Honey Bee-stro Menu & Food Review: Epcot Flower & Garden Festival
Honey Bee-stro is an Outdoor Kitchen at the Epcot Flower & Garden Festival. In this Walt Disney World dining review, we’ll look at the menu prices, share food photos, and offer thoughts on what is worth your money.
One of the cool things about the Outdoor Kitchens at Epcot’s Flower & Garden Festival is that several provide a glance at important sectors of Florida’s $120+ billion agriculture industry that includes citrus production, pollination, and even honey. In fact, Florida is one of the top five honey-producing states in the United States, producing 17 million pounds of honey per year.
Located along the Culinary Corridor of Future World, Honey Bee-stro is one of a few food booths that’s not along World Showcase Promenade. This one is right across from the Starbucks, meaning it’s “close enough” to World Showcase and is an easy stop on your way to Northern Bloom or Refreshment Port. This prime piece of real estate coupled with a fantastic menu makes it one of the most popular food booths at the Epcot Flower & Garden Festival…
Here’s a look at the menu for the Honey Bee-stro Outdoor Kitchen:
- Tupelo Honey and Sweet Corn Spoon Bread with Jalapenos, Bacon and House-Made Whipped Honey Butter (Gluten/Wheat-Friendly)
- Lavender Honey Mustard-Marinated Chicken Flatbread with Whipped Honey-Ricotta Cheese, Marinated Vegetables and Purple Haze Lavender Goat Cheese
- Local Wildflower Honey-Mascarpone Cheesecake with Orange Blossom Honey Whipped Cream, Whipped Honey, Crystalized Honey, Honeycomb, Dehydrated Honey and Fennel Pollen Meringue Kisses
Now our photos and reviews of each item…
Tupelo Honey and Sweet Corn Spoon Bread with Jalapenos, Bacon and House-Made Whipped Honey Butter ($5) – Melt in your mouth delicious may not sound like an apt (or appetizing?) way to describe corn bread, but that’s totally the case here and it is fantastic.
This isn’t as dense as normal corn bread, and when mixed with that honey butter is is utterly glorious. A perfect marriage of savory and sweet, with the corn, bacon, and bread itself adding nicely to the textures and more substantial quality of this dish. Highly recommended.
Lavender Honey Mustard-Marinated Chicken Flatbread ($6) – This is topped with whipped honey-ricotta cheese, marinated vegetables and purple haze lavender goat cheese. We both liked this, and felt that the honey and cheeses did some heavy lifting to compensate for otherwise lackluster chicken.
With that said, topping coverage and freshness were both issues. (We had the same problems last year with a different twist on Honey Bee-stro’s flatbread.) This booth is often busy, so they’re cranking dishes out quickly. As a result, how this sits under a heat lamp can vary. We’d still recommend this with reservations, primarily to anyone who wants something savory to accompany the next item, which is an absolute must-order…
Local Wildflower Honey-Mascarpone Cheesecake ($5) – This dessert is served with orange blossom honey ice cream and garnished with fennel pollen meringue kisses. This dessert was created a few years ago by Chefs Bobby Rivera Otero, sous chef at Le Cellier Steakhouse at Epcot, and Jason Stricker, pastry sous chef for Epcot, as Walt Disney World’s entry into the Orlando’s Signature Dish competition. (It was thereafter served at Le Cellier.)
It’s a signature dessert in two senses of the term, and I’d be completely satisfied if I ordered this at Le Cellier and paid [amount redacted because I don’t want to give Walt Disney World any ideas] for it. I hesitate to write this, but for the price at Epcot’s Flower & Garden Festival, this cheesecake is a downright bargain. It’s the only item of the event that we revisit regularly. One of the very best items you’ll find at any Epcot festival–not just this one.
Here’s a look at the Souvenir Spike the Bee Sipper Cup, which we did not buy because we already have too much stuff like this. However, I really appreciate the deep cut, and feel like I had a responsibility to purchase this to support production of more Walt Disney World merchandise featuring obscure characters.
For those who are unfamiliar with Spike the Bee (as I was), he often tormented Donald Duck, plus Pluto on an occasion, in Disney cartoons back in the 1940s and early 1950s. He also made one appearance as a hero to Mickey Mouse.
Of course, there are plenty of options on the alcohol menu for this Outdoor Kitchen:
- Honey-Peach Freeze in a Souvenir Spike the Bee Sipper Cup (nonalcoholic)
- First Magnitude Brewing Co. Honey Bee Citrus Blonde Ale, Gainesville, FL
- Florida Orange Groves Winery Orange Blossom Honey Wine, St. Petersburg, FL
- Honey-Peach Freeze with Blueberry Vodka
Overall, the Honey Bee-stro Outdoor Kitchen at the Epcot International Flower & Garden Festival is a must-stop for the Honey-Mascarpone Cheesecake and Honey and Sweet Corn Spoon Bread. We’d give the flatbread a tepid endorsement, recommending it only if you don’t mind gambling a bit. Regardless, this Outdoor Kitchen is home to two of the top 10 items at the Epcot Flower & Garden Festival, including the #1 dessert. That’s not too shabby!
Check out our Epcot Flower & Garden Festival Outdoor Kitchen Food Booth Menus & Photos post if you want to see and read more about every menu this year. You’ll also want to read our full Epcot’s International Flower & Garden Festival Guide before you go to get an idea of what to do, strategy for the festival, photos of the topiaries and floral displays, 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 Honey Bee-stro Outdoor Kitchen? Have you tried any of the dishes at this booth? Similarly impressed by the Honey-Mascarpone Cheesecake? What else did you like or dislike? 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!
I got the flatbread, the peach freeze & the cheesecake. Omg so tasty! I savored every bite which is good thing I did cuz it triggered a gallstone attack n at midnight I had my first ambulance ride! Hey a Disney ride is a Disney ride!
Hello! We were just at Honey Bee-stro and we have some thoughts, take them for what they are worth and – as is often mentioned – food quality can vary widely based on who is working, how busy they are, and how long the item sits under the heat lamp!
The corn bread, tasty but I’d like more jalapenos for a light, spicy kick. As it is, I’ll have to take their word that those bits of color are, in fact, jalapenos.
Loved the flat bread. The chicken could use some seasoning but the other items add tons of flavor. Ours was sitting under the heat lamp, but not for so long that it was dried out.
The dessert is WONDERFUL. Its pretty and it tastes great. Highly recommend!
One big thing i am noticing with these Outdoor Kitchen reviews is on occasion how different the actual item is from the picture on the menu. The menu picture of the corn bread does look better than the actual bite. The cheesecake bit they gave you didn’t look as put together as the menu picture and had one few meringue kisses.
That’s a pretty common thing, and these menu items are FAR from the worst offenders in that regard. There has been some festival food that doesn’t even remotely resemble the stock photos on the menu boards.
Tom, last line you talk about bad cauliflower, but nothing about it in the article. Probably want to update with mention of the sooon bread.
Thanks for the heads up–I’ve updated the conclusion!