Disney World Brings Back the Best EPCOT Food & Wine Festival Dishes in Over a Decade.

Over the last several years, our coverage of the EPCOT Food & Wine Festival has mostly been complaints about what’s been lost in the post-COVID era of the event. There have been plenty of bright spots, mostly via the Global Marketplaces, but the tone and tenor have definitely skewed negative. And we aren’t alone in that sentiment!

The reason for this, bluntly, is that Walt Disney World has been phoning it in with the EPCOT Food & Wine Festival for the last 6 years. Last year’s review was titled “EPCOT’s Flagship Foodie Festival is Disney World’s Weakest Annual Event.” The year before that, it was EPCOT Food & Wine Festival Review: Re-microwaved Leftovers.

One big problem with the event is that it’s still not back to “2019 normal” even after CommuniCore Hall debuted, which promised to be the marquee festival center. The slate of seminars, culinary demonstrations, and various enhancements are still not back. The park hasn’t even bothered with a fresh decor package, and it’s actually been scaled back as contrasted with prior years.

On top of that, the Global Marketplaces skewed too much towards crowd-pleasing, comfort-cuisine. Well, it seems that Walt Disney World is listening, as the Full Food Menus for the 2026 EPCOT International Food & Wine Festival are the best we’ve seen in at least a decade. Perhaps longer.

It seems like Walt Disney World has reinvigorated the event for 2026 because it’s the 30th Anniversary of the EPCOT International Food & Wine Festival. At least, according to Disney:

This year is extra special because it marks 30 years – yes, you heard that right – of this fan-favorite festival. To help celebrate this momentous occasion, there are 30 items that have returned or been reimagined from across the years.

That’s a big milestone! The EPCOT Food & Wine Festival has grown from only 30 days in 1996 to 87 days this year with approximately three-dozen Global Marketplaces and over 2 million guests attending each year. It’s worth celebrating the 30th Anniversary of the EPCOT Food & Wine Festival.

What I question is whether it should be celebrated in 2026. Normally, that’s how Walt Disney World would celebrate anniversaries–if an event started in 1996, then 2026 is its 30th Anniversary.

But because I fixate on this stuff, I can’t help but notice that the 20th Anniversary was celebrated in 2015 and the 25th Anniversary was celebrated in 2020. (Note the ’25’ on the cake above for the 2020 Taste of the EPCOT Food & Wine Festival.)

Honestly, I’m not really sure why that was. I’ve already spent wasted 20 minutes going down that rabbit hole, but realized that, you know what, it doesn’t really matter! If Walt Disney World wants to pull out all some of the stops and treat the 2026 EPCOT Food & Wine Festival as the 30th Anniversary, fine by me.

No one else probably cares about the discrepancy in the first place, and it’s unlikely that there’s a satisfying explanation. So no sense in wasting hours digging into the DTB, DPB and D23 Archives to figure out what’s going on. I’ve already devoted too much time and digital ink to it. Let’s just celebrate the fact that Walt Disney World is celebrating the event, and doing something special for the 30th Anniversary of the EPCOT Food & Wine Festival.

Here’s a full list of the 30 dishes for the 30th Anniversary of the EPCOT Food & Wine Festival:

1. Crab & Corn Macaroni & Cheese (The Wedge)
2. Bo Ssam Pork Belly Lettuce Wraps (Festival Favorites)
3. Pumpkin Cheesecake Mousse Trifle (Festival Favorites)
4. Potato Pierogi (Festival Favorites)
5. Pickle Milk Shake (Brew-Wing Lab at the Odyssey)
6. Rodizio-style Grilled Beef Skewer (Flavors from Fire)
7. Roasted Lamb Chop (Australia)
8. Taco de Camaron (Mexico)
9. Dumplings Trio (China)
10. Chicken Tikka Masala (India)
11. Potato-Pea Samosas (India)
12. Sweet Potato Mealie Pap (Refreshment Outpost)
13. Warm Raclette Swiss Cheese (The Alps)
14. Schinkennudeln (Germany)
15. Apple Strudel (Germany)
16. Paella Caldoso (Spain)
17. Pollo al Marsala (Italy)
18. Gulf Coast-style Seafood Roll (Hops & Barley)
19. Spicy Temaki Hand Roll (Japan)
20. Chicken Souvlaki Gyro (Greece)
21. Ras el Hanout Cauliflower Bowl (Tangierine Cafe)
22. Belgian Waffle (Belgium)
23. Pão de Queijo (Brazil)
24. Trio d’Escargots, Garniture a l’ail et au Persil (France)
25. Cheddar & Bacon Soup (Canada)
26. Filet Mignon with Mushrooms & Mashed Potatoes (Canada)
27. Slow-roasted Pork Slider (Hawaii)
28. Freshly Baked Carrot Cake (Milled & Mulled)
29. Liquid Nitrogen Almond Truffle Mousse (Swirled Showcase)
30. Frozen Szarlotka (Swirled Showcase)

This is an absolutely stacked lineup. Several of these items are staples of the event that have been around without interruption for over decades. But a large portion of the list consists of dishes we haven’t seen in a long, long time. Just going off memory, I’d say that at least a dozen of them have been gone for about as many years.

Admittedly, I’m particularly partial to this list because so many of the dishes are from 2010 to 2014. Although we had done the EPCOT Food & Wine Festival a couple of times prior to then, that was when we really got into it professionally. DTB started, we began eating and reviewing every single dish when only a couple of other sites were covering it (and social media influencers and vloggers weren’t yet really a thing).

It was a lot of fun. Truly the “golden age” of the EPCOT Food & Wine Festival for us, albeit possibly to some extent through the rose-colored glasses of nostalgia. Or perhaps not. If Walt Disney World is bringing back so many dishes from that era as classics, well, there’s probably a reason for that!

The reason for this post, though, is one specific dish that Walt Disney World has brought back 15 years later, to my complete shock and delight. (No, not BeaverTails!)

There’s been one specific EPCOT Food & Wine Festival dish that we’ve been begging Walt Disney World to bring back, mentioning it in countless unrelated posts (as we are wont to do with our WDW agenda-items). Most notably, it garnered a standalone entry in EPCOT’s Food & Wine Festival Is Stale. Here’s What We Want Disney to Change.

For newer readers, that dish is the “Pumpkin Mousse with Ocean Spray Craisins and Orange Sauce.” Against all odds, it has made its triumphant return as the “Pumpkin Cheesecake Mousse Trifle featuring PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese, citrus sauce, spice cake, and cranberry streusel.” By Disney’s own account, this is a return of the 2011 dish from Hops & Barley. Based on forensic analysis of the stock photo versus our file photos (and my memory), they’re right.

Here’s what we had to say about that Pumpkin Mousse back in the ‘EPCOT Food & Wine is Stale’ post:

Even more than BeaverTails, this is the dish I miss most from EPCOT Food & Wine Festival past. The “Pumpkin Mousse with Ocean Spray Craisins and Orange Sauce” was so beloved that Disney even shared the recipe online for Thanksgiving 2011. That same year, we ended up having a half-dozen of these (not going from memory, but my photo archive) over the course of our October trip.

In part, that was because it was delicious. But it was also cheap. This bad boy cost $1.50 the first year it was offered. That’s not a typo. One dollar and 50 cents. I would happily pay double that for it today and order just as many in 2024!

In actuality, I’d probably be paying triple that amount given price increases–but it’d still be worth it. This pumpkin mousse was amazing, and that’s not just our bias for all things pumpkin talking. Oh, and while we’re at it, bring back the Cranberry Bog. That Ocean Spray sponsorship really was fruitful in more ways than one!

I remember this dish like I last had it yesterday. The Pumpkin Mousse was so great in large part because of the textures and subtly nuanced flavor. It wasn’t one-note like many Walt Disney World mousses, but instead had spice and interesting flavor thanks to the cranberry and orange.

The Pumpkin Mousse was simple but mighty, and my hope is that the ‘reimagined’ dish manages to recreate that. I don’t want to overhype it, but it is something we’ve been wanting again for the last 14 years!

I’m honestly flabbergasted that, in the span of less than a week, Disney has announced that Dreamfinder & Figment Will Be Reunited in a Ride Reimagining of Journey Into Imagination at EPCOT and Reimagining of Tomorrowland at Disneyland, World’s Worst Most Popular Land and Nostalgic, Fan-Favorite Entertainment Returning to Disneyland in 2027…and even more.

And now, this. All of those other announcements were incredible surprises aimed at Walt Disney World and Disneyland fans, addressing longstanding complaints and issues. This website obviously did a lot of Journey Into Imagination reimagining advocacy over the years, but we were not the only ones. By contrast, I can’t recall seeing any other site mention that Pumpkin Mousse in the last 5-10 years.

Obviously, we are not responsible for the Pumpkin Mousse returning. Walt Disney World isn’t making decisions based on one blogger’s whims and preferences. Most likely, they dug into past sales data and saw that dessert performed really well, someone from the culinary team remembered and wanted to revive it, or they stumbled on the recipe and decided it would be a hit.

Maybe they even looked at fan feedback from years past, as there definitely was a time (over a decade ago) when people were mourning the loss of the Pumpkin Mousse. Whereas everyone else seemed to move on, I did not. I’m stubborn like that and have a great memory for the most inconsequential of things.

Regardless of the real reason, I couldn’t be more thrilled. Above all else, this just reinforces that Walt Disney World is listening to fans. It fills my heart with joy, and makes me feel heard. I know that’s a super silly thing to write about a simple EPCOT Food & Wine Festival dessert, but it’s true. (Points for self-awareness?!)

As for the price tripling, that is, unfortunately, more or less accurate. The Pumpkin Mousse was $1.50 in 2011 and will be $5.29 at the 2026 EPCOT Food & Wine Festival. But I can assure you that will not stop me from devouring a dozen of those puppies. (Although Sarah might.)

Obviously, a single dessert does not “make” the menus for the 2026 EPCOT Food & Wine Festival. (Well, it absolutely does for me, but probably not for you.) The good news is that they look fantastic beyond that.

This isn’t a huge surprise, as we feel that the Global Marketplaces have been trending in the right direction for the last couple of years. A few of our other complaints in that post about the event being stale were that Food & Wine needed fewer heavy dishes, larger menus, more inventive ones, and a return of the Culinary Corridor.

All of those things have since happened, with the 2026 EPCOT Food & Wine Festival being the high-water mark based on what’s been released thus far. Other standouts include (but are not limited to) the Paella Caldoso, Pumpkin Pie Funnel Cake, Ras el Hanout Cauliflower Bowl, Pistachio Crème Brûlée, Liquid Nitro Almond Truffle Mousse, everything at Festival Favorites, Flavors from Fire, and the entire Harvest Hollow (Culinary Corridor) area.

The list is actually a lot longer than that. There are a bunch of intriguing new items, like the Caramel Cream and Gjetost Norwegian Brown Cheese Bolle. Also very notable is that a few legacy Global Marketplaces that haven’t changed their menus in eons are adding new dishes. (Seriously, a few of these had previously been unchanged since pre-COVID!)

Then there are the tried and true locations like France, India, Australia, Hawaii, The Alps, Spain, etc–that look like the best incarnations of these menus we’ve seen in a while. Even Italy looks surprisingly good, and I might just let it trick me into giving it another chance!

About my only grievance (or rather, Sarah’s) is that there aren’t more vegetable-forward dishes. I’m incredibly grateful that it appears the Impossible sponsorship is over, and we aren’t getting an overabundance of contrived, lab-made “meat” dishes. It seems like that fad has died down, and there are (thankfully) noticeably fewer fake-plant-based dishes as a result. At the same time, it’d be nice to have a few more lighter, naturally plant-based dishes to pair with the (real) meats.

By and large, the 2026 EPCOT Food & Wine Festival menus strike me as both building on the foundation of the last two years along with about 20 newly-returning fan-favorites for the 30th Anniversary–plus plenty of pumpkin. That’s a winning combination!

The Harvest Hollow booths–Milled & Mulled, Forest & Field, and Bramblewood Bites–all look to be about on par with last year. There are menu updates to each of them, but they all look to be comparable in quality. Same goes for other former Future World booths, which should again be the high point. Although I still question why Gyoza of the Galaxy doesn’t serve Cake Toast!

I really wish we could ditch the french fry and chicken wing booths, but the long lines at both suggest I’m a vocal minority when it comes to those. If those crowd-pleasers are the “price” we have to pay for good menus (and, I suppose, slightly shorter lines) elsewhere, I’ll gladly take it.

I’m a firm believer that you have to meet guests where they are, and many people simply don’t want envelope-pushing cuisine. I do think it’s possible to meet them where they are at the large-scale counter service locations as opposed to the flagship foodie festival–which is like the equivalent of a steakhouse tailoring its menu to vegans–but fine. This is not nearly as bad as it once was.

Ultimately, the culinary lineup at the 2026 EPCOT Food & Wine Festival clearly skews towards the envelope-pushing or ambitious. After a couple rocky years of the only new booths being (literally) french fries and mac & cheese, I’m happy to see that the pendulum is finally swinging back in the other direction.

Everything about these menus is positive from my perspective. This is doubly true with the background context of spending a lot more time with the last couple of festivals at Disney California Adventure, which don’t hold a candle to what EPCOT is doing. Those events at DCA used to be better and more envelope-pushing than their EPCOT counterparts, but that hasn’t been true for the last couple of years. And the gap only continues to grow, with EPCOT easily offering the more ambitious and interesting cuisine.

For the 30th (or 31st depending on how you count) Anniversary of the event, Walt Disney World has taken that to the next level. While we still have numerous complaints about the EPCOT Food & Wine Festival, it’s fantastic to finally see Walt Disney World addressing some key criticism. And if the merchandise sneak peek was any indication, we’re also getting a new graphics package and visuals for the first time since 2019. There are still overdue fixes to be made, but it seems like the EPCOT Food & Wine Festival is finally back on track and heading in the right direction. Kudos where kudos are due!

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YOUR THOUGHTS

Looking forward to the 2026 EPCOT Food & Wine Festival? Any particular dishes, desserts, or drinks from the Global Marketplace menus stand out to you? Excited to finally try the Pumpkin Mousse we’ve been raving about for years–or enjoy it again if you had it back in 2011-2012? Agree or disagree with our assessment of the menus? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing feedback about your experiences is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!