than you’d expect given the size.

Consider splitting the Blueberry-Lemon Pancakes and the Croque Madame for the ultimate sweet and savory combo.

I feel like we’re underselling these two dishes a bit, but they are the reasons we’ve done Primo Piatto multiple times for breakfast. That’s fairly rare for us with counter service restaurants at Walt Disney World–usually we try a dish and move on to other menu items.

Whatever you order, we strongly recommend the Italian Sausage as your side. This is presumably house-made, or if not, it’s at least a hearty and tasty portion.

Other options include bacon (standard issue rubber bacon cut with a paper slicer), eggs (standard issue reconstituted variety), sausage (fine but boring), and Plant-Based Italian Sausage (second-best pick).

Next, we turn to the items that are temporarily unavailable, but hopefully will return by Spring 2021.

Here the Cinnamon Crumble French Toast Bread Pudding with a Warm Vanilla-bean Custard and served with a choice of side is the second-place sweet dish. It’s an odd amalgamation of french toast and bread pudding that ends up inexplicably being denser than both. It’s still delicious, but not quite as good as the blueberry-lemon pancakes.

Pre-closure, Primo Piatto’s breakfast menu featured four different pizzas, none of which are currently being served. Above is the Spinach and Egg Pizza: Fresh Artisan Hearth-baked Pizza topped with Ricotta, Feta, Spinach, and a Soft-cooked Egg.

You can probably spot the issue with this just by looking at it–uneven toppings that don’t cover the entire crust. When this pizza delivers a bite with the dollops of fresh cheeses, runny egg yolk, and perfectly crisped crust, it’ll blow you away. Unfortunately, that’s only about half the pizza. When you’re just getting bites of crust or spinach, it’s obviously lacking. Inconsistent topping coverage is a persistent problem we’ve had with Disney’s “artisan” pizzas, so you might have better luck here…or not.

Finally, something from the plant-based menu: the Farm-Fresh Artisanal Pizza. This offers a fresh plant-based artisan hearth-baked pizza topped with carrot-top pesto, plant-based mozzarella, eggplant, red onion, roasted tomato, and a plant-based egg scramble.

This is pretty well executed and tasty. The hearth-baked crust hits the right balance between doughy and crisp, and is so much better than both the “Almost Pizza” options served at spots like PizzeRizzo and even the normal Walt Disney World flatbreads.

With that said, Sarah and I had different reactions to this pizza. She thought it was very good, with the fresh vegetables tasting great and the pesto being a nice enhancement. I thought this way way too light on cheese (and “meat”) but still good for what it is. The other breakfast pizza we tried was much better in my opinion, and the other lunch/dinner pizzas look exceptional. Still, a good option if you’re vegan or vegetarian.

Overall, Primo Piatto delivers yet another exceptional breakfast at Walt Disney World, and it’s a restaurant we highly recommend with or without the full menu. The Croque Madame is a solid savory breakfast entree (a rarity) and the Blueberry-Lemon Pancakes are next level, worthy of a table service restaurant. Other items are good, albeit with less consistent quality and not quite as delicious.

As with virtually every counter service dining spot at Walt Disney World, you should not go out of your way to eat at Primo Piatto. Taking a convoluted bus route or Uber is definitely not recommended–it’s very good, but not “destination dining.” With that said, everyone staying at Disney’s Riviera Resort, Caribbean Beach, Art of Animation, or Pop Century will be within walking distance or passing through this Skyliner station at some point during your stay. Start the morning of your EPCOT day here, as Primo Piatto is better than any quick breakfast options at those hotels or in the park!

Planning a Walt Disney World trip? Learn about hotels on our Walt Disney World Hotels Reviews page. For where to eat, read our Walt Disney World Restaurant Reviews. To save money on tickets or determine which type to buy, read our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets post. Our What to Pack for Disney Trips post takes a unique look at clever items to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Ride Guides will help. For comprehensive advice, the best place to start is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for everything you need to know!

YOUR THOUGHTS

Have you done breakfast at Primo Piatto? What did you order? Did you try the Croque Madame or Blueberry-Lemon Pancakes? Or did you dine here pre-closure when the menu was more expansive? What did you think of your food? What about the ambiance/theme/caliber of the dining experience? Do you agree or disagree with our assessment? Any questions? 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!