Walt Would Love This EPCOT Food Booth

Fans love to say that “Walt would be rolling in his grave” or “Walt would hate this.” The overwhelming majority of the time, this is based not on anything Mr. Disney said during his lifetime, but on the opinion of the person making the aforementioned assertion. It’s purely a coincidence that their opinions align exactly with those that Walt would hold were he alive today. Convenient!

Some might say this is fans projecting their own beliefs and biases, especially as they claim to know what Walt would hate decades after his death. It’s not like he was an innovative and forward-thinker or anything. This is doubly true when it comes to EPCOT, which was famously Walt’s vision for a theme park and definitely not something totally different.

Sarcasm aside, there’s a lot about Walt Disney that can be gleaned from his (many) public statements, popular quotes, and actual actions. The problem is that these things often are in contradiction with one another. Walt Disney, the brand, would say something pithy and then Walt Disney, the corporation, would do things at odds with that. Compounded with the passage of time, it thus becomes a fool’s errand to try determining what Walt would love or hate–with limited exceptions. The 2024 EPCOT Food & Wine Festival brings us one of those.

Before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s zoom out. Forest & Field is a new booth at the 2024 EPCOT International Food & Wine Festival. This Walt Disney World dining review shares menu prices, food photos, and offers thoughts on what’s worth your money or Disney Dining Plan snack credits.

This marketplace is part of the new Harvest Hollow area along the side of Journey into Imagination, just below the leap frog fountains and upside down waterfall. It’s next to the two other new booths with similar cuisine–Milled & Mulled and Bramblewood Bites–that we’ll be covering soon in separate reviews.

Spoiler alert: Harvest Hollow (plus) is our new go-to spot for an evening meal at EPCOT. We’re huge fans of the 3 booths in this area, plus another 2-3 that are on the periphery in the former Future World. We’d highly recommend grabbing a seat in the Harvest Hollow area and sending a runner to grab the best food and drinks at this bundle of booths, enjoying it all from one centralized location. This is our favorite cluster of marketplaces at the 2024 Epcot International Food & Wine Festival.

If Harvest Hollow sounds familiar, it’s because it isn’t actually new. It’s just been redone for what feels like the third time since 2018, and has been home to food booths or seating areas for previous festivals. This pathway between Journey into Imagination and World Showcase is known as the RoseWalk, and it’s been home to the Culinary Corridor that debuted in Future World back around 2017 with a small space devoted to the now-defunct ABC television series, The Chew.

In typical TV fashion, those booths inspired a series of spinoffs with two groups of booths in the former Future World: those with “Eats” in the name and those with “Studio” in the name. All of the studio booths are now gone, but Harvest Hollow is clearly their spiritual successors–both in terms of location and literally reusing the old food studio kiosks.

The Next Eats and Culinary Corridor areas contained some of the best booths at the EPCOT Food & Wine Festival in the past. Despite not being countries (which some fans bemoaned), these booths were a mixture of inventive, fun, and delicious–exactly what the EPCOT Festivals are at their best. Guess what? What’s old is new again–Harvest Hollow revives everything we loved about the Culinary Corridor, and this is once again the highlight of the 2024 EPCOT Food & Wine Festival.

Here’s the menu for the Forest & Field Studio at the 2024 EPCOT International Food & Wine Festival:

Here are our food reviews from the Forest & Field Global Studio Marketplace:

Pumpkin Mascarpone Ravioli ($5.25) – This dish features a few pumpkin mascarpone ravioli with sage-brown butter, pecorino cheese, and hazelnut praline. The pumpkin filling is sweet and sizable, with the mascarpone making it even tastier. The other accompaniments go a long way in further elevating this into something more than just EPCOT’s take on the Trader Joe’s Honey Roasted Pumpkin Ravioli. (Don’t get me wrong–I love that! I just want something more and different at a food festival.)

It’s a delicious dish and the ultimate “flavors of fall.” The sweet pumpkin inside the slightly chewy ravioli works well with the hazelnut praline, all offering the right balance of savoriness, sweetness, and texture. There’s more depth and nuance than you’d expect (a theme of Harvest Hollow), making this superior to most restaurant pasta at Walt Disney World. We recommend it.

Burrata ($5.50) – This features seasonal fall fruit, spiced pecans, apple purée, and fig vinaigrette. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a sucker for burrata, and we often order it as a “for the table” dish at Walt Disney World restaurants.

This is basically a “fall-ified” version of burrata, and is both interesting and fantastically flavorful. Imagine the flavors of apple cider (but chewable) meeting the creaminess of burrata. It’s got fall spice, earthiness, and nuttiness melding with creaminess–and the pairing works perfectly. It also helps that the burrata is light and refreshing, which will help as a nice contrast to the next dish. All in all, another highly recommended dish.

Autumn Chili ($7.75) – Our final dish at Forest & Field is the one Walt would love. It’s no secret that Walt Disney loved chili–it was one of his favorite simple joys in life. I actually had a chance to tour Walt’s office in Burbank this summer, and was amused when his kitchenette was stocked with nothing but V8 and multiple brands of canned chili.

Above I suggested that it’s impossible to know how Walt’s views would’ve evolved over the decades. Nevertheless, I’m fairly certain he would’ve continued loving chili. It’s not one of those things you grow less fond of over time, unless you have an unfortunate incident with it. Speaking as a middle aged man who has myself started to appreciate the finer things more often (e.g. baked beans and chili), I only see that ‘evolution’ going in one direction.

Suffice to say, I’m quite confident that Walt Disney would’ve loved this Autumn Chili.

This isn’t just ordinary chili. It’s the quintessential American chili, featuring bison, lamb, pork belly, root vegetables, jalapeño cornbread, smoked cheddar, and Crème Fraîche. (Maybe Walt would’ve thought the Crème Fraîche is too fancy? He certainly would’ve loved the rest of the stuff in it.)

This Autumn Chili is incredibly hearty and heavy, but it also has a shockingly sophisticated flavor profile for chili. The bison and lamb, in particular, provide an ever-so-slight gamey flavor, and the combination of leaner and fattier meats works really well. I honestly couldn’t taste the root vegetables, which is perfectly fine by me.

As someone from a family of hunters who grew up having venison chili (and burgers, sausage, and everything else), this Autumn Chili took me right back to my Midwest roots. It was like a fancified version of what I had as a kid, reinvented for a food festival. Even if you aren’t a fan of gamier meats, this should still be perfectly fine. It’s some of the best chili I’ve ever had–and exactly the type of dish that should be present at a fall food festival. This is a top 10 dish of the entire event for me–highly, highly recommended!

Overall, the Forest & Field booth rounds out the trio of studios that show why Harvest Hollow is the two best area at the 2024 EPCOT Food & Wine Festival. On the one hand, it’s a good idea to start in this area while you’re still really hungry and get more selective as you get to the weaker, less ambitious Global Marketplaces in World Showcase.

On the other hand, if you’re starting at 11 a.m., this area is hot with minimal shade–and some of the food is heavy. Our ideal solution for tourists is to hit Harvest Hollow after a midday break from the snacking, ideally as the sun gets lower in the sky. For locals, this area is the perfect after-work stop on your way into the park before doing a lap of World Showcase and getting a spot for Luminous The Symphony of Us. Harvest Hollow has several heavy hitting booths with really strong dishes–we highly recommend grabbing at least a half-dozen items from this area!

Check out our Global Marketplace Booth Menus & Photos for the 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 2024 EPCOT International Food & Wine Festival Guide before you go to get an idea of what to do, strategy for the festival (yes, you will need a strategy), and much more!

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

What do you think of the Forest & Field Studio 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!