It’s that time of year again, DFB friends, and we’re SO ready!

We’re live right now from the Swan & Dolphin Food and Wine Classic at Disney World where we can’t wait to try some amazing dishes. Come with us to check it all out!

Festival Info

This year the Food and Wine Classic takes place on Friday, November 10th, and Saturday, November 11th, 2023 from 5:30-9PM. The festival is split into multiple different sections like The Beer Garden, For the Love of Florida, Carnival Corner, and more.

Come along with us tonight as we take on the Food and Wine Classic at the Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin! pic.twitter.com/mBqzrbQz51

— Disney Food Blog (@DisneyFoodBlog) November 10, 2023

Each booth offers a small portion of different dishes, so you can try multiple items throughout the night without breaking out the stretchy pants. There are dozens of different items, meaning almost everyone can find something they’ll like. Not only that, you can also enjoy live entertainment while you browse the offerings!

Check out the full menus here!

Festival Map

The hotel provides you with a festival guide to help you navigate through the event. On the front, you can scan a QR code to receive drink-tasting notes, and there’s also information to connect to the hotel’s wifi.

Here’s a look at the event guide for the Food & Wine Classic! pic.twitter.com/RFxlne0V7e

— Disney Food Blog (@DisneyFoodBlog) November 10, 2023

It’ll also tell you about the different entertainment you can see throughout the night, as well as more about the two chefs who head up the event.

Finally, you’ll find a map of the whole layout, showing you where each booth is and more about what it offers.

Now the moment we’ve all been waiting for — it’s time to eat!

Festival Eats

Let’s dive into some of the best food and drinks we tasted all night! We started our night visiting the “For The Love of Florida” booths and checking out all they had to offer. A few of their offerings looked familiar from the preview we had attended previously like the Seminole Pumpkin Fry Bread. This was made of pumpkin fry bread that had a hint of a pumpkin spice feel to it, tossed in powdered sugar, with warm pumpkin spice sauce drizzled over top.

This is a PSL lover’s dream in foodie form! If you’re really looking to savor all of the spices of pumpkin spice and everything nice in one treat, you’ll find it right here in the fluffy, fried bread.

We were also impressed by the Tarpon Springs Greek Salad. This one is made of romaine lettuce, greek dressing, kalamata olives, pickled beet, and potato salad.

We know what you’re thinking, “potato salad IN a salad?” but trust us. The creamy potato salad felt in sync with the Greek dressing and really gave it that extra burst of flavor against the fresh crunch of the greens and veggies. This one scored highly with us because of how many flavors they were able to orchestrate together so seamlessly.

Waterbird seltzer won us over on Seltzer Beach! They had four flavors to choose from to try out but we settled on Tequila Sunrise as recommended by the vendor… and we’re glad we did.

This seltzer tasted so smooth we almost couldn’t tell if we were actually just drinking pineapple-flavored soda.

While the tequila flavor got lost a bit in the pineapple the bubbly seltzer taste helped pick up where that was a bit lacking and it smelled just like you would think it should.

While browsing the restaurant booths, we became reacquainted with some older…

… and newer restaurants you’ll find between the hotels like Kimono, Rosa Mexicana, and Il Mulino. Let’s start with Il Mulino first. Here we picked up a sampling of their Gorgonzola Cheese Filled Agnolotti which was made with spiced pear, walnuts, nasturtium, and ‘nduja vinaigrette.

This one wowed us in all the best ways. The cheese-filled agnolotti burst in your mouth with each bite and the paired spices and vinaigrette gave it a mild heat consistent with chorizo spices. We just wanted a whole plate full of this stuff!

Speaking of Mexican food, we’ve got to talk about Rosa Mexicana. They absolutely slayed with their booth this year and between the 2 (yes, 2) different tacos and separate options for chips, salsa, and guac dip you could easily have sat yourself out front of their booth and made an almost full meal.

The chicken tacos were covered in red chili sauce and topped with avocado, tomatillo, pico de Gallo, queso fresco, and wrapped in a corn tortilla. You may be thinking, “How can you mess up a taco?” but everything on this taco worked to its maximum potential. The highlight here that really set it apart was the red chili sauce that coated the perfectly seared pieces of chicken and kept us coming back again and again.

Kimonos really shined with their name-sake sushi roll — Kimonos Roll.

This sushi is made from ahi tuna, yellowtail, salmon, avocado, and dairy-free wasabi mayonnaise. The creamy wasabi mayo helped brighten up the various flavors of the combined fish bites and instantly fell apart to reveal its full potential with every bite. This was one to truly savor and take your time why sampling because there’s so much packed into such a small bite.

Over in Chinatown, almost everything we ate kept building on the flavor one after another but there were two here that really stood out the most to us (seriously, our mouths are still watering just thinking about them now).

The Gua Bao was made of sweet and spicy glazed pork belly, pickled cucumber, red chile, toasted sesame, and hot sauce and is what dreams are made of.

We’re almost certain we’ve never had more tender pork belly and the sweetness of the glaze only helped intensify the pork belly meat flavor. The added hot sauce and pickled cucumber helped keep each other in check and the pillowy soft bao bun melted in our mouths like a fresh marshmallow.

The Congee was also a superior dish!

This was made of slow-cooked ride porridge, shrimp dumplings, fried shallot, green onion, garlic, and crispy chili flakes and can only be described as a flavor explosion when combined. It looks pretty tame on the forefront but with each bite that flavor upped the ante (and the heat) and kept us coming back for another round.

If we weren’t already full, we had to try a few desserts but one in particular really stood out. The Pear Pecan Praline Cakes with Black Fig Compote were divine.

These bite-size treats were a delight and when you made it past the delicious fig compote and toasted pecan cake, the inside revealed a small pear that was cooked yet juicy and added just a touch of sweetness to what could have been a very dry cake otherwise.

Of course, this is only a sampling of what we had all night long but they’re certainly the ones that packed the most presence and made the whole experience worth it! Stay tuned to DFB for the latest Disney World news and more.

Learn more about the Food and Wine Classic here!

Have you ever been to the Food and Wine Classic? Tell us about it in the comments!