We’ve finally made it, friends!

EPCOT’s Food and Wine Festival started in late August and will continue through November 23rd, but did you know there’s another Food and Wine event in Disney World? Over at the Swan and Dolphin Resorts on Disney World property, you can find the Food & Wine Classic. This is a 2-day event, and we got a sneak peek before it starts!

This event takes place from 5:30-9:30PM on both Friday, November 15th, and Saturday, November 16th. Tickets for the event are all-inclusive, meaning that you’ll pay one price and be able to try whatever you’d like, as many times as you’d like for $195.00 per person ($208.13 with service fees).

However, you can also get a 2-night bundle to go both nights for a savings of 15%, which is a total of $330.00 per person ($353.94 with service fees). This is a great way to try some really fantastic food of all different types — everyone is sure to find something they enjoy here.

Menus were released for the event back in September, but now it’s time to walk around and try some of these delicious dishes!

Smokin D’s BBQ

First, we got to scope out the brand-new Smoked Hand-Crafted Bacon from Smokin’ D’s BBQ specialty booth. It’s made with artisanal bread puree, carrot puree, braised greens, and shaved vinegared heirloom apple.

This was a VERY thick-cut piece of bacon that was crispy on the edges and kind of pulled apart in the middle like pork shoulder. The flavors of the heirloom apple and the barbecue sauce really compliment the meat, but our one complaint is that the bacon was on the fattier side.

Cabana Bar & Beach Club

If you want a taste of Cabana Bar and Beach Club, you can try out the Korean No Mayo Salad.

This was made with rice noodles and we found it to be a great mix of textures with a little bit of heat. It had some really fun crunchy elements!

Il Mulino

For pasta lovers, there’s a new dish from Il Mulino! The Imported Italian Ricotta Cheese Filled Agnolotti is made with roasted broccoli rabe, crispy garlic, Calabrian chili, romano cheese, and lemon-scented olive oil.

With each plate, you get a few small pieces of pasta to sample. It’s plated beautifully!

Amare

If you’d like a sampling from Amare, try out the Hand-Made Harissa Spiced Lamb Sausage with bulgar wheat, smoked yogurt, and fennel-onion salad.

These each come with a decent-sized piece of sausage. Once again, the plating is impeccable this year!

Carnival Corner

Calling all mac and cheese fans! New this year is the Creamy Chipotle Macaroni and Cheese from the Carnival Corner themed area. It’s made with smoked ham and scallion crema, but you can get it vegetarian upon request. Isn’t she a beaut?

We tested this one out and it was a thick, creamy cheese sauce. It had real bacon bits and a bit of heat on the back end from the chipotle. Yum!

Picabu

A fan-favorite dish from the 2011 event has returned — the Vegetable Galette Slider from Picabu. This is griddled with hand-formed zucchini and carrot “cake,” secret sauce, sweet onion-mustard relish, tomato “jelly,” and served on a locally sourced brioche bun. It’s all vegetarian.

If you loved this one 13 years ago, then you’ll definitely want to hurry back and snag it again!

Chinatown

For a taste of Chinatown, check out the Congee, which is slow-cooked rice porridge with shrimp dumplings, fried shallots, green onions, garlic, and crispy chili flakes.

This is one of the more adventurous dishes available, but it’s also one of the larger portions you can get.

Desserts

And then, of course, we’ve got the desserts! First up was the decadent Nougat Rum Dark Chocolate Mousse. This is a MUST for chocolate lovers and anyone who wants something incredibly rich.

The Fresh Strawberry Burnt Miso Tartlet is perfect for strawberry fanatics! It has a lot of that fresh fruit flavor, and then some nice crunch from the crispy pearls. This was one of the prettiest treats we tried!

The Chocolate Blackberry Choux Puff was quite delicious, although it was rather runny in the heat. This is definitely one of the smaller-portioned items available, but great if you just want a little bite of dessert.

If you’re a beignet fan, you’ll definitely want to check out the Mandarin Cream Beignet. This one combines tropical flavors with one of the most popular types of doughnuts.

The Coconut Tapioca Mango Mousse was light and fluffy, with a custard-like consistency. The mango was quite strong here.

The Caramel Banana Crème Brûlée was honestly our favorite thing we tasted at the event! It had some rich banana flavor and a little bit of a bananas foster-like texture on the bottom. The top was a very traditional crème brûlée.

The Pistachio Raspberry Mousse with White Chocolate Foam is gluten free and it had a nice, light pistachio flavor. The raspberries really shine through here with the fruity flavor.

And that’s not all! You can also experience great entertainment around the event! Throughout both days, you can catch:

• The 501 Blues Band (a blues cover band)
• Evolution Motown (a cover band spanning the whole Motown catalog)
• Epic (an 80s and 90s dance-pop cover band)
• The Pop Strings Trio (a group that “experience classical melodies reimagined through a modern pop lens”)
• Local artist the Jamie Davis Trio

If you’re heading to the event this year, we hope you have the best time — be sure to stay tuned to DFB for all the latest Disney World news!

Find out how to make the MOST of the Swan and Dolphin Food & Wine Classic HERE!

What are you most looking forward to trying? Tell us in the comments!

Disclosure: In nearly all circumstances, Disney Food Blog writers and photographers pay full price for their own travel, hotel, food, beverage, and event tickets. We do this because it’s important to us as journalists to ensure not only that we give you unbiased opinions, but also that you can trust us to do so since we’re paying our own way. On rare occasions, when we are invited by a company to attend a preview as media, and when we choose to accept that invitation, we will always make you, our readers, aware of that situation. Today, we were invited by Disney World to attend their media preview of Maria & Enzo’s Ristorante. Note that when we attend events as media we are 1) Not required to review that event/food on any of our channels, and 2) Not required to review that event/food favorably. You can always count on DFB to give you a 100% unbiased and honest review of any event that we attend, food that we eat, or beverage that we drink. You can see more in our Disclosure Policy. Thank you for reading. — AJ

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