River Belle Terrace in Frontierland at Disneyland Park is a classic table service restaurant in a great location: right along the Rivers of America! In addition to serving up breakfast, lunch, and dinner, River Belle Terrace also offers the Fantasmic! Dining Package, which includes a meal and a reserved space to watch the nighttime spectacular.

Find out what we thought of the views and EATS from our latest visit in this review!

Atmosphere

The name River Belle Terrace just sounds like it’s packed with charm, right? And it is, indeed! It’s designed with quaint little details in mind. The patio with seating overlooking Rivers of America offers green umbrellas trimmed with tassels and filigreed cafe-style chairs.

Inside the dining room, the same chairs and the ornate floral wallpaper give the space a garden feel. That’s helped by massive paned windows that allow tons of light in during the daytime hours.

Table settings are simple and clean, allowing the louder, mostly floral design elements to stand out. You’ll see wall sconces, chandeliers, and baskets of faux flowers hanging from the ceiling. It’s… a lot. But in a good way!

The menu here has seen plenty of changes over the years, including the most dramatic in 2016, when the restaurant transformed from a quick-service restaurant serving breakfast, lunch, and dinner to a table service location serving lunch and dinner. Finally, table service breakfast was added in July 2018 to round out the daily schedule.

Eats

We dined for lunch and tried items from Starters, Entrees, and Seasonal Offerings… because Cookie Butter Monkey Bread. But we’ll get to that in a bit. 😉

Starters

For the first Starter, we tried one of River Belle Terrace’s classics: Loaded Tater Tots. We first spotted tot dishes here when the restaurant introduced Secret Menu Tots back in 2017 — read about those here! This starter consisted of crispy tater tots topped with bacon, cheese sauce, corn salsa, barbecue sauce, and a tiny bit of micro-cilantro.

The bacon was cubed and delicious, while the creamy cheese sauce added lots of richness. These were some tasty tots! We loved the flavor combination and would definitely indulge in these again!

Our second Starter was the Creamy Pimento Cheese Dip that we loved back in January when it came with a massive pretzel. (How massive? This massive!) This incarnation is a bit different, with “toasted bread” which seems to be knobs of pretzel bread. But the bread was so hard, it made the dish difficult to eat, and we didn’t enjoy it as much. Hopefully that soft, salty pretzel will come back!

Entrees

Moving on to main courses, we started with the Beef Brisket Sandwich with smoked provolone, fried onions, and house-made sauce on a toasted onion hoagie roll. It’s served with baked beans and the choice of another side. You can select from coleslaw, seasoned tater bites, or seasonal vegetables.

Yes, the seasonal vegetables were cubes of butternut squash and brussel sprouts on our visit. And yes, we got just four total pieces!

The sandwich, though? A terrific, slightly messy, really tasty option! The key was the smoked provolone, which came through in every bite and stood up to the savory flavors of the beef.

The Fried Chicken Sandwich is another great option (it just barely edged out the Brisket!). This is a large fried breast of chicken topped with barbecue sauce, coleslaw, and fried jalapeños served with beans and tots. Those jalapeños! Such a cool (and slightly spicy) addition.

The zesty barbecue sauce tied everything together and contrasted well with the crunchy, creamy coleslaw. Such a satisfying flavor combination.

But River Belle Terrace can also do elegant dining, as evidenced by the Citrus Herb-Crusted Cornish Game Hen with seasonal veggies and mashed potatoes. This was a surprising menu item for a theme park, but it was an impressive portion. The meat was a little dry, especially because there was no sauce on the plate. A little pan-gravy or jus would have helped a lot. The flavors were good, but the dry meat was a bit of a disappointment. Note: since the time of our visit, this menu item transformed into a Southern-Fried version. Maybe this will prevent the meat from being dry in the future!

We’re ending our talk of Entrees with Skillet Mac & Cheese, which we were hoping would be bursting with flavors of pimento, manchego, and provolone cheeses… but it wasn’t! The pasta and its cheese pairings were surprisingly bland.

The toppings — fried onions, brisket, chives, and bread crumbs — were good, but the mac was on the blander side. We like our mac and cheese to rock independently of the toppings. We’d probably skip this one in the future.

Seasonal Offerings

And now for the Seasonal Offerings bit of the menu, which is just that: seasonal and frequently changing. Thankfully while we were there, we were able to indulge in some knock-down delicious Cookie Butter Monkey Bread! We loved this last January, and it’s still fabulous! A speculoos cookie topped off a scoop of vanilla ice cream that was slathered in cookie butter sauce. All of this topped gooey monkey bread spotted with cinnamon.

Everything about this was delicious, especially when the ice cream began to melt and all the components melded together. We’d love to come back for this dessert again in the future so we’re hoping it’s there on our next visit! Do note that this can come and go without notice, so see what the seasonal offering is on your visit!

Lunch at River Belle Terrace was a delight almost across the board! With the exception of too-hard rolls, dry meat, and bland mac and cheese, we still found several things to celebrate here.

Nosh or Not?

Steer yourself to River Belle Terrace if:

• You love the quaint dining room and patio and want to enjoy them for a spell.
• The comfort-food inspired menu appeals to you.
• You’re looking for a table-service restaurant that offers Fantasmic! Dining Packages.

Head downstream if: 

• You don’t have time for table service meals.
• You aren’t interested in the American-style food offered here.
• This part of the park isn’t your jam, and you’d rather spend time elsewhere.

Overall

River Belle Terrace is as charming as its name implies, and the food is decent, too. This table-service spot is ideally located for people-watching if you’re on the patio or adjacent to one of the massive windows, and the option of partaking in the Fantasmic Dining Package makes it additionally appealing. We will keep coming back for those Loaded Tots and gooey Monkey Bread — and you may want to try those out for yourself, too!

Check out our full review of another restaurant offering Fantasmic dining packages HERE!

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Have you dined at River Belle Terrace? What menu item appeals most to you? Let us know in the comments!