Food Guide to 2022 Epcot Festival of Arts

The 2022 Epcot International Festival of the Arts is Walt Disney World’s first event of the new year, and one focus is the creative, culinary arts. In this post, we review the snacks and desserts at Artful Epcot’s Food Studios, share everything you need to know, including what to try and avoid, and much more! (Updated January 16, 2022.)

For starters, Epcot’s International Festival of the Arts is the park’s best event of the year, and one of the annual highlights at Walt Disney World. However, this post focuses solely on the culinary arts at Festival of the Arts. This is the least important element of the event. We want to underscore this up front: buying food is not essential to enjoying Festival of the Arts. Sure, food is great and snacking around these booths is fun. However, prices border on obscene and portions are small.

Moreover, there’s so much substance to this event beyond food, and most of it is totally free! You can watch artists create art right in front of you, peruse booths and galleries, attend free seminars, participate in the creation of art, and so much more. Festival of the Arts is great in spite of the food, not because of it. If you’re interested in knowing what not to miss in terms of non-food offerings, read our Guide to the 2022 Epcot International Festival of the Arts.

The Food Studios at the 2022 Epcot International Festival of the Arts are mostly located in World Showcase, with a few spilling into World Celebration/Nature/Discovery. These booths operate each day from park opening until closing, which gives you just enough time to grab some last minute desserts before camping out to view Harmonious.

We’ve eaten everything at the Epcot International Festival of the Arts for several years running, and are currently working our way around the Food Studios as of January 2022. For the most part, the food at this event is exceptional, with much more attention to detail and quality than other Epcot festivals.

Additionally, here are our Food Studio booth reviews from the Epcot Festival of the Arts:

Each link above opens in a new tab, so you can read the full review and plan on the fly for what you want to eat at the Epcot International Festival of the Arts.

Walt Disney World’s culinary team have really found their groove with Festival of the Arts, and most Food Studios have at least one very good option. Pretty much everything has a middle-of-the-road crowd pleaser, too.

There’s also a level of attention to detail on most of the dishes and desserts at the 2022 Epcot Festival of the Arts that is truly…well, artful.

While waiting for your dishes at the Food Studio pickup windows, you can see the culinary teams put the finishing touches on each item or prepare them from scratch, and it’s a really cool process–it’s actually fun to watch this. On this same note, pretty much everything is freshly prepared, or close to it.

Because it’s during Walt Disney World’s off-season (and probably due to the pricing), demand is a lot lower at each of the Food Studios, so more care can be given to each dish.

Consequently, this is Epcot’s best festival, food-wise. Ironically enough, Epcot’s Food & Wine Festival arguably has the weakest lineup from a culinary perspective due to demand and the need to churn things out quickly.

The big downside to this is hinted at above, and it’s pricing. I didn’t take the time to go through and average things out, but I’d hazard a guess that the average item price is around $8, which is about a premium over Epcot’s Food & Wine Festival…which is already criticized for its high prices.

Keep in mind that these are primarily ‘sample-sized’ portions, with each plate being around one-quarter or one-third the portion of what you’d get at a counter service restaurant. This all goes without saying for Epcot regulars, but in case you’re new to the Epcot ‘Festival Scene’, it’s definitely worth noting.

Prices at Epcot’s Festival of the Arts are not just high by real world standards, but by “normal” Walt Disney World standards–and even by the standards of other Epcot festivals.

You’re unquestionably paying a premium for the festival experience, and you’re also paying a surcharge for the aforementioned attention to detail, quality, and lower output of each booth. Whether the food is ‘worth it’ is a personal question, but it’s a hard sell for us.

If you’re paying out of pocket, starting with some ‘stomach filler’ is a great strategy, and then only doing a handful of items (at most) after that is probably wise.

This will make you far less likely to ‘casually’ drop $100/person as you slowly taste your way through World Showcase. You might laugh at the idea of spending over $100 in a day on snacks, but it is far easier than you might think if you’re not paying attention.

That covers the broad strokes of what you need to know before eating your way around the world during the 2022 Epcot International Festival of the Arts. We’ll return throughout the event for updates here and there, but this post coupled with our individual booth reviews cover pretty much everything you need to know in terms of what to buy and what to avoid.

We’d again stress that you don’t need to purchase anything to have a great time at Epcot during Festival of the Arts. Well, there are several beautiful pieces of art (including some in relatively inexpensive post card sizes!) that you should consider buying, along with some cool Figment merchandise, but you don’t need to buy any food. If you choose to do a ‘food stroll’ around World Showcase, hopefully our resources help you make wise decisions so you don’t waste any money or Disney Dining Plan snack credits!

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…

Do you have any favorite snacks from the 2022 Epcot International Festival of the Arts? Any least favorite items? Do you think the food is worth the high price tags given the attention to detail, or is it all still overpriced? What are you looking forward to trying at the Food Studio booths? Any questions? Hearing from you is half the fun, so please share your thoughts in the comments!

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