If you’ve been following our blog for a while, you’ll know how much I love Liberty Tree Tavern in the Magic Kingdom. This is one of my veeeeeeery favorite restaurants to visit for lunch, because it’s simple, good food; usually great service; quick; easy; and relatively inexpensive. It’s consistently in our top 5 Disney restaurants at our house!
But I hadn’t been for dinner in a long time. A really long time. Like, “not in over three years” kind of a long time. So one night during our recent trip to Disney World, we decided on a whim to cancel our current dinner reservation and go to Liberty Tree Tavern. My husband had never been, and I was craving some mac and cheese, so… off to Liberty Square!
Liberty Tree Tavern
Atmosphere
When you walk into Liberty Tree Tavern, you can immediately tell that it’s meant to represent colonial days. The wood paneling, candlestick sconces and chandeliers, and thick glass windows along with the absolutely massive cooking fireplace in the lobby make you feel as though you might be in Colonial Williamsburg!
Liberty Tree Tavern Lobby
Table Setting at Liberty Tree Tavern
What you don’t immediately see is some of the best restaurant Imagineering in Disney World as far as I’m concerned. I’ve done an entire post previously about this, but I’ll recap it a bit here.
Each room in Liberty Tree Tavern represents a different figure from The United States’ colonial history. For example, you might dine in the George Washington room, the Thomas Jefferson room, the John Paul Jones room, the Betsy Ross room, the Benjamin Franklin room, or even the Paul Revere room (be sure to look for the lanterns…).
George Washington Room (I keep looking for wooden teeth on the mantle every time I go)
John Paul Jones Room
Wherever you’re seated, be sure to take a look at the decor on the walls — it will no doubt tell an intimate story of the historic life of one of America’s founding fathers.
Kite in Ben Franklin Room
Martha Washington Corner of the Washington Room
Also, just a reminder that Liberty Tree Tavern no longer has characters at this dinner meal. Guests used to be able to dine with Mickey, Minnie, Chip, Dale, and sometimes even Goofy dressed in colonial garb (it was always fun when they’d dress up for Halloween!); but a couple of years ago, these fun friends were ditched, meaning there aren’t ANY Magic Kingdom restaurants where you can eat with Mickey any longer. 🙁
Eats
So let’s get down to business! Liberty Tree Tavern is well known for its dinner meal. This is an all-you-care-to-eat prix fixe feast of what has come to be known as America’s “first meal.”
Menu -- click image for larger version
Yep — it’s pretty much your standard Thanksgiving dinner! (No wonder our readers chose it as their favorite place for Thanksgiving Dinner in Disney World!) Salad, roasted meats and cornbread stuffing, veggies, mashed potatoes, and…mac and cheese? Well, my family doesn’t usually do mac and cheese at Thanksgiving, but I’m “thank”ful that they do it here! YUM!
First up, we were served some delicious rolls with honey butter. These are very good, but be prepared for the sweetness of the butter! We weren’t, so it was a bit of a shock!
Rolls and Honey Butter
The salad here is a relatively standard tossed salad with house-made dressing. A nice, crisp way to begin your meal.
Salad
But soon your table starts to fill up! We were seated at a table for two, and we barely had enough room for all of the dishes our server brought! She mentioned that finding space for all of the food is a little like playing Tetris! 😉
The biggest platter? The meat! You’ll receive a serving dish full of roast pork, turkey, and beef with cornbread stuffing and fruit chutney. I loved the pork; my husband loved the turkey. The cornbread stuffing is quite good as well!
Roast Pork, Turkey and Beef with Cornbread Stuffing and Chutney
Close-up - Roast Pork, Turkey and Beef
I wasn’t a huge fan of the chutney; it was a bit too tart for me. It seems like this is the replacement for the more traditional cranberry sauce, but we found out at a return visit later that week that you CAN order cranberry sauce to go with your meal; it’s just not on the menu… .
Special Order Cranberry Sauce
Also on the table: gorgeous mashed potatoes and some very fresh tasting green beans and carrots.
Mashed Potatoes
Carrots
Beans
But don’t forget the gravy!! A rich, brown gravy is served, traditionally, in a gravy boat. Use all you want — they’ll bring more!
Gravy
And, of course, the mac and cheese! This used to be Stouffer’s mac and cheese, and I would guess that it still is. Does anyone know for sure? Either way, it’s definitely not your mom’s homemade macaroni and cheese — it seems pretty processed with that neon orange cheese sauce — but we all know how I feel about that! Yum!
Mac and Cheese
Your meal ends up with a new dessert. Liberty Tree Tavern used to serve apple cobbler with this meal, but since Crasins dried cranberries took over as the sponsor of the restaurant, they’ve begun to serve what they call a “Johnny Appleseed cake,” which has apples and craisins in it.
The cake is very moist, and we loved the ice cream served with it. That said, I would have preferred the apple cobbler.
Johnny Appleseed Cake with Craisins and Ice Cream
Inside of Johnny Appleseed Cake
Overall
It’s official. We love Liberty Tree Tavern lunch AND dinner! I was really surprised my husband liked this meal as much as he did, but he was ready to return immediately after dining there for the first time.
As I mentioned, we ended up going back to LTT for dinner later in the trip, which is unprecedented. Writing a food blog, we don’t ever have the luxury of returning to a restaurant for a second time in the same trip (have to keep eating at different places so we can report them to you!), but he loved it THAT much that we went back the next week!
There’s nothing spectacular about this food; what’s compelling about it is that it is consistently good. At Liberty Tree Tavern you’re most likely going to have a better-than-average meal (sometimes a great meal!) that’s well worth the money. When it comes to Disney restaurants, that doesn’t always happen, so to have a guarantee like this one…well…that’s pretty great.
I think our only complaint about this dinner was that everything tasted SO good that we wondered if the sodium levels weren’t a little bit high. As they say, you add flavor to food by adding fat and salt, and this food had a LOT of flavor. 🙂
Let us know what you think of Liberty Tree Tavern in the comments below!
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Yum; it all looks so good. I bet the picky eaters in my family would find several things to enjoy in this meal. But I have a menu question: what’s in Patriot’s Punch? Is it alcoholic?
What a great ringing endorsement. You cannot go wrong with those all-American foods. The decor reminds me of the historic taverns in Colonial Williamsburg where they serve food consistent with that era. We go there often and this is so similar – decor wise.
Don’t know if they still do this, but the vegetarian potpie is NOT good here. I love their veggies and stuffing and mac and cheese. Wish they’d get a good vegetarian option though.
And it’s strange that they don’t serve cranberry sauce as standard fare when Craisins is a new sponsor.
AJ,
I too am a huge fan of the LTT – you just can’t go wrong with a Thanksgiving-style meal anytime of the year! I was going to suggest asking for cranberries, but I see that you are on the ball with this one. Another thing that you must ask for when you eat here is apple butter for your dinner rolls – it’s a like a little dessert before dinner…so good!!
I absolutely love LTT – its a tradition that my family always eat there, in fact its probably the only ADR we make.
Even as an adult I will miss the characters next time… Dale actually ate my dinner roll once, I still wonder where it went to this day!
There seem to be a few changes in the veg (I love carrots so thats great) but the salad used to have a strawberry vinaigrette I believe, this seems to be gone – boo hiss.
I want to go right now! But I’m in London so I cant – boo!
They should at least serve cherry pie in the George Washington room, don’t ya think?
Liberty Tree used to be one of our favorite restaurants. I’m sorry to say that we will not be back. They used to provide a wonderful vegetable pot pie option for vegetarians. They have done away with that and now only offer a generic veggie burger as an alternative, but the price remains the same–about $32 for the meal. That’s an expensive veggie burger! We were not told this when I made reservations–we were assured that a suitable vegetarian alternative would be available. The waiter told us when we were seated that the chef would come out and talk to me and could make something for me. When he finally came out (45 minutes later!), he was very rude, told me that it wasn’t a restaurant for vegetarians, said that there was nothing special he could prepare for me, and said that I could get a veggie burger or just eat the side dishes (for the same price as the full meal)! He was not accommodating at all. This is the first bad experience I’ve ever had with a Disney restaurant, and like I say, this used to be one of our favorites.
First off the punch has no alcohol. No place does in the Magic Kingdom to my knowledge.
As to the LTT, I love it and could not agree more with the review. The food is consistently great. I am particularly fond of the beef myself. But my niece favors the ham. I do miss the characters but my wife and I went there last time we were in the Kingdom and after a few bites you forget that they ever did come around.
Diane — Nope! The punch is not alcoholic. The punch changes every day and is usually a “smoothie” kind of beverage.
Alan — I think you guys would love this place if you haven’t already been here!
Eeyore — Thanks for the tip on the veggie items. Agreed on the cranberry sauce. I wonder if that will change!
Tim — LOVE the apple butter tip!! Thank you!
Kelly — I wish I was in London! I think the house dressing might still be a strawberry vinaigrette… Love that Dale at your dinner roll!! 😉
George — OOh! Love the idea of cherry pie!
Lisa — I’m so sorry to hear about this! Thank you for the update and the review.
Chris — Agreed; I didn’t miss the characters the last time I was there, but it was fun to have them (especially at Halloween)!
I went here for the first time 2 weeks ago with a group of 10. Needless to say we were all pleasantly surprised at how good everything was. Some had been before and said the food tasted better than what they remembered. I for one was majorly surprised at how flavorful everything was, especially the stuffing. It’s making my mouth water just thinking about it!
My only “complaint” was that the salad didn’t have enough dressing. I’m sure I could have asked for more but why fill up on filler when there’s so much good eats following the salad course! – lol. Also wasn’t too keen on the dessert portion. Some pumpkin flavored dessert would have been better imho, but the ice cream was tasty.
Although we had dining reservations, we weren’t seated for about 20 minutes after our time, which I was ok with since we had a group of 10. The service was perfect. Our waitress was very nice and pleasant and everything came out exactly how we ordered. I’d go back in a heartbeat!
LTT is a standard stop for our family. We go 3 times a year and each time include a lunch and dinner stop. We were just there a few weeks ago and thought the new dessert was fantastic – a nice change. My wife and I even asked for seconds…felt guilty becasue, like you said, it tasted so good. But hey, we were in WDW and calories don’t count there. Don’t miss the characters so much at dinner, but we do agree it would be nice even if they would just reintroduce them for MNSSHP.
We dined at Liberty Tree Tavern last year for the first time and it was a brilliant meal. I cannot get enough Turkey with all the trimmings so I was in turkey-heaven with no need to consult the menu at all. We had one of the most relaxing meals I have ever had on property with staff who were in no rush to have us fed and out the door, not that they were tardy or inattentive. I guess it was due to being amongst the last diners of the day but either way it all added to the enjoyment. The servers were also spot-on with attention to detail too, even meeting my son’s sudden and inexplicable need to have his dessert broken down into seperate bowls, ie toppings in seperate little ramakins. LTT is a definite for next year again.
The meal is fantastic and I would rank it as the best in Magic Kingdom. You NEED to have reservations, however, at times, they do take walk-ups. The turkey is moist and extremely tasty as it is beef brisket and roast pork. The sides are excellent with a big thumbs up for the mac and cheese. The gravy is great on the cornbread & the turkey, though it seemed to be made of beef stock. Do not eat too much in the way of the salad or the rolls. Save room for the main course. You will be in eating heaven.
Sorry I’m late to the comments. No power in my neighborhood means I’m a little delayed…
I have to agree that LTT is awesome for dinner, especially when you’ve got a large family like me. The food is consistently good and there is plenty of it. However, on my trip last month I ate there for lunch for the first time and if you gave me a choice, I’d chose lunch every time. Why? The Pot Roast was the best pot roast I’ve ever eaten in my life! I had to have my server take it away from me so that I didn’t hurt myself because I could not stop eating it even though I was stuffed! (Btw, I ordered the pot roast on AJ’s suggestion from a previous review.)
I will also say that I do miss the characters in their colonial garb, and for the price of dinner I’d rather see the characters there. However, the lack of characters would not stop me from eating dinner at LTT. The food is good enough reason for me!
Matt — Thanks for your review! I felt the same about the dessert; I do wish it had been something a bit more substantial.
Wade — You’re like us!! I have a feeling we’ll have to supplement our standard lunch trip with a dinner trip now that my husband’s been for dinner! 🙂
Gordon — Ha! I love that your son just decided he needed his dessert compartmentalized! 😉
Wesley69 — Agreed; but I DO love those rolls and honey butter! 🙂
James — My husband LOVES the pot roast at lunch! He never strays from it! So glad you enjoyed it, James!
Well it seems that the menu has changed since April! I love everything about dinner at LTT except the Mac and Cheese–I just would prefer something less . . . well Stouffers. I’m excited to try the new dessert, as I loved the apple dessert. My favorite part of the meal is actually is the green beans, oh and the gravy!
Definitely my favorite restaurant in Magic Kingdom.
We lucked into one of the last family-style lunchtime character meal dinners there on our first visit three years ago and I’ve made sure to eat there every visit since, but always at lunchtime.
On our last visit this past mid September — they were putting up Halloween decorations — I saw something they called a pumpkin pie milkshake being served for another table’s dessert. I questioned our server about it so much she brought me a taste in a coffee cup which was absolutely divine! This was after we’d settled the tab and were waiting for little ones to finish their ice cream. Talk about Pixie Dust.
I’ll definitely ask for it on my next visit AND ask for cranberry sauce to go with my pilgrim’s feast. I’m fascinated with off-the-menu items for which certain places are famous, like the P, B & J milkshake at the 50’s Prime Time Diner in Hollywood Studios, which I also highly recommended. Highly.
I love the LTT. I haven’t been there for dinner, only lunch. I can eat a Thanksgiving meal any day of the year.
WE HAD THE BEST THANKSGIVING DINNER/LUNCH EVER. I WISH WE COULD GET THE RECIPE FOR THE APPLESEEDS CAKE THAT THEY SERVED WITH ICECREAM. ALMOST TASTED LIKE A LITE, AIRY WAFFLE. IF YOU COULD GIVE ME THE RECIPE THAT WOULD BE GREAT. THANKS. CAMILLE
We ate at Liberty Tavern on Thursday, June 21, 2012, and it was absolutely my favorite dinner we had on our trip. The meat, especially the turkey and pork, was tender, the grave delicious, chutney good, mashed potatoes great, green beans wonderful, dressing great, rolls and butter out of this world, squash/zucchini (not sure) wonderful, salad great, desert wonderful, and Tam, our server, exceptional. My grandkids skipped rope out front for awhile before entering the restaurant–they loved it. Made our last Disney day great. Thanks, Victoria
We did not have a great meal here on this trip after I was really looking forward to it from reviews! Like the vegetarians earlier mentioned, this is NOT the place for substitutions or special diets. It is extremely hard to get ahold of a chef when bringing out the items and our waiter was confused multiple times by my gluten intolerance (bringing out more regular rolls after we waited 20 minutes for gluten free rolls, bringing stuffing and mac’n’cheese “because it was on the tray” and having to wait another 20 minutes to find out what else on the tray wasn’t safe). I was really disappointed I could not get gluten free stuffing or mac’n’cheese considering I get gluten free cornbread at Whispering Canyon and got gluten free pasta the night before at Everything Pop Food Court (and almost everywhere else I’ve dined). Our waiter tried very hard (while the chef was outright rude) but it seems this restaurant is built for fast turnaround so special requests aren’t easily accomodated.
I was commenting however because our neighbors asked questions about the mac’n’cheese and the waiter let them know it is made with Kraft cheese sauce mix.
I LOVE the pot roast at Lunch so good.
My mom and I split it and a salad and were more thatn full.
Much better at Lunch time. Off the menu no all you can eat. Faster, calmer.
I have been to Liberty Tree Tavern every year for the last four years. We are going again in Seprember and you can bet we have our reservations! The food is consistently good, tastes like home! Service is good, and they do not try to rush us to fill the table again. I think it is a great bargain for the amount of food you get and we use the dining plan to get the most out of it. See ya in September!!
We stopped by here for an early quick lunch in April, no idea what to expect. Nice, Colonial Williamsburg type decor, nice and cool from the sunny day. Some employee training was going on, but that was fine. My teenager ordered the New England clam chowder, I wasn’t hungry yet so had a coffee drink. The soup was great, coffee good too, but what made the place special was a staff member who came up to our table, asked my daughter if she wanted more oyster crackers (she did), and she noticed her birthday button. Next thing you know, the staff comes out clapping and singing a song for her birthday, and the woman gave her a piece of chocolate cake. Very nice! We did our part and stopped by Town Hall to commend her (she gets a certificate). We’ll be back.
One of my favorites! I love pretty much everything they serve, especially the flank steak at dinner. Anyone have the recipe for the Johnny Appleseed cake? The one I found online uses boxed cake mix, which doesn’t seem right.
I love the Liberty Tree but, I really hate that they took away the apple cobbler. The Johnny Appleseed cake is bland and not good at all. When we went in December, I asked our waitress if there was any other possible dessert to get and was told no. Therefore, I asked her to keep the cake and just bring me ice cream.