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Every snack worth knowing about across all 4 parks — 158 of them, with checked prices and honest verdicts. Mark what you want, tick off what you have tried, share the list, print it, take it into the park with no signal.
158 of 158 shown
Universal Orlando
41 tracked items · the ranked version
Two large sausages on mashed potato with onion gravy and peas, served hot on a proper plate at a counter-service price.
Our take: The best plate of food at Universal Orlando and it is not close. Properly made, properly hot, and cheaper than most of the burgers in this park. Order it and stop reading the rest of the board.
A sweet, lightly carbonated butterscotch and shortbread drink topped with a thick vanilla-cream foam, served cold in a plastic cup or a souvenir stein.
Our take: Try it once because you will be asked whether you did. It is very sweet and one between two people is plenty; the frozen version and the soft serve are both better uses of the same flavour.
Butterscotch-flavoured soft serve in a cup or cone, sometimes served with the same cream topping used on the drink.
Our take: The best thing carrying the Butterbeer name and cheaper than the drink. If you are only doing the flavour once on this trip, do it here rather than at a drinks window.
The same butterscotch and shortbread flavour churned into a slush and topped with the vanilla-cream foam, served in a cup with a spoon-straw.
Our take: The best version of the drink and the right one in Florida heat. The ice cuts the sweetness that makes the cold version cloying, and it lasts long enough to walk the whole alley with it.
A cake doughnut roughly the diameter of a dinner plate, covered in pink frosting and sprinkles, sold under a two-storey statue of the Lard Lad mascot.
Our take: Buy one for the group, not one each. It is a decent cake doughnut carrying a great joke, and split four ways it is cheaper per head than a normal park snack.
Fried chicken between two waffles with maple syrup, from the Cletus' Chicken Shack counter in the food hall.
Our take: The other thing worth ordering in Springfield and the better choice if you are not in a burger mood. Sweet and salty in the right proportions, and it travels badly, so eat it there.
San Francisco Pastry Company
A large iced cinnamon roll from the bakery case on the San Francisco waterfront, sold whole and warm in the morning.
Our take: The best breakfast pastry in the park and easily split between two people. It sits on the walking route to Diagon Alley, which makes it the right stop on a rope drop morning.
A large burger loaded with bacon, cheese and a fried egg, ordered from the Krusty Burger counter inside the food hall.
Our take: The best burger in the park and the reason to eat in Springfield rather than at Richter's. Absurd, well made, and enough food that you will not want dinner.
White fish and shellfish in a cream sauce under a mashed potato crust, baked and served in its own dish.
Our take: The pick if somebody else in your party has already ordered the bangers and mash. Rich enough that you will not want a dessert afterwards, which at these prices is a saving.
A cold, non-alcoholic mint and cinnamon drink, bright green, with blueberry-flavoured boba spheres sitting at the bottom that burst when you bite them.
Our take: The most genuinely unusual thing sold at Universal Orlando and the drink to order if you already know what Butterbeer tastes like. The boba divides people completely, which is the point.
A non-alcoholic orange soda served in a branded glass over dry ice, so the drink smokes continuously for several minutes.
Our take: You are buying the fog, and the fog is worth it once. Drink it inside the bar; carry it out and you have paid fourteen dollars for a flat orange soda.
A thick hand-spun milkshake in vanilla, chocolate or strawberry, served in the 1950s diner on the Hollywood boulevard.
Our take: The best thing at Mel's by a distance and one of the better desserts in the park. Thick enough that the straw is decorative, which is the correct standard for a milkshake.
A board of British cheeses, cured meats, bread, pickles, chutney and a Scotch egg, built to be picked at by two people.
Our take: The best value on the menu for a couple, and it can be ordered without the meat. Two people eat properly for less than two separate mains and get the more interesting food.
A small dark sponge cake soaked in toffee sauce, served cold in a cup rather than hot in a bowl.
Our take: Better than a seven-dollar theme park dessert has any obligation to be, and easily shared. Order it with the bangers and mash and split it two ways.
Bumblebee Man's Taco Truck
Three tacos from a rotating line-up, typically a Korean beef, a slow-cooked pork and a chipotle chicken, served from a parked truck in the Springfield plaza.
Our take: The best value savoury food in the park and almost nobody eats here. Three properly seasoned tacos for less than a mediocre burger, from a window with no queue.
A small pot of set butterscotch custard with a cream layer on top, eaten cold with a spoon.
Our take: The most intense version of the Butterbeer flavour and the one most likely to defeat you. Good, and one pot between two people is the right amount.
A thick New England-style chowder served hot as a starter or a light meal in the lagoon-side dining room.
Our take: The best thing on the Lombard's menu and a legitimate light lunch on its own with bread. Order it as a starter and share a main if you are not especially hungry.
TODAY Cafe
Cold brew coffee served over ice from the cafe near the park entrance, with dairy and non-dairy milk available.
Our take: The only coffee inside the gates worth drinking, and the reason to mobile order before you walk through the turnstiles. The morning queue here is otherwise one of the worst in the park.
Minced beef in gravy under a mashed potato crust, baked and served hot in a dish with a side salad.
Our take: The safe order and the least interesting of the three pies. Fine, filling and the right choice for a child who will not eat fish or sausage.
The Fountain of Fair Fortune
The lighter of the two Wizarding World exclusive beers, an amber lager with a dry finish, poured on draft alongside Wizard's Brew.
Our take: The easier drinking of the pair and the better choice in the heat. Neither beer is sold anywhere else on earth, which is a better reason to try one than the theming is.
A light American lager brewed for Universal in three varieties — regular, Lite and Dry — poured on draft at the outdoor brewery and inside Moe's Tavern.
Our take: Perfectly decent lager rather than a novelty, and the flight of all three is the correct order. Drink it at the outdoor brewery, which has shade, seating and almost nobody in it.
A scoop of tea-and-floral ice cream from the rotating flavour board, noticeably less sweet than anything else in the shop.
Our take: The find in this shop for anyone over about fifteen, and the only dessert in Diagon Alley that is not built on butterscotch. Genuinely well made rather than a novelty flavour.
Battered white fish with thick-cut chips and tartare sauce, served in a dark pub dining room with a pint if you want one.
Our take: Solid pub cooking and the right order at Finnegan's. You are paying for an hour in a proper room with a proper pint, and on that basis it is fair value.
A frozen rum or tequila cocktail served at the covered waterside bar in San Francisco, with a non-alcoholic version available.
Our take: Expensive and worth it, because what you are buying is a covered seat on the water in the best rest spot in the park. The drink itself is competent rather than clever.
Schwab's Pharmacy
Vanilla ice cream with hot fudge, whipped cream and a cherry, built at the counter of a recreated 1940s Hollywood soda fountain.
Our take: Cheaper than the themed desserts elsewhere and made in front of you at a counter almost nobody sits at. Eat it on a stool rather than taking it away; that is the whole experience.
Louie's Italian Restaurant
An oversized New York-style cheese or pepperoni slice, sold at the counter and eaten in a large indoor dining room.
Our take: One of the few genuinely cheap full meals in the park, and the slice is large enough to be one. Skip the pasta plates at the same counter; the pizza is the whole reason to be here.
Richter's Burger Co.
A plain cheeseburger ordered at the counter and finished at a free toppings bar with lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles and sauces.
Our take: Ordinary burger, excellent room, free toppings bar. Order the plain one and build it yourself rather than paying more for a specialty version at the same counter.
Salted caramel ice cream with pieces of blondie folded through it, from the rotating scoop board.
Our take: The crowd-pleaser on the scoop board and the safe order for anyone who finds the Earl Grey too adult. Very sweet, which in this land is not a surprise.
Minced meat in gravy under a mashed potato crust, baked and served hot with vegetables in a pub dining room.
Our take: Good, and four dollars more than the same idea done better at the Leaky Cauldron. Order it here for the table service and the pint rather than because it beats the counter version.
A thick square slice from the Luigi's counter inside the food hall, sold by the slice rather than the pie.
Our take: The cheapest way to feed a child in Springfield and better pizza than it looks. Order this rather than a full plate if you are eating twice today.
Eggs, sausage, black pudding, baked beans, grilled tomato, sauteed mushrooms and toast on one plate, served in the morning only.
Our take: The best sit-down breakfast inside the gates and the correct thing to do with the second half of an Early Park Admission hour. Ride Gringotts first, then eat this while the park fills up outside.
The Fountain of Fair Fortune
A dark ale brewed exclusively for the Wizarding World, with chocolate and roasted malt character, poured on draft in a tiny pub in the alley.
Our take: Genuinely good beer that happens to be a park exclusive rather than a novelty with a label on it. Order a taster of this alongside Dragon Scale rather than committing to a full pint of either.
A branded cola sold across Springfield in a can and on draft, and one of the cheapest named items in the park.
Our take: It is cola in a good can. Buy it for a child who wants something from Springfield that is not fourteen dollars, and keep the can.
Eternelle's Elixir of Refreshment
A small vial of flavoured concentrate poured into a bottle of Gillywater, which changes colour dramatically as it mixes. Several flavours are sold, each with a different colour.
Our take: Twelve dollars for flavoured water with a two-second trick attached. Buy it once for a child who will love the colour change, and understand exactly what you are paying for.
Freeze Ray Pops
A frozen fruit pop sold from a walk-up window in Minion Land, in rotating flavours and colours.
Our take: The cheapest cold thing at the front of the park and a reliable way to buy ten minutes of cooperation from a small child. Nothing more than that, and nothing less.
Battered fried shrimp with fries and slaw from The Frying Dutchman counter in the food hall.
Our take: Fine, and the weakest of the food hall counters. Order it only if the burger and the chicken sandwich are both wrong for you.
The plain house cheeseburger from the Krusty Burger counter, served with fries in a branded box.
Our take: Overrated, and people order it because of the name. It is an ordinary theme park cheeseburger; the Clogger Burger from the same window is three dollars more and enormously better.
A standard diner cheeseburger with fries, ordered at the counter and eaten in a red vinyl booth.
Our take: Unremarkable, and the room is doing all of the work. Come here for the booths, the jukebox and the late opening, and order the milkshake rather than the burger.
Ben & Jerry's
A scoop from the brand's non-dairy range, in a cup or cone, from the counter on the New York street.
Our take: Listed here because it solves a real problem: this is the most reliable vegan dessert in the park outside the Wizarding World. Ordinary in every other respect.
A carbonated orange drink with a marshmallow-flavoured foam on top, sold from the same window as Butterbeer.
Our take: Pleasant and unremarkable, and it exists mainly to give a child who does not like Butterbeer something with foam on it. Order it for that reason and not because it is interesting.
A sharp, cloudy lemon soft drink served cold, closer to a proper British lemon squash than to lemonade.
Our take: The most refreshing thing on the Wizarding World drinks list and the one to order when you cannot face another sweet one. Actually useful in August, which Butterbeer is not.
Universal Orlando
41 tracked items · the ranked version
Slow-braised beef short rib with a potato puree and a reduced braising jus, the long-standing signature main at Mythos.
Our take: The best plate of food inside Islands of Adventure and cheaper than the equivalent at any Walt Disney World signature. This is the dish that justifies booking a table at all.
A butterscotch and shortbread-flavored slush topped with a thick sweet cream foam, sold non-alcoholic from carts along Hogsmeade street and inside the Three Broomsticks.
Our take: The single thing to eat or drink at Universal Orlando if you only do one. The frozen version beats the cold one comfortably in Florida heat and it is the reason the carts exist.
A bowl of tater tots loaded with diced ham, cheese sauce and a green herb sauce that supplies the color, served from the ham-shaped building in Seuss Landing.
Our take: The best novelty dish at Universal Orlando and one of very few gimmick foods worth ordering twice. The green is herbs, not dye, and the acidity is what makes it work. One bowl feeds two.
A quarter of a chicken cooked on a wood-fired rotisserie, served with rice and black beans and a piece of grilled corn.
Our take: The best quick-service plate at Universal Orlando and better than any counter-service main at Walt Disney World. It costs the same as a burger a hundred yards away. Order it.
Half a smoked rotisserie chicken with corn on the cob and roasted potatoes, served on a metal tray in the Three Broomsticks dining hall.
Our take: The best thing on the Hogsmeade menu and one of the two best quick-service plates in the park. Order this rather than the shepherd's pie and share it if you are not hungry.
A half rack of wood-smoked baby back ribs with corn on the cob and rice and beans, served on a tray in the Thunder Falls dining room.
Our take: Genuinely good smoked ribs at a price no table-service restaurant would match. Slightly less consistent than the chicken, and still one of the two best things in the park.
The original chilled version of Butterbeer, a cream soda base with butterscotch and shortbread notes under a thick foam cap, served in a plastic cup or a souvenir tankard.
Our take: Closer to what the books describe and sweeter than most people expect. Worth ordering once to compare, and the frozen version is the one you will finish.
Rice noodles with tamarind, peanuts, egg and vegetables, available with chicken, shrimp or as a vegetarian plate, and a fixture on the Mythos menu for years.
Our take: An odd dish to find in a Greek-themed cave and one of the most reliably good things on the menu. The vegetarian version is the best meat-free main in the park.
A small pot of butterscotch custard with a cream layer and a shortbread element, served as dessert at the Three Broomsticks.
Our take: The most interesting form Butterbeer takes and the one nobody orders. Get it if you are already eating here; it is not worth a special queue.
Butterbeer flavor as a soft-serve ice cream, sold in a cup or a cone from the Hogsmeade carts.
Our take: Better than the cold drink and worse than the frozen one. Good with two spoons and a child who has already had a Butterbeer and wants another.
A dense chocolate cake shaped like a cauldron, filled with chocolate mousse and finished with a fondant handle.
Our take: The best thing in Honeydukes to actually eat, and a third the price of the Chocolate Frog. Rich enough that one is plenty between two people.
Doc Sugrue's Desert Kebab House
A grilled marinated chicken skewer cooked to order at the outdoor kebab window in The Lost Continent.
Our take: One of the only hot meals in this park you can eat while walking, and naturally gluten-free. Not exciting, and exactly right when you do not want to lose an hour to lunch.
A laminated chocolate croissant from the bakery case a short walk inside the turnstiles, sold alongside sandwiches and coffee.
Our take: A decent pastry at a fair price, and the sensible way to eat breakfast inside the gates. Buy it at 8:30 and eat it walking to Hogsmeade.
A lump crab cake on a brioche bun with slaw and a remoulade, served with fries at lunch.
Our take: More crab than filler, which is not a given at this price point in a theme park. The lighter lunch order if the short rib is too much at midday.
Egg, cheese and meat on a croissant, made in the morning at the Port of Entry bakery and available until the pastries run out.
Our take: A real breakfast for less than a hotel counter charges, and portable enough to eat on the walk to the first ride. The best breakfast decision inside the park.
Beer-battered cod fillets with thick-cut chips, served with tartar sauce in the Three Broomsticks.
Our take: Genuinely decent batter and a large portion. Not a reason to queue, and a perfectly good thing to eat once you are inside.
Fire-Eater's Grill
Seasoned gyro meat in pita with tzatziki, tomato and onion, served with fries from the small window in The Lost Continent.
Our take: Better than the price and the location suggest, with no queue sixty seconds from the worst queues in the park. The smartest cheap lunch at Islands of Adventure.
A Scottish-style ale brewed specifically for the Hog's Head pub in Hogsmeade and not sold at Diagon Alley across the lagoon.
Our take: An actual good beer rather than a themed novelty, and exclusive to this pub. The right order for an adult who has had enough butterscotch.
House-made fudge sold by the slice from a counter at the back of Honeydukes, in rotating flavors including chocolate, peanut butter and sea salt caramel.
Our take: The best-value sweet purchase in Honeydukes and the one almost nobody looks at. Ask for a sample first - the flavors vary more in quality than the display suggests.
The warm version of Butterbeer, closer to a butterscotch steamer with the same cream foam floated on top, served from the Three Broomsticks and the Hog's Head.
Our take: The best of the three on a rare cold Florida morning and an odd choice on any other day. Order it in January, not July.
Hummus with warm pita, olives, feta and vegetables, served as a starter or a shared plate at Confisco Grille and the Backwater Bar.
Our take: The best vegan-friendly plate in the park outside Mythos, and large enough to be a light lunch for two. Order it at the Backwater Bar and skip the reservation entirely.
Moose Juice Goose Juice
A frozen tangerine slush sold from the Seuss Landing stand of the same name, in a bright orange cup.
Our take: The sweeter of the two and the one children actually finish. A good cold drink at a low price in the island where you most need one.
Magic Neep Cart
A chilled spiced apple and pumpkin drink sold in a labeled bottle from the Magic Neep cart and the Hogsmeade counters.
Our take: Sweeter and more like spiced apple juice than the name suggests. Worth trying once, and the empty bottle is a better souvenir than the drink is a beverage.
A hand-sized pastry turnover filled with spiced pumpkin, sold from the counter at Honeydukes and from the Hogsmeade carts.
Our take: Closer to a pumpkin pie in a crust than anything savory, and better than it looks under the shop lights. A good portable option for eating in a queue.
Minced lamb and vegetables under a mashed potato crust, baked and served in its own dish with a side salad.
Our take: Competent and heavy, and a strange thing to eat in Florida in August. It works in winter and it is the wrong order at 90 degrees.
A large smoked turkey leg, cured so that it tastes closer to ham than to roast turkey, sold to eat in the dining room or carry out.
Our take: The standard theme park turkey leg, done properly here because it comes off the same wood fire as the chicken. Enormous, salty and genuinely shareable between two.
A very tall stacked deli sandwich of layered meats, cheese and salad on rye, named for the character in the Blondie comic strip who gave the sandwich style its name.
Our take: Made to order rather than pulled from a warmer, which puts it ahead of most counters here. It feeds two people comfortably, and there is nowhere shaded to sit and eat it.
A bacon cheeseburger with fries, eaten in a comic-styled dining room looking out across the lagoon toward Hogsmeade.
Our take: An unremarkable burger with the best quick-service view in the park. Order it for the window seat and eat properly in Jurassic Park instead.
A large slice of cheese pizza from the counter in the Baxter Building on Marvel Super Hero Island, sold individually or as part of a whole pie.
Our take: Ordinary and useful. Buying the whole pie for a group is meaningfully cheaper than four slices, and the upstairs room is the only air conditioning on that plaza.
A large solid milk chocolate frog in an ornate pentagonal box, packaged with a collectible wizard card.
Our take: Overrated as chocolate and reasonable as a souvenir. You are paying seventeen dollars for a card and a box; buy it knowing that, and buy a cauldron cake if you want dessert.
Cinnabon
The standard Cinnabon cinnamon roll with cream cheese frosting, from the franchise counter in Port of Entry.
Our take: Exactly the thing you already know, at a theme park markup. The four-pack of MiniBons is the better order if more than one person wants some.
A double-patty cheeseburger with fries, finished at a self-serve toppings bar with lettuce, tomato, onions, pickles and sauces.
Our take: Ordinary until you use the toppings bar, which is the only thing separating it from every other burger here. Thunder Falls Terrace is two minutes away and much better.
Chocolate truffles containing popping candy, sold in a decorated box from the Honeydukes counter.
Our take: Fifteen dollars for popping candy in a truffle. The packaging is doing all the work here, and the fudge counter is better value in the same shop.
Comic Strip Cafe
Battered fish and fries from the fish and chips station in the Comic Strip Cafe food court.
Our take: The most reliable of the four stations in a food court where none of them are good. The air-conditioned room is the reason to be here, not this.
Natural Selections
Whole apples, bananas and oranges sold from the small stand near the Camp Jurassic entrance, alongside bottled drinks and packaged snacks.
Our take: Unglamorous and genuinely useful. This is the easiest place in a park full of fryers to buy a child something that is not fried, and it costs three dollars.
Fried chicken with a side and a roll, served in the big-top dining hall where the Seuss trolley train passes overhead.
Our take: Adequate counter fried chicken. You are eating here for the air conditioning, the space and the trolley overhead, and that is a fair trade with a tired four-year-old.
The Watering Hole
A frozen lime margarita from the covered outdoor bar between the Jurassic Park visitor complex and the VelociCoaster entrance.
Our take: Sweet, cold and fine, and mainly an excuse to sit in the shade underneath the VelociCoaster launch. The seat is worth more than the drink.
Moose Juice Goose Juice
A frozen sour green apple slush, the tart counterpart to Moose Juice, sold from the same Seuss Landing stand.
Our take: Sharper than children expect and frequently abandoned half-finished. Ask before letting a five-year-old choose by color.
Hop On Pop Ice Cream Shop
Hard-scoop vanilla ice cream with hot fudge, whipped cream and a cherry, from the small window in Seuss Landing.
Our take: Standard ice cream with a queue a fraction the size of the ones in Hogsmeade. The correct bribe for a child who has just been measured and turned away.
The house cheeseburger at Green Eggs and Ham Cafe, served with fries from the same window as the tots.
Our take: Filler on a menu that exists for one dish. Order the tots and skip this unless somebody in your group will only eat a burger.
Pizza Predattoria
A single-serving pepperoni pizza from the outdoor window on the lagoon side of Jurassic Park, served with a side salad option.
Our take: Exactly what a theme park window pizza is, and no worse than that. It buys you a short queue and a shaded table, which is sometimes the whole point.
Universal Orlando
41 tracked items · the ranked version
The original cold Butterbeer — a butterscotch-and-shortbread cream soda with a foam head, poured from a tap rather than blended.
Our take: Sweeter than most people expect and worth having once. It is the same recipe as at the older Universal Orlando Wizarding Worlds, so skip it here if you have already had one this trip.
The frozen version of Butterbeer: a shaved-ice butterscotch cream soda under a thick foam topping, served in a cup you will finish faster than you expect.
Our take: The best of the three Butterbeers and the only one worth queuing for in Florida heat. If you drink one thing in this world, drink this.
A cube of tiramisu built as a question block, gold and dusted, cut open at the table.
Our take: The most photographed dessert in the park and, unusually, a decent tiramisu. Order one for the table rather than one each.
A half dozen from the raw bar, shucked to order and served on ice with mignonette and lemon. The selection rotates.
Our take: The single most surprising thing you can eat inside a theme park in Orlando. Order these with a drink at the bar and skip a full dinner if the budget is tight.
Cream of mushroom soup served inside a bread bowl decorated to look like a Super Mushroom, with the cap sitting on top.
Our take: The best thing on the Toadstool menu and the one item that is as good to eat as it is to look at. Order this if you order one thing here.
A filled baguette on properly made bread — ham and butter, or a cheese and salad version — assembled to order at the café counter.
Our take: The best cheap adult lunch at Epic Universe. Sixteen dollars for a sandwich you would actually order outside a theme park is a fair trade here.
A laminated butter croissant from the café's pastry case, best in the first hour of the day before the case has been picked over.
Our take: Order it with a coffee at a street table before the crowd arrives and it is the nicest fifteen minutes in the park. By two in the afternoon it is just a pastry.
A properly built cocktail from the hub bar's rotating list, made rather than poured, served at an outdoor table under the coaster.
Our take: Eighteen dollars for a drink and a seat with Stardust Racers running overhead. The drink is fine; the seat is the purchase.
Chilled lobster in a split roll with fries, the lightest full plate on the Atlantic menu.
Our take: Generously filled and the best-value entree in the room. It is also the one Atlantic dish that works as a late lunch rather than a full dinner.
A bacon cheeseburger presented with a Mario cap on the bun, served with fries in the Mushroom Kingdom restaurant.
Our take: A real burger under the costume, which is more than the concept promised. Children love it and adults finish it, which is the whole job.
A coconut-based curry with vegetables and rice, built as its own dish rather than as a meat plate with the meat removed.
Our take: The best vegan meal at Epic Universe and not a close contest. If you eat plant-based, this restaurant is the reason to book a table in the hub.
Braised pork belly in folded steamed buns with pickles and a sweet-savory sauce, served as a small plate for the table.
Our take: The Blue Dragon is better at small plates than at entrees, and this is the proof. Order two of these before anyone commits to a main.
Half a roasted chicken with sides, served on a tray in the Viking food hall and eaten at a long table or out at the harbor.
Our take: The most reliable plate of food in the park for the money, and better eaten at the harborside tables than inside. Nobody will write about it; everybody finishes it.
A breaded, fried cutlet served with potatoes or spaetzle and a wedge of lemon, from the counter in the cursed village.
Our take: The best plate in Dark Universe and better cooked than a counter-service kitchen needs to manage. Eat it at dusk with the village outside.
A heavily themed cocktail from the windmill bar in the middle of Darkmoor, served under sails that are on fire.
Our take: The drink is ordinary and the setting is the best in the park. Buy one after dark, stand where you can see the sails, and consider it money well spent.
Sliced smoked brisket with two sides, ordered at the counter and collected at a window. The plate the smokehouse is actually built around.
Our take: Order this over the pulled pork every time. It is competent barbecue rather than great barbecue, and it is the fastest proper meal in the park.
Grilled steak with a compound butter and a pile of fries, the bistro standard and the dish the kitchen at Le Gobelet Noir is most consistent on.
Our take: The right order in this room. The elaborate plates on the same menu vary; this one is reliably good and reliably enough food.
A whole fish roasted and brought to the table, filleted on request, with the catch changing depending on what the kitchen has.
Our take: The dish that proves this kitchen is serious. Expensive, big enough for two to share with a starter, and the best plate of food at Epic Universe.
Warm spiced apple in thin pastry, served in a paper tray from the counter in the cursed village.
Our take: The right dessert to eat walking through Darkmoor after dark, and the only warm sweet thing in this half of the park. Get one for two people.
A rack of glazed ribs with sides from the Viking hall's counter, sized as the biggest plate on the menu.
Our take: Large, sticky and fine. Order it if you are genuinely hungry; the smokehouse in the hub does better barbecue if that is what you actually want.
Grilled sausages with sauerkraut, mustard and a starch side, plated large enough that two people can make a meal of one order and a side.
Our take: The safe order here and a lot of food. Split one between two people with a pretzel and you have eaten well for under fifteen dollars each.
A dense dark chocolate mousse served cold with cream, the bistro dessert on the Le Gobelet Noir menu.
Our take: Good, rich and big enough for two spoons. It is the only proper sit-down dessert inside a themed world at this park, which is most of its appeal.
Ham and cheese under a béchamel-and-cheese crust, grilled and served hot with a small salad.
Our take: The cheapest way to eat in the park's only themed table-service room, and a genuinely good lunch. It is also the dish a picky child will eat here.
Hooligan's Grog & Gruel
A cold draft beer from the village bar, served in a plastic cup you can carry to the seating by the play area.
Our take: Order the draft rather than the themed drinks, which are gimmicks in taller glasses. The value here is standing within sight of your children.
Spaghetti and meatballs in a spiced tomato sauce, plated with a Fire Flower motif on top.
Our take: The safest order for a child who will not eat anything unfamiliar, and the least interesting plate in the room for anyone else.
Onion soup under a bread raft and a cap of melted cheese, served in a heavy crock at the table.
Our take: Better than it needs to be and the best thing to order if you want the room without the full dinner spend. Two people can share it as a starter.
Yoshi's Snack Island
Cut fresh fruit in a cup from the snack stand in the Mushroom Kingdom, sold cold and eaten walking.
Our take: Boring and genuinely useful. It is the only light, cold, plant-based thing inside this world and by day three of a trip that matters.
A large soft pretzel served warm with a cheese or mustard dip, sized for a group to pull apart.
Our take: The best shareable snack in the park and the right thing to buy while one member of the party is still in a queue.
Spit Fyre Grill
Grilled meat on a stick from the open-air counter in the Viking village, handed over hot and eaten standing at the harbor rail.
Our take: The best mid-afternoon food in the park — it fills the gap between a snack and a meal, which Epic Universe otherwise handles badly.
A side of baked macaroni and cheese, large enough to work as a child's entire meal.
Our take: The cheapest way to feed a small child a hot meal in the hub. Order it as a side for the table and let them work through it.
Pizza Moon
An individual wood-fired pizza with tomato, mozzarella and basil, cooked to order at the hub's pizza counter.
Our take: Better crust than a theme park owes you, and the meal that ends an argument with a child who has rejected everything themed. Order it plain.
A non-alcoholic version of the tavern's themed drinks, served in the same glassware with the same garnish.
Our take: Genuinely worth ordering rather than a consolation prize, which makes this a bar an entire party can use. Twelve dollars is still twelve dollars.
Laminated pastry wrapped around two batons of dark chocolate, sold from the café's pastry case alongside the croissants.
Our take: The best cheap sweet thing in the park and the right thing to buy for a child who will not wait for a dessert menu. Buy it in the morning, not the afternoon.
Tomato, mozzarella and basil arranged as a Piranha Plant emerging from a pipe, with dressing on the side.
Our take: The only light thing on this menu and a genuinely good salad. Order it alongside the burger rather than instead of it.
A slice of savory egg tart served warm with a small side salad, the café's most substantial vegetarian option.
Our take: Solid and unexciting, and one of the few genuinely vegetarian hot meals in this half of the park. Worth knowing about rather than seeking out.
A bowl of noodles in a long-cooked broth with pork, egg and greens, the most substantial thing on the menu.
Our take: Perfectly decent and priced like it is not. Fine if you want a hot bowl in air conditioning; it is not why you came to this restaurant.
Cured meats, cheese, pickles and bread on a board, sized for two people to graze on with a drink.
Our take: Fine and overpriced, like every theme-park charcuterie board. Get it only if you want to keep the table for another hour.
The warm version, closer to a butterscotch steamer than to the soda, topped with the same foam.
Our take: Pleasant on the two January mornings a year when Orlando is cold, and a strange decision the rest of the time. Get the frozen one.
A multi-tier chilled seafood platter for a table to share — oysters, shrimp, and a rotating selection of the rest of the raw bar.
Our take: Priced for the photograph. Ordering the same components à la carte from the raw bar costs meaningfully less and gets you the parts you actually want.
Yoshi's Snack Island
A brightly colored fruit soda sold in Mushroom Kingdom packaging from the world's walk-up snack stand.
Our take: Seven dollars for a soft drink in a container. Buy it for a child who wants the packaging and do not pretend it is anything else.
A hot vegetable and bean stew served with bread, the hall's standing meat-free option.
Our take: Adequate, and one of very few vegetarian hot meals outside the hub. If you eat plant-based, plan to eat at The Blue Dragon instead.
Universal Hollywood
35 tracked items · the ranked version
Fried chicken between two waffles instead of a bun, fried to order at the window rather than held under a lamp.
Our take: The best savory thing inside this park after Toadstool Cafe, and almost everyone walks past it to queue at Krusty Burger next door. Order this instead.
A sweet orange-forward drink served in a tall souvenir glass over dry ice, so the whole thing smokes over the rim while you carry it. Available with or without alcohol.
Our take: You are buying an effect, not a cocktail, and it is worth it once. The non-alcoholic version is identical in every way that matters, which makes it the single most entertaining thing you can hand a child at this park.
Butterbeer Cart
A slushed version of the cream-soda-and-butterscotch drink, served with a thick foam head that sits on top rather than mixing in. Non-alcoholic, like every version of it.
Our take: The one to order. The cold version is sweet and thin by the third mouthful; the frozen version stays drinkable in Los Angeles heat, which is the whole argument.
A cube of tiramisu built and finished as a Mario question block, complete with the question mark on the face, served with a mushroom-shaped garnish.
Our take: The single best dessert inside this park and the rare themed item that people photograph and then finish. If you order one thing at Toadstool Cafe, order this.
A layered banana cream dessert in a themed vessel, part of the banana program that a Minion restaurant was never going to avoid.
Our take: The desserts are the part of this kitchen that clearly enjoys itself, and this is the best of them. Better than the savory food it follows.
A thick hand-spun milkshake served in a tall glass with the surplus in the metal cup alongside, the way a diner is supposed to do it.
Our take: The best thing on the Mel's menu by a distance and one of the better sweet items in the park. The burgers are ordinary; the shake is not.
Battered white fish with thick-cut chips, served on a metal tray in the timber dining hall. The most consistently well-executed plate on the Three Broomsticks menu.
Our take: The order at Three Broomsticks. The batter holds, the fish is not overcooked, and it is the one item here that would pass without the theming to carry it.
A bacon cheeseburger served under a bun shaped and colored as Mario's cap, plated with fries and presented on a themed tray.
Our take: The signature plate and, surprisingly, a properly cooked burger rather than a prop with meat in it. The kitchen here is doing real work behind the gimmick.
A cream of mushroom soup served inside a bread bowl baked and decorated to look like a Super Mushroom, red cap and white spots included.
Our take: The best-looking savory dish in the park and a genuinely decent soup underneath the presentation. The best vegetarian order inside these gates.
A plain cake donut roughly the size of a dinner plate, covered in pink frosting and sprinkles, sold under a statue of the mascot holding the same thing.
Our take: The most photographed food in the park and a mediocre donut. Buy one for the group, take the picture under the statue, and buy a standard glazed one if you actually want to eat a donut.
The original version: a chilled cream soda base with a butterscotch foam poured over the top, served in a cup or a souvenir tankard.
Our take: Fine, and sweeter than most people expect. Order it in cool weather and order the frozen one otherwise. Buy it at the Hog's Head, not the outdoor cart, and save fifteen minutes.
A real branded lager brewed for Universal rather than a prop, served at Moe's Tavern, the Duff Brewery bar outside and at Krusty Burger.
Our take: An ordinary lager with an extraordinary label. Drink it at Moe's, in the air conditioning, rather than standing in the sun at the outdoor bar paying the same money.
Spaghetti and meatballs in a spiced tomato sauce, plated with a fire-flower motif and served in a bowl rather than on a tray.
Our take: The least interesting plate on a strong menu, and still better than most of what this park serves. Order the burger or the soup ahead of it.
Bone-in fried chicken with sides, served in the large themed dining rooms next to Despicable Me Minion Mayhem.
Our take: Above the park average and generously portioned, which is the most you can reasonably ask of a Minion-branded restaurant. A sensible default lunch on the Upper Lot.
Isla Nu-Bar
A blended rum-based tropical drink from the covered bar beside Jurassic World, served in a plastic cup or a souvenir vessel for considerably more.
Our take: Sweet, strong and correctly timed. Coming off Jurassic World soaked and sitting in the shade with one of these is among the better twenty minutes available here.
A draft beer brewed for Universal and sold only inside the Wizarding World, poured from the tap that sets off the animatronic hog's head above the bar.
Our take: A decent, unremarkable amber beer with a good trick attached. Worth ordering once for the tap gag, which most guests never see because they never come inside.
A baked macaroni cheese served in a themed dish, with a crumb topping and enough of it to work as a shared side.
Our take: The reliable order for a child who will not eat anything else, and a decent vegetarian option in a park short of them. Nothing to write home about, and nothing wrong with it.
A tomato and mozzarella salad arranged as a Piranha Plant emerging from a pipe, with basil and a green pesto base.
Our take: A properly conceived vegetarian dish rather than a substitution off a meat menu, which is rarer at this park than it should be. Light, which matters at lunchtime here.
Minced meat in gravy under a piped mashed potato crust, baked and served in its own dish with a side salad.
Our take: Solid, heavy and completely fine. It is the right order in January and a mistake in August, when you still have a hillside and four escalators ahead of you.
A half rack of smoked ribs with sides, served at the Lower Lot's only substantial restaurant next to Jurassic World.
Our take: Ordinary barbecue in the one place where that hardly matters, because the alternative is four escalators each way. Eat it and stay down here.
Turkey Leg Cart
An enormous cured and smoked turkey leg from a cart on the Upper Lot, eaten standing up with nothing that could reasonably be called a napkin.
Our take: It tastes like ham, because of the curing, and that surprises everyone. Share one across the group as a novelty rather than buying it as lunch.
A sparkling lemon drink served with a star-shaped garnish, non-alcoholic and the most refreshing thing on the Toadstool Cafe menu.
Our take: Ten dollars for lemonade is a Universal Studios Hollywood price. It is genuinely good lemonade, and the cheapest way to sit in the best air-conditioned room in the park.
Bumblebee Man's Taco Truck
A short order of tacos on corn tortillas from a themed truck parked on the Springfield street, with carne asada, chicken and a vegetarian option.
Our take: Unremarkable by any Los Angeles standard and a genuine relief by Springfield standards. The only thing in this area you can eat without needing a lie-down afterward.
A shared platter of rotisserie chicken, ribs, corn and potatoes intended for a family, sold as a single order rather than per person. Priced per platter and worth confirming at the counter.
Our take: Genuine value for four or more and a poor deal for two. Order it with a group and individual plates without one.
A straightforward diner burger with bacon and cheese, served with fries in a chrome-and-vinyl room near the park entrance.
Our take: Competent and unmemorable. You are really paying for an air-conditioned booth close to the gate, which at this park is a fair enough thing to pay for.
Starbucks (Upper Lot)
A standard warmed Starbucks breakfast sandwich, with egg and cheese versions available alongside the meat ones.
Our take: This park has almost no real breakfast offering inside the gate, and this is the practical answer. Not a recommendation so much as an admission.
Churro Carts
The standard fried dough stick rolled in cinnamon sugar, sold from carts at several points around the Upper Lot.
Our take: A fine churro at roughly fifty percent more than the same thing costs at Disneyland down the freeway. Buy one from a cart that is actively frying, or do not bother.
Starbucks (Upper Lot)
A standard Starbucks cold brew from the Upper Lot location, priced the same as it is anywhere else in Los Angeles.
Our take: The best value purchase inside this park, entirely because it is the only one not carrying a theme park markup. Unglamorous and genuinely useful.
Starbucks (Lower Lot)
The same standard Starbucks cold brew, from the Lower Lot location that most guests do not know exists.
Our take: Listed because knowing it is here is worth more than the drink is. It is the reason you never need to take the escalators up for a coffee.
The standard-size donut sold alongside the enormous pink one, in glazed and a rotating set of other finishes.
Our take: Better than the Big Pink Donut and a third of the price, which is why almost nobody buys one. If you want a donut rather than a prop, this is the correct order.
Grilled chicken with rice and vegetables, the lightest main course available on the Lower Lot.
Our take: The sensible order if you are riding Jurassic World afterward, which you probably are. The ribs are better and considerably worse timed.
Butterbeer Cart
The same butterscotch and cream soda flavor served warm, closer in texture to a hot custard drink than to the cold version.
Our take: Genuinely the best of the three on a cold night, and completely wrong in July. Southern California gives you maybe twenty evenings a year when this is the right order.
The standard burger on the menu: a single patty with cheese, lettuce, tomato and sauce, served with fries in themed packaging.
Our take: An entirely ordinary theme park burger in an entirely extraordinary room. Sixteen dollars is a lot for it, and you are partly paying for the air conditioning and the Krusty head outside.
A baked macaroni cheese served as a main or a side, and effectively the only vegetarian main on the Lower Lot.
Our take: Adequate, and the only real vegetarian option on this level of the park. That is a criticism of the Lower Lot rather than of the dish.
A deliberately excessive stacked burger built as a visual joke about American fast food, sold in a restaurant that is itself a joke about American fast food.
Our take: Order it if the absurdity is the point of your visit. Order a normal burger if you want lunch. It is not good, and it is not trying to be, and that is a defensible position for a menu item to take.
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