A Complete Guide To The Disneyland California Adventure Food & Wine Festival
Disney California Adventure has been on a rollercoaster ride since it opened in 2001. While there was plenty of nostalgia to be found with Old Hollywood vibes and a retro midway carnival experience, it didn't have ties to Disney characters or intellectual property, and it just couldn't pull in the same crowds as its next-door neighbor. It has since morphed into featuring Pixar and Marvel themed attractions that have made it more of a draw.
For a while, the appeal of Disney California Adventure was that it allowed those 21 and up the ability to imbibe. Until the park's Cove Bar began serving alcohol in 2013, it was the only place open year-round within the Anaheim Disney parks where you could reach Dumbo levels of drunk — unless you were a lucky duck and had access to the exclusive Club 33.
The Disney California Adventure Food & Wine Festival began in 2006 and for a few glorious weeks every year, there is truly a lot to eat and drink — both alcoholic and booze-free. The theme of the fest pays homage to the park's namesake — the state of California. Food and beverage recipes showcase the region's impressive agricultural offerings spanning artichokes, avocados, berries, citrus, and grapes. This year has so much on the menu that it can be overwhelming to even a festival veteran. We visited on the first day. It's currently open and running through April 25, 2023. Be our guest as we provide some navigation tips.
The Sip & Savor Pass
The Sip and Savor Pass presents an opportunity to try eight different items from the festival, but note that the only drinks available through the pass will be non-alcoholic. It's an extra fee of $59 for the pass on top of park entry ($54 for Magic Key holders), but considering the tasting-sized portions can range up to $9, you're saving some money if you seek high-ticket items. Share the tabs on your pass card with friends and family — but, let the cashier tear them off. You can also save tabs for future visits until the festival ends on April 25, 2023.
A free tasting passport lists where to buy the Sip and Savor Pass. This passport is also useful to guide you as to what dishes are covered with the pass, and which are not. Ask to get your passport stamped — there's a special stamp to receive if you've collected one from every location.
With or without a Sip and Savor Pass, you can visit any kiosk and order items from other kiosks for future pick-up. Each kiosk has an "order" line and a "pick-up" line. So, avoid crowded "order" lines, and look for a kiosk with short "order" lines. Do a bulk order, and you'll save yourself time throughout the day. Hang onto that receipt until all items have been picked up, and be sure to note when kiosks close so you don't miss the pick-up window.
Special events and culinary demonstrations
The festival has plenty of entertainment for both young and old to pair with all the delicious eats. Events take place throughout the day, primarily on the Hollywood Backlot Stage. Ages 3 to 11 can don an adorable chef's hat and decorate cupcakes for Alice's Wonderland Bakery Unbirthday Party, and you might even spot Minnie giving some cooking tips as well. On your way there, be sure to get in line for a meet-and-greet photo op with Chef Goofy. For the adult foodies, there are also interesting culinary demonstrations to check out. We learned a thing or two about how to make the best cold brew coffee during our visit.
While some hot ticketed events this year have already sold out, mark a reminder in your February 2024 calendar to reserve a spot at the next festival. This time around, for $150, you can enjoy a festive wine tasting hosted by Ego the Living Planet (also known as Kurt Russell). As of publication, time is running out to reserve a spot for a crash course on how to make a HippopotoMai-Tai from Trader Sam himself, so if that sounds interesting to you, act fast.
Non-alcoholic beverages
Despite this being a food and wine festival, we found there was a healthy amount of non-alcoholic beverages on offer. And unlike the adult beverages, they are covered by the Sip and Savor Pass. If you're feeling super festive, you can add a glowing grape shaped "cube" — green or purple — to your beverage for $6.25 and take it home as a souvenir. Be advised that if you just want water, you don't need to buy a bottle — just go into any counter service restaurant and they'll give you a free cup.
From the festival marketplaces, we especially liked the blackberry lavender lemonade from Avocado Time. Beyond a hit of lavender syrup, it also infuses pineapple juice for another sweet layer to complement the tartness of the blackberry puree and lemon. Golden Dreams serves up its Central California Cooler, which appropriately has ingredients grown in that region with peach puree as the primary flavor note and adding orange and lemon juices for some pucker.
There are also permanent California Adventure eateries providing tasty beverages that are covered by Sip and Savor during the festival. Cocina Cucamonga is serving up a strawberry horchata that uses house-made rice as a base. Studio Trading Co. has a watermelon punch that the festival notes was inspired by a popular Korean recipe, is noted by the festival to be kid-friendly, and uses oat milk if dairy is a dietary concern.
Coffee and tea
To start a long day at a theme park, or to get a second wind mid-day, caffeine is going to be your friend. Joffrey's Coffee & Tea Co. is the Official Specialty Coffee across Disney properties, and it's serving up some especially unique concoctions for California Adventure's Food & Wine Festival.
Joffrey's is providing two limited edition cold brew coffee options for this year's fest. You can find one of them at the Cappuccino Cart — a permanent location within the Pacific Wharf section of the park. It's a cold brew with horchata filling in as a sweet creamer that uses house-made rice and is spiked with cinnamon. The cold brew option is one you simply can't skip and is the perfect breakfast pick-me-up as it's a blueberry pancake cold brew. It tastes exactly as advertised and is garnished with a yummy cereal crumble; you can find it the Berry Patch festival marketplace.
If tea is more your speed, look for Joffrey's Echo Park Cooler at the LA Style kiosk. It's a fruity blend of black ceylon tea and raspberry and rose herbal tea. Joffrey's has also added lychee and rose syrups to this festival recipe for a sweet kick, in addition to lime juice for a counter punch.
Wine
For the oenophiles out there, the Food & Wine Festival has you covered. For the most convenient way to get your vino on during the fest, the centrally-located Uncork California booth offers reds, whites, and rosés by the glass in addition to flights — it's also conveniently next to the Nuts About Cheese kiosk for food pairings. There's even a mimosa flight if you're someone who likes to get an early start to the party — each of the three mimosas features prosecco as the base, but with flavors ranging from cranberry peach, to a tropical fruit blend, to dragon fruit and rose syrup.
Sonoma Terrace is a permanent location at California Adventure with a relaxed vibe and outdoor seating for some great people-watching. With the 2023 festival, you can use a Sip and Savor tab to enjoy a black forest ham sandwich along with a glass or two of wine. Down the way, you'll find Paradise Grill, where there's a Wine Float Cocktail that contains tequila, triple sec, agave, and citrus juices, with a topping of red wine — maybe have this drink after you've taken a ride on the Incredicoaster.
Beer
Once you spot the iconic Mickey ferris wheel, keep heading to the right. You'll soon find a bevvy of craft beer options from breweries around California and in a variety of styles. It's tempting to stick with SoCal favorites while in Anaheim — if you like IPAs, try Crowns & Hops "The Dopest," La Bodega's "Buena Suerte" for a refreshing lager, or The Bruery's "Or Xata" a horchata riff on blonde ale.
The first spot you'll encounter is the California Craft Brews stand, which is situated in front of Ariel's Undersea Adventure. With a Sip and Saver Pass, the IPA sausage dog is a food option to pair with your brews. If you're having a hard time choosing, try a flight. There are three this year — Bright & Balanced, Fun with Flavor, and IPA forward.
Go a little farther down the same path and you'll encounter the entrance to the festival's beer garden. It's worth a trip there for the option of being able to build your own flight of four from the eight beers on tap. We've also found that it's not as difficult to find seating in that area of the park, so it's a good place to settle in for a quick bite and some brews. And all the way on the other side of the park, if you're a fan of beer and tomato juice-based spicy micheladas, you'll find them at the Hollywood Lounge.
Cocktails
It might be more accurate to call this the Food, Wine, Beer & Cocktail Festival because it has a remarkable array of cocktail options. If you're at Lamplight Lounge, we recommend its specialty cocktail for the fest, which features gin, curaçao, and elderflower liqueur. It's served in a martini glass and accentuated with notes of peach and lemon. It's sweet and sour, and the basil garnish on top adds a nice nose.
For those who love limoncello, the popular Garlic Kissed booth mixes up a beverage that includes mint and raspberry syrup with grapefruit liqueur and lemon juice, topped with a white orchid for garnish. For fans of vodka-based mules, Garlic Kissed also serves one that features guava and lychee.
You can't pass up the Cluck-A-Doodle-Moo stand if you like bourbon sours — its tropical riff uses pineapple and lime juices. It also serves a smoked cherry Mezal-iki cocktail, a heavy hitter of a drink that combines dark rum and mezcal with grapefruit, lime, and vanilla syrup. Peppers Cali-ente appropriately sells a spicy paloma. And if you want something a bit less strong, D•Lish has a sake and melon drink.
Meat dishes
As tempting as it is to enjoy drinks and sweets all day, at some point it's a good idea to get some protein in your belly. With all the options at the various stands, you'll want to narrow your focus on a few in particular, and here are our recommendations.
Cluck-A-Doodle Moo offers a double whammy of savory treats that impressed us. First, there's a brisket slider with tender meat, a soft brioche bun, smoked cheddar, and a tangy pickle. If you like a little heat, order the habanero dry rub chicken wings — it's a generous portion, and there's plenty of meat on the bone.
Garlic Kissed had two of our favorite bites, and the festival notes that both are kid friendly. We would absolutely agree that the bacon mac and cheese would be a hit with tykes. As much as we liked the gluten-friendly sirloin chimichurri dish served over mashed potatoes, we're not so sure it would satisfy young, picky eaters.
LA Style served up delightful hunks of BBQ pork belly and paired it with a mac salad topped with salty, umami furikake that was one of our festival favorites. At Peppers Cali-Ente, you'll find a quartet of plump and well-cooked shrimp seasoned with chilies grown in California.
Plant-based and vegetarian options
In an exciting development for vegetarian Disney fans, California Adventure is offering an all plant-based menu at Paradise Garden Grill during the Food & Wine Festival. No need to stress over which festival marketplaces have dishes without meat because you can just head straight there for a heap of options.
Reigning at the top of Paradise Garden Grill's plant-based savory dishes has to be its chilaquiles torta that's packed with intense flavor that includes "chorizo" beans, spicy crema, avocados, and pickled onions. It doesn't fall under the Sip and Savor Pass, but could be shared by two. Under the Sip and Savor, there are also plant-based gyro waffle fries, bulgogi fried rice, and a Buffalo chicken-inspired mac and cheese. Paradise Garden Grill also offers a plant-based kids' menu with quesadillas and mac and cheese, as well as a peach-blueberry cobbler for dessert.
At the festival marketplaces, you'll find an artichoke pizzetta as well as an artichoke and olive tapenade toast at I Heart Artichokes. Peppers Cali-Ente serves up a spicy, crispy chile relleno empanada for the heat-seekers out there.
Ribeye steak for 2
If a special occasion happens to fall within the window of the Food & Wine Festival, set your sights on Lamplight Lounge. Come hungry because the Pixar-themed gastropub's entree special of the fest is returning again this year — the Ribeye for Two.
Coming in at an impressive 28 ounces, this is a lot of steak. It's then topped with a tab of bourbon-bacon butter. Hopefully, the wine that comes with the meal gets your appetite going. You'll also get plenty of sides to split including a baked potato and poblano chile combo served in a Mickey-shaped bowl, roasted mushrooms, cipollini onions, and glazed baby carrots. If you have any room left in your belly, get ready for a dessert of cookies and cream donuts.
All said, it's quite the feast, but it does come with a price tag of $130. Plan ahead with a reservation either on the Disneyland website or through the Disneyland app. Be aware that dinner hours at Lamplight Lounge are from 4 to 8:30 p.m.. As a bonus, don't miss out on the new World of Color – ONE show that's nearby and starts at 9 p.m.
Desserts
A new item to the fest, we'd argue that the elote paleta from Golden Dreams deserves the gold medal for the festival. We can't recommend it highly enough. It's sweet, salty, and creamy like corn chowder, and balanced with savory notes from a parmesan crema drizzle and a dusting of chili-lime powder for a hit of acid and spice. It's well worth one of your Sip and Savor tabs.
A popular favorite is back at Nuts About Cheese — the Snickers macaron. It's shaped like Mickey and, much like its candy bar namesake, features chocolate, caramel, and crunchy nuts.
It's not a visit to a Disney park without churros. The special options at the festival this year can be found at the usual churro spots. They include a lemon raspberry pie churro from Terran Treats, a tiramisu churro found near Hollywood Land, and a tropical pineapple coconut churro sold by Willie's Churros.
Head to the Berry Patch booth for a new festival item, Kenny's Family Cheesecake. But, if you're in the mood for blueberry pie, we happened to prefer that. There's also a fudge brownie at Uncork California that's decorated to celebrate Disney's centennial anniversary, but it contains pecans — so steer clear if you're allergic to nuts.
Take home a souvenir from the festival
If you're a Disney memorabilia collector, we're happy to report that you can commemorate your trip to the Food & Wine festival. You can scope out the items available at Elias & Co., a festival gift stand located in Pacific Gardens Park, and inside the Grand Californian Hotel at Acorns Gifts & Goods.
Are there Mickey ear headbands specific to the festival? Of course there are. These have pink ears with cartoon ingredients and feature an adorable chef's hat in the middle and a sequined bunch of grapes for added garnish. There's a salt and pepper shaker that's shaped like Disney park trash cans (a curious choice), an oven mitt and kitchen towel set, a Hawaiian shirt with a grape pattern, a cutting board, wine glasses, shirts both short and long sleeved, and of course, pins.
Corkcicle has themed stemless wine glasses and tumblers for the occasion. There are also extra-special Corkcicle stemless wine glass souvenirs that you can only buy at Sonoma Terrace — there you'll find two unique colors, jade green and a shimmering indigo at a cost of $30 each. Wine is not included and limited to two per customer.