Disney California Adventure Food & Wine Festival Food 2024 RANKED Worst to Best! We Tried All (2024)

The Disney California Adventure Food & Wine Festival has officially begun and we have our top recommendations on the best festival food (and the worst ones you should skip)! The event brings special offerings like foods and beverages at marketplaces across the park, educational and tasting seminars, the limited-time return of the fan-favorite Soarin’ Over California,special events at the Disneyland Resort Hotels, and more.

We are at the park on the first day of the Disney California Adventure Food & Wine Festival and have tried all of the marketplace offerings for this year. We will share our thoughts on these below and descriptions of each menu item and where you'll find each item. Keep reading for the best foods at the 2024 Disney California Adventure Food & Wine Festival!

The first morning of the festival we set off on a crazy task to try every single food item at the food booths. There are other food items at the various dining locations that are participating in the festival, but the food booths are the core of the festival.

Be sure to also read our full guide to the , as well as our guide to Sip and Savor Passes.

2024 Disney California Adventure Food & Wine Festival Food Review

For this list, we will be reviewing the food items that you will find at the Festival Marketplaces across the park. See our most important tip for the festival when it comes to ordering food from the Marketplaces! We bring the same sensibility to these reviews that we have in our best foods at Disneyland and best Disneyland restaurants articles.

So, we had our sip and savors ready and dove into our review. Thankfully we had multiple members of the Mickey Visit team ready to sample and enjoy all of the foods we grabbed.

So, ranked in order from worst to best we have our top best foods at the Disney California Adventure Food and Wine Festival 2024.

From Cluck-a-Doodle Moo, we tried the new Cheese Pizza-flavored Wings with ranch dip. This may have been my least favorite food item of the day. The wings were a little bit dry and the pizza flavor was not my favorite. That said, we were with a mom and daughter who had three orders because the 8-year-old loved them so much.

From D-Lish, we tried the Carbonara Garlic Mac & Cheese with Nueske’s Peppered Bacon. This could have been a skip for me! I don't love the heavy mac and cheese throughout the festival because it's a filler that gets in the way of enjoying the other more substantial portions. It feels like there is a ton of macaroni used in various dishes. I tried to avoid all of it. This felt quite unoriginal.

We tried some items at the new Festival Marketplace booth called Earth Eats. Here, we tried the new IMPOSSIBLE Chicken Parm Bites with tomato and cheese sauces and grated parmesan. Generally I wish that rather than attempting the IMPOSSIBLE brand foods they just did some creative vegetable-based dishes. I would love a full zucchini for instance. The chicken parm was fine, but very heavy. I would rather enjoy the Pym's Test Kitchen versions of the IMPOSSIBLE foods in Avengers Campus.

From Peppers Cali-Ente, we also had the Chile Relleno Empanada with Arbol pepper salsa and Oaxaca and Cotija cheeses. This was a fine empanada. The dough was overpowering.

Also from the Peppers Cali-Ente booth, we tried the new Shrimp Papas Locas, which features cheddar-bacon potatoes with jalapeño cheese sauce and chipotle shrimp. This was a nice potato dish with shrimp. There were no crazy spices here. The jalapeño in the cheese sauce was not overpowering at all. Cheesy and good enough.

At LA Style, we had the new plant-based Baja-style Fish Taco with cabbage slaw, cilantro-lime crema and pico de Gallo. I like what they were trying to do here, but the plant-based fish doesn't quite do it for me. Tastes like eating falafel.

From California Craft Brews, we tried the new S’mores Caramel Tart, which is a graham cracker tart shell filled with caramel and chocolate ganache topped with a toasted marshmallow. The tart has a thick graham cracker shell and gooey filling. The three parts of the dessert felt separate and difficult to get a sold bite of all the flavors together. All the individual flavors were great, but it was lacking for that reason.

From Garlic Kissed, we tried theGrilled Top Sirloin which comes with roasted garlic-gruyère smashed potatoes and black garlic chimichurri. The garlic is strong in this dish but that's to be expected due to the name. The meat is a nicely cooked “medium” and very enjoyable. This is a nice one.

At Nuts About Cheese, we tried the new BBQ Pulled Pork Mac & Cheese with crispy dill pickle onions. By now you have read my comments about the macaroni used throughout the festival. This is the best of the macaron items because they did a great job weaving the flavors of the pulled pork, cheese, and crisped dill pickles together.

We also had the new IMPOSSIBLE Beef Stroganoff at Earth Eats, which features egg noodles tossed in a mushroom cream sauce with IMPOSSIBLE beef and sour cream. While the IMPOSSIBLE Chicken Parm Bites was not our favorite option, the IMPOSSIBLE stroganoff on the other hand was a very nice version of this dish.The mushrooms were perfectly cooked and the IMPOSSIBLE beef blended in well here. Of the two IMPOSSIBLE options, this is the one to go with.

At LA Style, we tried the new Carnitas-style Pork Belly which comes with esquites corn mac salad featuring Tajín Habanero. The pork belly is a very nice dish and something that they have played with in the past at the festival. It is a bit difficult to eat with the forks found throughout the festival. We finally ended up using two to pull it apart. Well prepared, but not very original for the festival. The same mac makes an appearance here.

From Cluck-a-Doodle Moo, we tried the BBQ Beef Brisket Slider with smoked white cheddar and dill pickles on salt and pepper brioche. This was a substantial slider with a ton of meat. It is a top pick for the festival. I really enjoyed the seasoning here. This is more a sandwich than a slider.

We also tried a new item at D-Lish, the Olive Oil Cake that is glazed with lemon curd, topped with vanilla bean Chantilly, and finished with fresh candied lemons, strawberry crunch, and lemon-lime gelée. This was a surprisingly good cake that was fluffy and enjoyable. The amount of toppings were overwhelming but they all came together nicely.

At Uncork California, we tried theRaspberry Almond Cake, which is a new almond cake with raspberry mousse and fresh raspberries. I liked the raspberry taste that blended with the light cakey flavor. The fresh raspberry on top of the cake was also a nice touch.

At Golden Dreams, we had the new Frozen Old Fashioned, which is a non-alcoholic bourbon-flavored ice cream, bitters crema, orange zest glaze, and cherry spheres. This was a very unique ice cream paddle pop version. I really like what they did here and the blending of the flavors. All the cold flavors were very refreshing. They attempted something unique here and hit it out of the park.

We also enjoyed the Mickey-shaped Macaron made with SNICKERS bar pieces at Nuts About Cheese, which is a chocolate Mickey-shaped macaron filled with caramel ganache and made with SNICKERS bar pieces. This is a classic from multiple years. Too big/sweet to enjoy on your own, this macaron brings a delicious snickers flavor. It is definitely a top food choice for the Food and Wine Festival. This is a tie for number one at the festival.

At California Craft Brews, we tried the Cheeseburger Bao, which is a new item that comes with Thousand Island dressing, grilled onions, pickle, and tomato relish. This item was delicious and I will crown it my new favorite. It had a great dill pickle taste. Highly recommend!

Don't forget that there is more to enjoy at the festival than just the foods. Be sure to check out the other Disney California Adventure Food and Wine Festival offerings in our guide. We were hosted for this day by Disneyland for the opening day media event.

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