After a long day running around the Disney World parks or when you’re just ready to feel fancy, it’s nice to have a few options of where you plan to turn. So what do you do when all of those amazing table service restaurants are all booked up but you’re still hungry? You try out their lounge, of course!

After dining at several great lounges recently we decided to up the ante a little bit. Disney World hotels are typically known for great meals when dining at signature restaurants, but how well do their lounges hold up against those same odds? We knew the perfect place to find out!

If this restaurant lounge doesn’t leave you feeling like upper crust, we don’t know what will! Citricos Lounge is located on the outskirts of Citricos inside Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort which is known to be one of the largest per capita Disney World hotels noted for its signature dining restaurants and experiences. If you though that you’d escape that fancy feeling by scooting on by to the lounge, guess again because you’re in for the same treatment even if you choose to dine “just at the lounge.”

In the past we’ve called this little slice of heaven a “best kept signature dining secret” so we’ve ventured out once again to see if it can once again defend that title and come out smelling like a rose.

Atmosphere

As you step through the entranceway and make your way down to the shared central host stand, you’ll pass several framed photos, the bathrooms, and a few other restaurant entrances like Victoria and Albert’s.

After checking in with the host, they’ll escort you over to the lounge area just outside of the Citricos main seating for the restaurant and we were able to pick the most enticing available seating for ourselves.

Waiting by the cascading windows that allowed for lots of natural lighting that shone right through the side of the building were plush couch-like seats covered in statement solid shades or fitting floral patterns that felt very victorian. Several of the seats were arranged around each other circling a central shared table where the server placed our menus before us to review.

Across from the seating area is an extensive bar…

…befitting the entire establishment that extends well into the area beyond what you might consider the lounge and across from the main seating of the restaurant. It was well stocked and had we opted to be seated at the bar we would have been able to enjoy the view through the windows behind us overlooking the hotel’s grounds and a semi-view of the Seven Seas Lagoon area.

Menu

While there’s not a ton of space for the lounge beyond a few seated areas and a nearby marble-topped bar, don’t let that throw your sense of the menu here. The dining menu here is quite robust sporting first course dishes, entrées, and a few enhancements.

In addition to the dining menu you’ll also find two menus for beverages. One will contain the restaurant’s list of specialty cocktails, zero-proof cocktails, hard ciders and beer…

…while the other will start of the vast list of red, white, and rosé wines, sparkling wines, champagne…

…and a few others on the back which will also include a few cabernet, pinot noir, and Disney family of wines.

After we finished selecting our main courses for the evening, we were also presented with a dessert menu for later!

Who says you can’t eat a full meal here at the lounge? Ok, we get it there’s a lot to drink, eat, and be merry here so that made our decision on what to order even more challenging!

Drinks

When we were ready to place our order the choice was quite clear. After looking around at the surrounding tables which were all full of bustling conversation and laughter, we noticed a popular choice of drink — we decided to follow suite. We opted for the Passion Margarita which cost us $18. It’s made of Don Julio Repsado Tequila, house made orange reduction, passion fruit, and passion fruit pearls. Isn’t she a beauty?!

True to its form, it’s like a standard passion fruit flavored margarita with flavored passion fruit popping pearls that burst in your mouth when you bite down. It’s a solid, fairly standard margarita with fruity yet distinctly passion fruit notes enveloping the entire drink however, you’ll still be able to taste the well-blended tequila in it (even if it’s sat awhile through a photo shoot). It was like drinking a boozy fruit juice drink and we have zero complaints about it (other than the hefty price, of course).

Eats

As for the rest of our meal, we were treated to a bread service before our food arrived to our table. The slices of ciabatta and olive bread are served with guava butter that contains basil salt and just the smell of the warm bread and fresh butter had our mouths watering instantly!

The butter was so smooth to spread over the bread slices and when we bit into it we definitely got the fruitier guava flavor from the buttery spread (like what’s served at Sebastian’s Bistro)…

…however, this one had basil salt accompanying it and that gave it a more commanding presence with the sweet and salty mixture of the two. It was delicious on both types of bread and we’ll be spending all our free time from here on out learning how to make such creamy guava butter.

After we’d sampled a few (read that as completely inhaled almost all of our bread and butter) our food started to arrive to the table. For this meal, we decided to order something of each category to help give us a well-rounded review of everything you can order here. We ended up settling on the Oak-grilled Filet Mignon, Clam Chowder, and as an enhancement, the Truffle Macaroni & Cheese.

We started things off slowly with the Clam Chowder. This dish was more of an appetizer made St. Augustine style (which gave it more of a bisque feel) out of Cedar Key clams, purple potato, and applewood bacon for $17.

Ahh, the smell alone was enough to have put us in a food coma on the spot — but alas, we had a job to do! This clam chowder was excellent, and its ingredients were accented in all the best ways. In terms of texture it was creamy without being super thin, but you’ll want to be careful when this is first brought out to your table because it is extremely warm on the bottom of the bowl. The fresh veggies, potato, and applewood bacon pieces crunch a bit on your back teeth when you sink them into your bite but they’re delicious and well-cooked. There’s also what tasted like a few pepper shavings that are worked into the dish that give it that extra flash of heated spice at time.

While it might look like a little redder-tinted butternut squash, its distinctly clam flavored and a tad briny when you take a sip. It’s not overly smelly of fishy seafood or anything of that caliber, so even someone who may not be a super fan of seafood could still take a chance on this dish the way its prepared and stand good odds of enjoying it.

Alright already, we’ll get to the main feature of the show — the Oak-grilled Filet Mignon! This dish is made of potato purée, seasonal vegetables, and guajillo beef jus accompanying the filet mignon steak for $59.

There’s no skirting around it this plate carries a hefty price tag but we promise you’ll forget all about it when you put that first bite in your mouth! The steak was so tender and cooked to a perfect medium temperature as we had requested. We probably could have cut this well-prepared, perfectly seasoned steak with a butter knife!

As we cut into it, we could see the juices flowing out of the sides and out on to the nearby veggies and potato purée. Speaking of which, the veggies were well cooked and just fine, but the potato was buttery and made into that softer purée which we agreed was an excellent choice to accompany such a thick filet along with sitting in the savory beef jus.

Then we turned our attentions to the Truffle Macaroni & Cheese. This enhancement is comprised of a house-made gnocchetti, black truffle, sottocenere al tartufo, and tarragon for $23.

Just like the clam chowder the smell alone will make your mouth water in anticipation! The gnocchetti is covered in creamy cheese and the entire serving size is layered with black truffles in between each one. Dare we go as far to say its one of the best jazzed up mac & cheese’s we eaten at Disney World and we would revisit time and time again for this alone.

We hope you saved (some) room because we’ve still got dessert to get through and round us out. After taking a few minutes to browse their dessert selections, we settled on the Macchiato. This treat is made of Bailey’s Irish Cream Liqueur coffee creameux, espresso veil, coffee sponge, mascarpone ice cream, and warm morita chile chocolate sauce and cost us $14.

This one is quite the ringer of a coffee-inspired dessert. The truffle bottom is coated in chocolate and almost like a chewy cookie with a gooey center piece that flows out when you break the ring apart. The mascarpone ice cream has a gelato consistency to it and has a light vanilla flavor to the dollop that’s included in the presentation.

The chocolate syrup is drizzled over the dessert at the table as it’s presented to you making it even richer and working to liven up those coffee flavors especially in the sponge pieces. The mousse piece that tops the truffle ring is where the majority of the coffee flavor is stored in the treat and it’s thick but light in the center once you break past it’s gummier outer coating holding it all together.

Overall

Overall we were very impressed with everything from start to finish about this restaurant and experience it aims to deliver. The service from the Cast Members was attentive and when we were browsing the menu they were happy to offer an opinion on varying food and drink choices when asked. While it was easy to pick the side of the lounge out from the restaurant seating, we didn’t feel any less attended to and we found our options to choose from more than we expected for a place where most people who were stopping by were interested in a couple of drinks and a shared appetizer.

After talking with several of our “neighbors” who were repeat visitors to the lounge, it became clear that the reason why so many were opting to return time after time (or try it out for a first time) was due the atmosphere Citricos Lounge has worked so hard to establish.

Nosh or Not?

Round the path to the grandiose Citricos Lounge if…

• You’re ready to dine like royalty. Seriously, this restaurant’s service was top notch and we felt pampered while enjoying a great meal.
• You’re looking for secret hideout with friends for a quick minute. If you’re looking for a place to unwind after a long day or take in the incredible views as the sun sets, this could be just the spot you’re looking for!
• You didn’t make reservations and don’t want or have time enough to get too gussied up. Ok, maybe gussied up isn’t quite the words we’re searching for but typically when dining at a signature restaurant at Disney World there’s a bit of a dress code to keep aligned with. At the lounge, this is a bit more lax making it a great alternative if you’re craving a good meal but don’t want to go through all the trouble to look fancy.

Blaze your trail in another direction if…

• You’re looking to lounge with a lot of friends and family. This lounge isn’t terribly big, so unless you’re traveling solo, as a couple, or intimate group (like 6 or less), this place will feel very cramped to you based on the lounge seating and you may have to split up.
• You’re sticking to a tight budget. While you might not have to stick to any strict dress codes, the pricing here is still aligned with the signature dining price ranges. If you’re looking for cheaper eats, you might do best to visit some of the other restaurants at the hotel like 1900 Park Fare of Gasparilla Island Grill downstairs.
• You like some elbow room. Admittedly for this review we weren’t in a group, however, after observing a few other groups that had a few people sitting at them, there wasn’t too much room left beyond a plate or two.

Like what you saw here? There’s plenty more of Disney World’s lounges to explore! We’re updating our restaurant reviews all the time so be sure to check out a few below while you’re here and stay tuned with us for more right here at DFB!

REVIEW: We Literally LOL’d When This Disney World Restaurant Served Our Food

Do you prefer to eat at the bar, in the lounge, or in the restaurant when you dine at Disney World hotels? Leave your thoughts for us in the comments below!