Food Type: American and Americanized Fare
Dining Plan: 1 Table Service
Cost: For lunch, Appetizers: $7-$16 and Entrée: $11-$25. For dinner, Appetizers: $11-$16 and Entrées: $13-$29.
Setting: Wolfgang Puck’s Café, unlike the two Express locations, is a sit-down restaurant located at Downtown Disney’s West Side. The inside is a hodgepodge of bright tiles and wacky fixtures. There is also a sushi bar where you can watch the sushi chefs as well as an exhibition kitchen where you can watch the food being prepared. The setting isn’t as exciting as many of the other Downtown Disney restaurants, but the focus is more on the food instead of the surroundings, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Unfortunately, Wolfgang Puck no longer owns this restaurant and the quality has suffered because of it.
Advantages: Portions are large. The bread served with the meal is among the best at Disney. The menu features a healthy variety of sushi, pizza, pasta, salads, and meats. Service is usually attentive. Wolfgang is one of only a couple restaurants at Disney where fresh sushi is available. The BBQ chicken pizza, butternut squash soup, and pumpkin ravioli are all favorites.
Disadvantages: Food is inconsistently prepared and the quality of ingredients has been lacking recently. The restaurant features an “open design concept” which means there are no walls to stop noise. This is not one of the more entertaining or exciting places to dine in Disney.
Value: Average. Most of the dinner entrées are in the $20+ range and the quality of the food doesn’t make them worth it.
Reputation: The Wolfgang Puck Café is a restaurant with high prices and nothing to show for it. There isn’t really a theme that would interest anyone beyond the initial, “This is sort of cool” feeling and the quality and care for the food has diminished in recent memory. It’s unfortunate, because the Café used to be one of the best restaurants at Downtown Disney, known for its food instead of a gimmicky theme or animatronic waterfalls. If you’re on the Dining Plan then you don’t necessarily have anything to lose, as the prices are inflated here as much as they will be anywhere else. The problem for the rest of us is that there just isn’t anything at The Café to justify the higher-than-they-would-be-if-this-restaurant-was-located-somewhere-else prices. If you’re not on the Dining Plan then I would suggest trying one of the other restaurants. If you are on the Dining Plan then Wolfgang is better than Cap’n Jack’s, but not as good or as much fun as Raglan Road.