After an early rope drop and a few headliners, a Disney dreamer may work up a hunger ahead of lunch time, but many eateries in the Magic Kingdom are closed until 11am or later (and the places that are open are likely swarmed (looking at you, Main Street Bakery)). Even most snack carts are unmanned for the first couple of hours of park operation! So where can one find breakfast without blowing a huge hole in the touring plan?
Gaston’s Tavern is a counter service eatery in New Fantasyland, with a menu primarily focused on a giant pork shank. Located deep in the park just east of Be Our Guest Restaurant and conveniently nearby the forthcoming Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Gaston’s is usually fairly quiet in the morning and offers breakfast-passable faire.
The cinnamon roll is a major staple at Gaston’s, a popular dish served all day. As seen in the photograph, it is quite large and should satisfy the voracious appetite generated during a rope drop day. Multiple icings of lightly distinguished flavors are strewn atop a fluffy complex of cinnamon-laden bread-cave-maze. This cinnamon roll was obviously constructed to impress, but its beauty will likely be overlooked as parkgoers ravenously cram their face with food so that they can beat the crowd to Monster’s Inc. Laugh Floor. This is a good cinnamon roll. Unfortunately, the marvel of its craftsmanship was degraded by serving temperature; the roll I received, herein pictured, was positively room temperature, causing the icings to congeal into a slightly-less-pleasurable sugary paste. The roll would’ve been much better if it was 10-20 degrees hotter.
Cinnamon Roll FINAL SCORE: 6/10, points deducted primarily due to bad serving temperature.
Sadly, such glowing descriptions cannot be rightfully ascribed to the other elements of this breakfast. The pictured “fruit cup” was pulled from a refrigerator where it probably sat for years. The mass of the “fruit” was very hard, while the external skin was pure mush from soaking in the slow, eeked excretions from a bunch of fruit that’d been refrigerated in the same plastic container for an extended time period. I’ve had this same experience with other “fruit cups” at Walt Disney World, and that’s really sad. If you want to eat fruit cups in the parks, bring your own. This type of fruit cup is the universal fruit cup sold at WDW.
Fruit Cup FINAL SCORE: 1/10, 1 point because it was fruit at least at some point, but disgraceful and embarrassing. Almost not real food anymore. Disney can and should do better. Maybe someone should send a sample to the health department for testing.
LeFou’s Brew was a respectable showing, but ultimately it just wasn’t my bag (or, brew?). The menu described it in detail that made it sound appetizing, as I enjoy both frozen apple juice and toasted marshmallows, but the fusion of these with a passion fruit foam blend caused deep confusion and conflict among my tastebuds. It didn’t immediately register as disgusting, as each flavor was distinguishable and I liked the apple juice and marshmallow parts, but I found the passion fruit mixture encroaching and overtaking the other flavors. This gave rise to a naturally-occurring revulsion as I ate. My brain would say, “OK, I need a drink now”, but my tongue would try to create a diversion and say, “Hmm, that’s nice, but I really don’t want this thing anymore”. My attempts to override my natural repulsion were ultimately failures and I dumped most of the brew and replaced it with water.
That said, this is one of the unique menu items that makes Disney dining a noteworthy experience and defies the conventional wisdom regarding “theme park food”. Disney should keep trying to provide custom foodstuffs like this. They should just make them taste better.
LeFou’s Brew FINAL SCORE: 4/10, some people may think it tastes good but I just couldn’t stomach it. It was a nice try. 4 points for effort.
All of this cost me 20 bucks.
Thus passed my breakfast at Gaston’s Tavern, in New Fantasyland, in Magic Kingdom Park, in Walt Disney World Resort, in Orlando, Florida, in the United States, on the planet Earth. It wasn’t that good, but I liked the cinnamon roll.
BREAKFAST FINAL SCORE: 4/10, 4 points for a mostly edible cinnamon roll and a good try with LeFou’s Brew.