As Disney World restaurants continue to open, we have been making our way around to see all of the updates or changes.

We’re making our way to Narcoossee’s is located at Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort and Spa. This waterfront Signature Dining location reopened back on September 21st. While other signature restaurants like California Grill and Cinderella’s Royal Table have reopened, we were eager to see how our past memories at Narcoossee’s compare to this new experience!

The octagonal restaurant opened in 1988 and, while known for its seafood, there are several standouts on the menu. It sits right at the water and offers incredible views of Seven Seas Lagoon. When fireworks at the Magic Kingdom are happening (they’ve been temporarily suspended until further notice), this is a fantastic spot to view the show!

Atmosphere

Narcoossee’s is a bit of a walk from the front entrance of the resort, however it IS close to the boat dock that brings guests to and from Magic Kingdom. This dock is not currently open.

Narcoossee’s has an open kitchen on one end of the restaurant, allowing guests to see the chefs hard at work preparing their meals. We were happy to see the chefs still hard at work with their masks on as we walked in.

When you walk into the dining area, we noticed that all tables are spaced out to keep parties physically distanced. As required, all Cast Members are in face masks. The interior feels like a coastal getaway especially through its color scheme. We thought it had a beautiful balance of upscale and casual.

As we mentioned before, this place offers incredible views of the Seven Seas Lagoon. From our table, we could see Disney’s Contemporary Resort and Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort.

Narcoossee’s is one of the many restaurants that has added the Mobile Dining Check-In feature. This allows for guests to bypass the host check-in at participating restaurants and check-in to their reservation online, completely contact-free.

Once you check-in on the My Disney Experience app, you will receive a text alerting you to return to the podium to be seated by a Cast Member.

We highly recommend reservations for this signature restaurant, but if you decide you want to go last minute, Narcoossee’s has been added to the Mobile Dine Walk-Up Waitlist! This feature allows you to join a waitlist so that, space permitting, you can snag a table at one of those hard-to-get restaurants! In the past, we have scored same day reservations but this new tool is making it easier!

Eats

Narcoossee’s menu has plenty to choose from when it comes to drinks, even following the lengthy closure. The wine menu in particular is quite extensive. This was given to us on a printed paper menu. The menu is broken into a list of red wines to choose from, and guests can purchase by the glass or by the bottle.

On the other side of the drink menu, you can find white wines including options from the Disney Family of Wines, champagne, beer, and cider.

Like many other Disney World restaurants, the dinner menu was offered as a QR code instead of the regular paper menus. This allows for an even more contact-free dining experience. 

The restaurant offers specialty coffee and tea drinks.

To start, guests have a few appetizer selections, as well as soup and salad choices.

The entree menu features mostly seafood, however there is steak, pork, and plant-based items as well.

Guests can add a little extra to their meals with enhancements. These are essentially fancy side dishes or sauces that you can order along with your main course.

For dessert, there are a few options ranging from cakes to cheesecakes to artisanal cheeses.

Now onto what everyone is here for…the food! Narcoossee’s is known for their quality and quite expensive food. Is this food still worth the price? Let’s find out! The meal began with a basket of warm bread and sea-salted butter. Nothing seemed to have changed about this one. We do have to say that the sea-salted butter really adds an extra layer to your classic bread and butter! It’s the little things!

First up, as an appetizer, we decided to order the Maine Lobster Bisque. This creamy dish contains butter-poached lobster, coral, and chervil. Look at the vibrant color! If you are a fan of classic lobster bisque, you will enjoy this.

This soup had very fresh lobster and was not too fishy. This was a traditional bisque and we mostly tasted the cream and brandy. There were decent sized pieces of lobster and overall it was really great! Even if you do not like seafood, you could probably handle this dish. At first when we heard coral, we were a bit taken aback! They couldn’t mean real coral right? Like the stuff Ariel swims around?? After speaking with a Cast Member, we confirmed that there is a bit of edible coral in the bisque! (it’s not like chewing on bits on rock though, we promise!) The bisque is $16.00.

We also ordered the Caesar Salad from the appetizer menu. The salad includes crisp romaine leaves, traditional caesar dressing, grated house-cured yolks, and fried capers. 

The cute factor here is the bacon wheels! The bacon flavor did enhance the salad and added a smokey flavor that you don’t usually see in a Caesar salad.

The dressing was very fresh but overall it was a pretty average salad. We did think the little parmesan crisp was a nice touch! This salad costs $15.00. 

Now onto entrées! First up, the Pan-Seared Georges Bank Day Boat Scallops for $49.00.! This dish is made of Parisian-style gnocchi, peas, ham, and truffled preserved Meyer lemon cream with, of course, scallops!

We were super impressed by these scallops! They were perfectly seared. Scallops are easy to screw up but these were just right. They had a firm outside with a crisp sear and were soft on the inside.

We were intrigued by Parisian Gnocchi, as most true gnocchi are Italian potato-based boiled dumplings. Parisian gnocchi is basically the same dough you’d make a cream puff or an eclair from (pâte à choux dough) but boiled instead of baked! The result is a similar pillowy dough ball but it’s a little less gummy than traditional Italian gnocchi can end up.

The sauce the gnocchi were tossed in was almost TOO rich! It filled us up very quickly and the lemon sauce had quite a strong truffle flavor to it. We happen to really enjoy truffle so this was great for us, but if the earthy flavor isn’t your favorite, maybe consider another entree. The serving looked relatively small but it filled us up fast!

Two people in our party tried the Surf & Turf with choice of Cold Water Lobster Tail or Pan-seared Scallops for $54.00. ! This plate included a 6-oz. sirloin steak, Yukon gold mash, and roasted carrots with a choice between butter-poached cold water lobster tail, or pan-seared scallops. One went with the scallops and one went with the lobster!

The steak was surprisingly good. It was thick and served medium rare, like we ordered. Although this wasn’t the best Disney steak we’ve ever had, it had a buttery flavor and was seasoned well. While the flavor of the steak was decent, for what we paid we were a little underwhelmed by the cut.

While the scallops were those same well-prepared scallops seen on our other entree, the lobster was pleasantly large and cooked fine! It was not overdone but we did not get much of that butter-poached flavor. It kinda just tasted like a boiled or steamed lobster to us. It was served with clarified butter to help add some butteriness.

The mashed potatoes were basic mashed potatoes. They were fine, but nothing special. The carrots were cut lengthwise and heavily roasted but they had barely any discernable seasoning to them. These were totally forgettable sides, unfortunately. 

Speaking of seasonings, we were served cute little serving bowls of salt and pepper for our use during our meal! Salt and pepper shakers are not on the tables at this time, so this was a nice option to be able to season our food.

And last but not least, we ordered dessert! We tried the Banana Cream Tart and the Carrot Cake (because two desserts are better than one)! The banana cream tart is topped with salted caramel and whipped cream.

The banana tart was very sweet and, well, banana-y. The cream was great and we thought the bruleed bananas and edible flowers were a nice touch. We scooped up the garnishes into each bite which helped break up the texture of the pudding-like filling.

Still, this treat was VERY cloyingly sweet, so much so that we couldn’t finish it! For $13, we’ve had much better tarts at many other locations BUT if you’re big into banana, this might be right up your alley.

Finally, the Carrot Cake caught us by surprise. It is a southern-style plant-based carrot cake with pineapple popping boba (to remind you we’re in Disney World ), praline croquant, salted caramel, and a plant-based candied pecan-coconut milk frozen dessert. Oddly, the presentation made it look like a hunk of steak to us with the crisscrossy pattern!

This cake was pretty good overall! This was way less sweet than the banana dessert and was very moist. It was enjoyable for being carrot cake. Truth be told, we ordered this not noticing it was a plant-based dessert! The “coconut milk frozen dessert” tasted like regular dairy ice cream and was firm and creamy. We thought the extra stuff on the plate was not necessary, especially (not surprisingly) the boba balls. The carrot cake is $13.00. 

And with the dessert all finished, our meal was over!

Nosh or Not

Consider dining at Narcoossee’s if:

• You love high-end seafood (prior to the closures, you could find a Whole Maine Lobster on the menu here!)
• You want a signature dining experience.
• You want a calm and upscale atmosphere for a date night or celebration.

You might want to skip Narcoossee’s if:

• You are looking for a quick bite or casual dining.
• You want to dine on a budget. This restaurant can get quite expensive pretty quickly.
• You’re not staying at the Grand Floridian. While any guests can visit this restaurant, it’s location makes it much more convenient for a resort guest right now.

Overall

Here’s the thing — our food and experience at Narcoossee’s were fine! We genuinely didn’t really have any complaints but it also didn’t send us out the door raving about our meal. We’ve dined here a few times and each time it’s been perfectly…fine. In a hotel with SUCH good food options a walk away at Victoria and Albert’s, Citricos, and even the much more casual Grand Floridian Cafe, there’s not TOO much about Narcoossee’s to make it truly memorable (especially without its big draw — those Magic Kingdom fireworks views). Without the fireworks, it is just an expensive seafood restaurant on the water. The food IS good, but it’s not the best ever. We keep saying this but…it’s just fine.

Note that this is one of the few restaurants on property that asks guests to stick to a suggested dress code. The minimum dress code requirements are khakis, slacks, or dress shorts and jackets are optional for men, and capri pants, skirts, dresses, or dress shorts for women. Jeans may be worn if in good condition.

When the Dining Plan was available before the closures, this restaurant was considered a two-credit meal, but with or without the Dining Plan, this is an expensive meal! If you’re 200% looking for seafood, there are honestly better, cheaper choices in Disney World like The Boathouse in Disney Springs. But if your heart is set on dining in that big octagon on the water you see as the monorail cruises around the Grand Floridian, it’s there waiting for you, but it’ll cost ya a pretty penny.

As always, we will continue to try out ALL of the reopened Disney restaurants and let you know what we think!

Check out our review of EPCOT’s Garden Grill!

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Have you been to Narcoossee’s since it reopened? Let us know in the comments!

The post REVIEW: Narcoossee’s at Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort Is Fine. first appeared on the disney food blog.