by Beth Keating
Review
DisneyBizJournal.com
January 28, 2024
In by-gone days, you had to get up before 6 a.m. and hover at your computer, fingers poised to grab the first dining reservation you could as soon as the reservation line opened in order to be able to have dinner with the Beast at his enchanted castle in Magic Kingdom. “Be Our Guest” was among the most difficult reservations to lock down. Breakfast and lunch were a little easier, because it was quasi-quick serve (and a whole lot more fun!), but breaking your fast in Belle’s ballroom or Beast’s West Wing study in the morning did not return in the post-COVID era. Lunch now is Table Service and fixed price, rather than its earlier quick-serve iteration.
On a recent trip to Magic Kingdom, we found ourselves staying longer than planned, and decided to eat dinner in the park before heading out. We opened the My Disney Experience app fully intending to grab whatever leftovers were there, a mere four hours before dinner. We were even resigned to trying walk-ups, but we didn’t need to go that far. Five sit-down locations still had seating, albeit a few were nearer to park closing time. Just four hours out from dinner, though, there were half a dozen reservations available for “Be Our Guest.” (The same was true several days later, when we checked the app again, just to make sure it wasn’t a fluke.)
“That’s strange,” we thought. The parks weren’t empty by any means, and even “it’s a small world” had a 30-minute wait time, so it wasn’t a side-effect of lighter crowds. It turned out that it was, perhaps, a function of declining offerings at the restaurant.
In the before-times, you could actually meet Beast in his library and pose for photos and autographs together. (It’s true, we have photos in our albums to prove it!). On this recent night, however, we heard the castle staff announce that Beast would walk through and “greet” guests, but wouldn’t stop for individual pictures – more of a walk-by through each room. Unfortunately, we were still in the room with Beast’s fireplace, awaiting our names to be called for our table, so we didn’t see him, and the visit wasn’t repeated again during our dining stay. (We were an after-fireworks reservation.)
The menu at Be Our Guest is a prix-fixe, three-course meal ($70 adults, $41 kids), and you select an appetizer and an entrée from the menu, and also get a pre-arranged tray of desserts chosen by the castle. Soft drinks and coffee are included in the price, but there is also an array of wines and beers available for an additional fee. In fact, several of the wines are created especially for Be Our Guest, and are the only place they are available.
Be Our Guest is a very different dining experience than most typical theme park eateries. The menu is more adventurous, leaning toward French cuisine, so make sure your family takes a look at the menu and is willing to broaden their horizons a bit, culinarily speaking, before booking the restaurant. (The children’s portion of the menu is slightly less adventurous.) Otherwise, it’s a hefty price tag to pay just to see the Beast breeze through the dining room and eat beneath the cherub-painted ceiling of the ballroom. You’ll actually get a better glimpse of Beast during the afternoon Festival of Fantasy parade, and Belle will be with him, leading the parade. (Oh, and now that the dining plan is back, this meal is a two-credit meal. Spend wisely.)
Our meal started with a long baguette, sent out to us from Marie, according to our cast member. (“Marie, the baguettes!” If you know, you know…). It was served warm, and was a delightfully airy French creation, crusty on the outside and fluffy on the inside, brought out in brown paper wrapping as if it had just come from the market. Alongside was a dish of whipped herb butter. It was more than the two of us could easily share.
There were several new options on the menu since the last time we’d been to Be Our Guest a few years ago, and we decided to try those offerings.
For our appetizer, we selected the Duck and Pork Terrine, served with house-made pickles. The terrine was plated as a nicely sized triangle, topped with radishes and greens, with a dollop of plum jam to accompany the terrine. A handful of toasted baguette slices were also there to serve up your appetizer. The terrine itself was firmer than expected, and the duck flavoring came through full-bodied, a definite plus for our duck-loving diners. The plum jam was tart, with a hint of mustard to the flavor, and a bit of graininess from the mustard, giving some added texture to the jam. On its own, the jam was a strong flavor, but it really added a level to the duck when you layered each of the components on one of the crispy bread slices. While we sampled each flavor individually first, creating a little layered concoction was definitely the way to go – it was a whole different flavor profile that way, and the unexpected contrast was quite enjoyable. The pickles were just a touch spicy, and added yet another element to each bite of the terrine, which by itself was on the milder side. The plum jam in particular punched the appetizer up a notch.
Other starter selections included French Onion soup, a mixed greens salad, Escargot de Bourgogne (told you this menu was more adventurous!), and a potato-leek soup.
For our main entrées, we tried the two dishes our cast member recommended – it was one hit, and one miss. The hit was the Grilled Filet Mignon, one of the best filets we’d had in a while. The miss was the Wine and Beer-braised Beef Short Rib, which we wouldn’t recommend to anyone. Your other options for the prix fixe menu were Dry-aged Duroc Pork Chops, Trout Amandine, Pan-roasted Squash, or Roasted Poulet Rouge Chicken.
The Filet Mignon was perfectly cooked, tender at its medium rare temperature. The accompanying Sauce au Poivre was delectable, and a perfect accompaniment to the meat. The green beans were correctly prepared al dente, and the mashed potatoes were a hearty blend that soaked up some of the juice from the filet, imbuing the potatoes with yet more flavor. We would order this plate again without a second thought.
On the other hand, the short ribs were not only forgettable, but very fatty as well. We actually had much better red wine-braised short ribs at the Germany pavilion’s “Pastoral Palate” booth at the Festival of the Arts. The meat at the EPCOT booth was fall-apart tender, infused with a delicious gravy as well. Not so, at Be Our Guest. At Pastoral Palate, we paid just $8.75 for their perfectly created short ribs, while Be Our Guest cost $70. Grab an appetizer at a different EPCOT booth, and a dessert at another, and you’ll cut your costs in half and probably have a better meal. (Okay, I know, you’re paying for the castle atmosphere. Just pick a different entrée if you go.)
As for the short ribs at Be Our Guest, they were served with an “onion jam” and topped with a smattering of onion straws for some crunch. The menu called for smoked bacon as part of the rib’s preparation, but that didn’t really come through in the final plate. The mashed potatoes were the same as the ones served with the filet, and they had a chunky “homemade” feel that was quite good. The seasoned tomatoes gave a bit of color and pop to the dish. Leave this dish in the kitchen with Mrs. Potts, though, even if your friendly cast member recommends it.
For dessert, each diner gets their own small tray of goodies, a dessert trio including a chocolate tart, a dark chocolate truffle, and a lemon jam macaron. (For those of you eating plant-based, there is an optional dessert, available on request, a vanilla cake with lemon curd, served with fresh berries and strawberry meringue.)
Don’t let the “chocolate tart” name in the trio fool you. It is the “grey stuff” in disguise, and it really is delicious! While it is not the dished-up, full bowl of grey stuff that we had back when Be Our Guest first opened, it was still our favorite dessert on the tray. The “tart” portion was a softer, cookie style shell rather than a more pie crust type confectionary. The “grey stuff” was light and fluffy, a sweet cookies-and-cream flavored panna cotta mousse. It’s a little more on the “frosting” end of the spectrum than previous iterations of this dish, but it’s still scrumptious.
The lemon jam macaron was a chewy lemon cookie, filled with a raspberry jam. The cookie portion wasn’t overwhelmingly lemon flavored, just a slight lemon hint on the follow-through. The raspberry, however, was very much present, a berry-licious filling that provided a nice sweet-and-tart contrast in the same bite.
The third selection on the plate was the dark chocolate truffle, which reminded us of the old cherry cordials our grandmas used to get at Christmastime. It was a dark chocolate shell that melted immediately in your mouth, leaving behind a molten center that had a fruity hint of raspberry. So yummy, and a nice treat to end the meal.
Our conclusion that evening was that changes to the menu, and a rather steep price point for dinner, is likely the reason it was so easy to grab a last-minute reservation at what used to be one of the hardest to get reservations in Disney World. While most of the food was good, and the three uniquely themed dining rooms definitely give you the “I’m in the movie” feel, the restaurant has lost something in the transition from the days when you got an electronic rose to help the rolling carts bring your breakfast or quick-serve lunch to your table. But, since Be Our Guest has undergone multiple menu and presentation changes over the years, hopefully this is just one more stop on its way back to its former glory.
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Beth Keating is a theme parks, restaurant and entertainment reporter for DisneyBizJournal.
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