Dining Reviews

Review: Chef Mickey’s Dinner at Disney’s Contemporary Resort – May 2021

Denise ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  , 

Hi everyone!

Chef Mickey’s at Disney’s Contemporary Resort restarted its dinner service again this past week. Instead of a buffet, the meal is family style. The characters also pose for each table in a distanced way. This is the format it has been for breakfast (which we have not attended). Here is our review!

We arrived at 8:30pm for our dinner. Masks are currently required when arriving and tables were distanced.

While walking into the restaurant, the host showed us drinks that could be purchased in addition to the meal. Standard non-alcoholic beverages (soda, coffee, etc.) are included.

The alcoholic drinks like the Captain’s Mai Tai and Magical Star are served across property.

Guests can purchase the Mickey Mouse souvenir sipper cup with smoothie.

Dessert plates that arrive to the table at the end of the meal were also on display.

A sheet of paper listed items that could be added on to the meal, including the souvenir Mickey sipper.

Mickey and friends came through quite a bit during our meal. I will show that more after the food – but it was nice to not have to get up to go to a buffet. We sat through the meal and enjoyed seeing the characters as they moved through the room.

Here is our video of the experience and then photos with thoughts on the food and character interactions.

We were quickly brought out dinner rolls and salads. The dinner rolls looked better than they tasted – they aren’t bad, but pretty plain. I love bread and stuck with one roll.

Jeff set up the salads in the shape of Mickey. The Chef Mickey’s Caesar was unremarkable with very little dressing. I liked it as a salad but it didn’t really taste like a Caesar. Jeff enjoyed the shrimp in the Citrus-poached Baby Shrimp salad but otherwise he didn’t eat much of the greens. On the other hand, the Seasonal Composed Plant-based Salad (with kale) was surprisingly delicious. I almost skipped over it but wish I’d started with it.

Here is a closer look at the shrimp in the salad.

We were able to order one Kids’ Platter. The plate consists of macaroni & cheese, chicken nuggets, turkey corn dog nuggets, tater puffs (tater tots/potato barrels) and steamed broccoli. If you’ve been to the kids’ section of a buffet, you know exactly what to expect.

Here is a look at all our food once it arrived. The meal is all-you-care-to-eat and the server will bring more of any item/s requested.

The roasted salmon was Jeff’s favorite item, with sweet mustard glaze and Southern-style braised kale. He liked the seasoning.

In the platter here are Prime Rib with Mushroom Ragoût and Roasted Onions along with Traditional Roasted Breast of Turkey with summer succotash and gravy. The turkey was really tasty and the beef was too, though a little too much fat on it for me to eat too much. I like turkey so I stuck with that and the carrots. The Baby Carrots had a Dijon-Tarragon butter and brown sugar although the flavor was very mild. I didn’t really taste the brown sugar. There was also Asparagus with Gremolata.

The plant-based Farrow Wheat Fried Rice…I forgot to try it. Jeff had two helpings and enjoyed it.

The Potato Gnocchi includes roasted mushroom cream, baby spinach, Parmesan and herbs. I don’t really eat gnocchi much but enjoyed it with the mushroom cream.

Sometimes dishes don’t look too delicious but still are, and I felt that way about the Roasted Garlic Gratin Potatoes. Gratin is one of my least favorite ways to eat potatoes but this one was pretty creamy. The Mickey was relatively tasteless though.

Here is the other side of the dish.

There were times the characters would walk through slowly and pose for photos (distanced from each table), and then also times they danced to music. There was a lot of interaction with guests.

Our dessert arrived. And these plates also feature Mickey, I missed it until the end of the meal.

There is a lot of food to choose from and that includes dessert. Dessert is nothing really out of the ordinary but everything was decent. The Mickey Mousse Dome on Oreos was good, the Apple Crumble Tart was probably the best of everything here. The Strawberry Cream Cake was better than it looked – especially the frosting – and the cookies tasted like Toll House. There is nothing exceptional, IMHO.

This little apple tart included a Chef Mickey’s piece.

We were seated against a wall that offered views out of the room, so we could turn to see the characters as they got ready to enter.

Mickey was getting ready for his entrance.

Because it was late and not that busy, it felt like the characters were in the room a lot. We saw more of Mickey and Minnie than other characters.

Pluto poses.

Donald heads to the room.

I missed photographing Donald as he shook his tail feathers but he posed quite a bit.

Goofy passed through less than other characters but we did catch him a couple of times.

At the end of the meal, we received this autograph card. Here is the front and back. It is a very nice souvenir.

There is fun decor all over Chef Mickey’s.

We were surprised how much fun we had at Chef Mickey’s and that we enjoyed so much of the food. It is not an inexpensive experience ($55.00 for adults, $36.00 for children plus tax and gratuity) but it can be a memorable one. Of the family style meals we’ve had lately, Chef Mickey’s wouldn’t rank nearly as high as Epcot’s Biergarten for food and I’d not dine here just for the food. But the overall experience was fun, and everyone near our table was having a great time.

Chef Mickey’s is open 5:00 PM to 9:30 PM at Disney’s Contemporary Resort and you will want to make reservations ahead.