Dining looks a little bit different in Disney World right now for both table-service and quick-service locations. Things are constantly changing, and we like to give you the most up-to-date experience possible. That said, there are certain quick-service spots in Disney World that we just don’t find ourselves visiting as often as others. This is one of them.

Pinocchio Village Haus is a quick-service location in Magic Kingdom’s Fantasyland, known for serving up flatbreads, salads, and other Italian-inspired food. This spot has a prime location yet it has been largely forgettable for the most part on past visits. How would the food hold up on this visit? Let’s find out!

This restaurant is located right in the heart of Fantasyland, adjacent to “it’s a small world” and behind Prince Charming Regal Carrousel. This is normally a high traffic area, and sometimes Pinocchio’s can get a little crowded as well.

After a hectic morning of rides on Peter Pan’s Flight, “it’s a small world,” and Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, kids and adults alike can appreciate the simple comforts. of pizza, right?

This restaurant has lots of seating available, offering both indoor and outdoor seating. We definitely think Pinocchio’s is one of the best options for outdoor dining right now because the tables have umbrellas to give you some of that much-needed shade from the Florida sun.

If you’re lucky you may even spot a familiar face, reminding you to “always let your conscience be your guide!”

(Spoiler: it’s Jiminy Cricket waving to guests below from time to time!)

The decor of this restaurant really adds to its charm. The exterior doesn’t really show off how much space is inside this location, but it opens up once you’re inside!

When it comes to decorations, each room has a slightly different theme to it. This one has large chandelier-style lighting, along with large murals of Stromboli showing off Pinocchio, the “puppet with no strings.”

Gorgeous Pinocchio-themed murals line the walls. It feels like you’re eating in a picture book!

You’ll spy all the characters from the film around the walls. Hi Gepetto! (Who do you think will wear it best? OG animated Gepetto or live-action Tom Hanks?!)

While the rooms inside previously were crammed tight with tables, right now it’s much more spaced out with markers indicating which tables are unavailable.

Note that when it gets busy in here, this spot can get QUITE loud!

Prior to the closures, guests could choose to eat upstairs either indoors or outdoors on a wraparound balcony area (the same balcony we’ve been spying Jiminy Cricket on outside!). The second floor is closed at this time.

One of the most sought after spots to sit here is a couple of tables overlooking the loading area for “it’s a small world!” This is an older picture of these tables before the closures, but note that a couple of these tables are still available to guests.

A lesser-known tidbit about Pinocchio’s is that you can see the Blue Fairy’s Wish Book here and even write your own wish in it! This is a real book you or your kids can write your own personal wish on and the Blue Fairy will do what she can to make it come true!

Overall, this is a really cute, quaint spot to eat with fun, understated theming.

Eats

Pinocchio Village Haus, like other quick-service spots in Disney World right now, is heavily encouraging the use of Mobile Order.  This allows guests to pre-order, customize, and pay for their food from their phones. A Cast Member is stationed at the entrance to remind guests to Mobile Order their meals. If they’re paying cash or require assistance from a Cast Member, they’ll be permitted inside to order but this is discouraged. Once their order is placed, guests then proceed to the ordering/waiting area and wait for their order to be called.

Mobile orders can be placed through the My Disney Experience app and you’ll be able to retrieve your order without waiting in extensive lines!

This restaurant’s menu features entrees, sides (including the Tomato Basil soup that we love), kids’ meals, desserts, and right now, even some holiday specials!

The selection of entrees currently features four different flatbreads along with an Antipasto Salad and Chicken Strips. The menu also includes a vegan “cheese” pizza for those following a plant-based diet. You’ll notice the flavor choices are pretty…standard.

Sides currently include a couple of salads, breadsticks, french fries, and that delicious tomato basil soup!

There are a few kids’ meals to choose from, including an Uncrustables meal not listed on this menu that qualifies as a Disney Check Meal, meaning it’s a healthier choice (but like…it’s an Uncrustible with a handful of fries. For $6.49. Pretty sure we can buy a 10 pack for about the same price at our local grocery store! But hey, it’s an option at a LOT of spots around Disney World for a reason. ).

The menu also includes a selection of drinks and Chocolate Gelato or Greek Yogurt for dessert.

So as you can see…the menu isn’t a TON to write home about. Sure, they have limited menu right now (most restaurants on property do), but their menu before the closures wasn’t MUCH more robust. They HAVE had a few unique offerings over the years. For a hot minute, they had some REALLY fun Pinocchio-themed slushes. They served crazy good garlic butter covered Pesto Knots we loved for a while too. But along with their flatbreads, they preiously had a couple of just ok sandwiches and salads that we never really fell in love with. For us, there was much better food to be had elsewhere in the Kingdom. So with a very meh menu of standard boring Disney World Flatbreads, what did we order?

Eats

We ordered a boring Disney World flatbread.

From the copious and unique flavors of flatbreads we could choose from (do you sense the irony dripping off those words? ), we ordered the Margherita Flatbread for $11.99! This flatbread is topped with shredded mozzarella, fresh tomatoes, and mozzarella pearls. The menu doesn’t list the Balsamic Glaze as an ingredient, but ours had it lightly drizzled on top of it. Beautiful pizzas at EPCOT’s Via Napoli, avert your eyes!

OK, it’s not that bad. In fact, we know many people who love Disney flatbreads. We do too, actually. It’s just with Disney putting out so many unique, flavorful options in the past few years, a boring flatbread doesn’t do much for us, y’know?

So when it comes to Disney World pre-made, “toss it in the toaster for a couple of minutes and it’s pizza” type pizza, there are two styles. Some quick-service locations like Pizzerizzo in Disney’s Hollywood Studios and Pizzafari in Disney’s Animal Kingdom serve thick, round, doughy pizzas typically prepared with a disproportionate ratio of sauce to cheese and definitely not enough toppings to dough.

The other, slightly better, option in our opinion is the ubiquitous flatbread like we have here. Many Disney hotel quick service spots serve up these premade thin crusts. We’ve had these flatbreads at Pizzafari and a number of other locations as well. All of this to say — this is not custom, handmade pizza. It’s fast food pizza at its finest. And its finest is still just…kind of…meh. But sometimes, that’s ok.

So how’d it taste? Guys, it’s pizza. It’s really hard to make pizza we refuse to eat. If you pour cheese on a pile of sawdust and pop it in a toaster, we’d still contemplate eating it. Cheese is life. All of that to say, this was fine.

There’s a fair amount of premade tomato sauce smeared across the crust and a decent amount of pre-shredded mozarella cheese. Slices of fresh tomato are topped with those “Mozarella Pearls.” This part actually tasted quite fresh and nice, but topping a wet tomato with naturally wet yet firm cheese made for cheese wanting to slide off the tomatoes with each bite. 

The Balsamic Glaze was almost non-existent, which was a shame because it added a nice flavor. The rest of the pizza was noticeably void of flavor. The sauce was pretty bland, the crust was dry and mostly flavorless, the cheese was even pretty bland. The freshness of the tomatoes helped a bit, but not by much. In hindsight, if we could have begged Cast Member to squirt a whole bottle of the Balsamic Glaze on top, we’d have been much happier campers.

It is pizza, therefore it’s perfectly fine, but there is so much better out there. Is this a perfectly fine lunch? Sure? We can get down with a quickly made fast-food pizza any day — take the goods over at Blaze Pizza in Disney Springs as a great example of quick turnaround, yet still delicious, pizza. We’ve just come to expect more than what was served here.

We couldn’t leave well enough alone so we also tried the Kids’ Meal Chicken Strips! This meal comes with two chicken strips, along with your choice of a side (we got fries) and a beverage.

It’s kind of hard to screw up Disney World chicken tendy, right?? These were, as expected, good. If you’ve ever had a Disney World chicken strip, you’ve had these. They’re crunchy, salty, and just all-around a delight.

If you have some picky eaters with you who happen to not like cheese pizza, this could be a decent alternative. This meal costs $7.99.

We also got the Joffrey’s Shakin’ Jamaican Cold Brew that you can find pretty much all over Disney World at the Joffrey’s locations.

This cold-brew coffee incorporates underlying flavors of caramel and vanilla. Having an iced coffee on a hot Florida day cools you down AND gives you the energy you need to keep going!

We love this cold brew and think most coffee-lovers would, too!  We ordered it black, but of course, you can add whichever types of milk and sugar that you need to make it right for your taste. This coffee costs $3.79.

Nosh or Not?

Consider dining at Pinocchio Village Haus if:

• You have VERY picky eaters in your group. It doesn’t get much simpler than this!
• You’re already in Fantasyland and starving.
• You’re not in the mood for burgers or sandwiches at Cosmic Ray’s or Mexican at Pecos Bill (or seafood at Tomorrowland Terrace soon!)

You may want to skip Pinocchio Village Haus if:

• You dislike Italian food or pizza. There are slim pickins’ here, otherwise.
• You’re looking for a quiet, laid back meal. If you come here at peak times, you’re likely going to hunt for a table, scarf your food, and get out.
• You want a highly themed and immersive experience, a la Be Our Guest or Skipper Canteen.

Overall

We’ve always had a so-so relationship with Pinocchio’s. We have had a few highlights in years past — notably back in 2018 when they VERY briefly offered a mac and cheese flatbread. If they brought THAT back, we’d be eating here all the time! (It was real good.)

For the money, it’s hard to call this spot a good deal. 12 bucks for a piece of dough and cheese is hard to swallow (literally) when for the same price you can get a 1/3lb Bacon Cheeseburger and fries at Cosmic Ray’s or for a couple bucks more you can grab a massive fresh Fajita Platter at Pecos Bill. BUT, if you’re craving pizza in the Magic Kingdom, this is your best and only bet short of a reservation at Tony’s Town Square. Magic Kingdom is not exactly the GOAT when it comes to quick-service food, especially right now, but, of the options, Pinocchio’s is still pretty underwhelming for us.

This spot is really best suited for families trying to feed a variety of eaters. Most people can get behind a cheese pizza, even a just ok one. We left full and content after our meal. We weren’t mad we ate it, we’ll put it that way. It’s still pizza. We’ll give credit where credit’s due — Pinocchio’s more unique flatbreads were quite good in the past, but for basic pizza staple flavors, MOST pizza-centric Disney World spots don’t deliver. It’s not Pinocchio’s fault so much as Disney hasn’t nailed in-park fast-food pizza.  Walk to any other quick service spot in this park and you’ll find better options, but if you’re just looking for some easy food that you don’t really have to think about, this spot will do.

Check out our review of this holiday cocktail in Disney World!

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Have you eaten at Pinocchio Village Haus? Tell us about your experience in the comments!

The post REVIEW: Pinocchio’s Village Haus in Disney World Kinda Makes Us Sad For Pizzas Everywhere. first appeared on the disney food blog.