Pizzafari Review at Disney’s Animal Kingdom

Pizzafari Review at Disney’s Animal Kingdom

Pizzafari is located in Discovery Island.

See this page for all of the Disney’s Animal Kingdom quick service reviews.

Location: Pizzafari is located on what is now one of the most popular corners in Animal Kingdom. At rope drop, nearly everyone will be taking a left towards Tiffins and Nomad Lounge, and beyond that, Pandora – The World of Avatar. Later in the day, you might swing around to Pizzafari. Continue walking straight and you’ll eventually end up in Africa.

Food Type: Pizza.

Dining Plan: Yes, quick service.

Discounts: 20% Tables in Wonderland with no gratuity added. Flame Tree and Restaurantosaurus also offer this discount.

Pizzafari Menu:

Pull up the latest version of Pizzafari’s menu here.

Unique Items: The Shrimp Flatbread, Sicilian-Style Pizza Slice, (sometimes the) Garlic Knots, and Cannoli Cake are unique. The other pizzas are the same as what Disney serves at PizzeRizzo and Cataline Eddie’s, among other locations.

Advantages:

• Indoor, air-conditioned seating is available. Plentiful outdoor seating is also available.
• Ordering process is usually quick and mobile order is easy to use with the pickup window on the far right.
• Convenient from Africa, Pandora, the main entrance, and DinoLand.
• The vegan Sicilian-style pizza is above average as far as plant-based options go.
• Operates most of the day.

Disadvantages:

• Cast members reheat most of the pizzas from frozen.
• Loud and busy during peak lunch hours.
• Limited menu choices.
• Inconvenient from Asia.

Value: Average for the most part. This is standard Disney food and pricing, with a couple of bright spots.

Reputation: Flame Tree Barbecue and Satu’li Canteen overshadow Pizzafari, but the “pizzeria” isn’t always a bad choice in its own right. And let’s be realistic, once your kids find out that there’s pizza at the Animal Kingdom, you’re going to be coming here anyway. I don’t usually advocate lying to children, but if you want to eat elsewhere, you might have to tell them Pizzafari means “Broccoli Palace” in Swahili. Anyway, Pizzafari is a decent stop if you’re in the mood for pizza, salad, and a side of garlicky bread. It may even be a better stop than Flame Tree if you want to get out of the heat or aren’t in the mood to fight off the birds and ducks. The comfort of the air-conditioning in the summer is a big bonus.

Pizzafari Food Reviews:

$13.49 Shrimp Flatbread – Roasted Shrimp, Tomato, Red Pepper, Alfredo Sauce and Pesto and topped with Greens and served with a small Caesar Salad

I’m still not sure where the Alfredo comes in to play – the overwhelming flavor is from the pesto with the familiar garlic, pine nuts, and basil.

I thought it had a little bit of a chermoula vibe with the small pieces of shrimp scattered across the flatbread, perhaps from the red pepper combining with the pesto. There’s probably a lot more cheese than is evident from the picture – it was a thick, nicely-melted layer on top of the slightly-crispy bread and underneath all of the other toppings. It did an admirable job of keeping everything other than the topmost layer of arugula grounded. The Flatbread ended up being quite filling and relatively tasty in the grand scheme of things, but there are more interesting options, of course. But if the kids are demanding a stop at Pizzafari, then there is at least one option that a cast member will make somewhat freshly. The other pizzas arrive frozen.

$10.49 Pepperoni Pizza with a small Caesar Salad

This is Digiorno-quality pizza and you can actually buy the frozen pies that Disney purchases by the hundreds of thousands from the manufacturer directly. On the plus side, the pizzas will likely fill you up. The crust is thick, pillow-y, and soft, and the cheese coverage is adequate. You’ll find the exact same number of pepperonis on top of every slice, which is slathered in a serviceable, if not slightly bland, tomato sauce.

$10.99 Sausage & Pepperoni Pizza with a small Caesar Salad

The pizza idea is the exact same here, this time with more sausage than pepperoni. It works as a quick, filling meal, and the crust actually carries a little bit of a zesty herb quality these days.

$10 Cheese Pizza with a Small Caesar Salad:

This is more of the same, with the individual-size pizza cut into four convenient slices. Like the other pizzas, it’s what you would expect from a reheated pizza, but at least they do use ovens instead of microwaves.

Here’s a look at the pizzas waiting for a cast member to serve them, long before anyone orders one. Disney could at least cove this fact up a little better.

Side Caesar salads now arrive in these small plastic cups instead of the paper bowls. This is pretty basic – fresh crunchy lettuce, a few croutons, and Ken’s Caesar. You may be able to order a pizza without the side salad to save two dollars.

$10 Caesar Salad with Chicken

Disney Caesar Salads have taken a great number of looks over the years. What you’ll receive these days is the salad in its most basic form. That means chopped Romaine with Herb-marinated Chicken Breast, Croutons, Parmesan Cheese and Caesar Dressing. Like the pizza, it’s serviceable, but the salad at Flame Tree is a lot more interesting. The Caesar Salad is also available without the four or five defrosted chicken strips for $8.

$10.49 Sicilian-style Pizza Slice with a Garden Salad and Vinaigrette

If I weren’t so stoic, I would have laughed out loud when a cast member handed me the $10.49 slice of Sicilian-Style Pizza. It looked pretty terrible. What appeared to be a thin layer of tomato paste had hardened on top of the puffy crust some time ago. The “cheese” looked like it was the equivalent of some cheap Parmesan that you might sprinkle on top of your Steak Alfredo from Tony’s Town Square. Deeeeeelicious.

The other toppings appeared to be paltry with the majority pooling towards the tip.

Surprisingly, it actually tasted pretty good, at least compared to Pizzafari’s other offerings. The crust was light, fluffy, and most importantly, tasted freshly tossed. It wasn’t the dense, doughy, previously-frozen crust that you’ll find as the base for all of the other reheated pizzas served here. There was a little bit of spice from the “sausage” crumbles and the little bits of red and green pepper. The Grated “Parmesan” also worked surprisingly well, mixing up the texture of the softer crust and adding a “real” cheesy taste to each bite.

Whether it’s “better” than the other pizzas served at Pizzafari, and the Cheese Pizza in particular, is open to some interpretation. The other pizzas are a completely different, Digiorno-esque style, with a lot of bread underneath a similarly-paltry amount of toppings. The vegan version is lighter and fresher-tasting, but the other pizzas are “more food,” largely on the weight of the bread.

The good news is that if you are vegan or vegetarian, and the group is headed to Pizzafari, then you have a pretty decent option in the Sicilian-Style Slice. I would actually order this again. That’s not something I was expecting to say going in.

Disney serves each Sicilian Slice with a Garden Salad. My estimation is that the side salads are interchangeable, so if you would prefer the Caesar, they would likely serve it to you, and vice versa, if you’re looking at one of the other pizza pies offered. The Salad is pretty basic with a bed of fresh, crispy pieces of Romaine on the bottom, along with a Cherry Tomato or two and some small pieces of Cucumber scattered on top. It’s served with the zesty Italian Vinaigrette already poured on top. Fortunately, ours wasn’t soggy, but it would be nice if the dressing was either served on the side or was poured on top to order. It tasted just fine and was a nice change of pace from the pizza. These are probably fresher than the Side Caesars.

Overall, I was impressed by Pizzafari’s plant-based addition. It “felt” like somebody had probably tried a number of different toppings and styles before landing on the Sicilian version. Potentially, the toppings could have been a lot more vibrant. The flavor is mostly mild pepper spice. But it’s certainly serviceable. It’s not going to be the best that you’ve ever had, but hopefully nothing at Pizzafari would be.

$7 Garlic Knots

Considering all of your food will be delivered to you around the time, it doesn’t “feel” like it makes a tremendous amount of sense to add more bread to your pizza meal, but these would certainly accompany the Caesar Salad nicely. You might also appreciate sharing a pizza and these dippable, very heavily-seasoned, very buttery Garlic Knots. They’re also a snack credit on the Disney Dining Plan. That may help add some heft to the meal without needing to burn another credit. They’re also (arguably) more interesting than your typical Mickey Pretzel, but I’m not sure they demand a cash purchase.

$3.99 Tomato Soup

Disney’s Tomato Soup is better than it has any right to be – creamy and rich with tomato flavor. Ordering these along with the Garlic Knots is a bit of a guilty pleasure.

$5 Cannoli Cake

The “Chocolate Cake with Chocolate-Chip Cannoli filling topped with Chocolate Ganache and garnished with a mini Cannoli filled with Sweet Ricotta Cheese with Chocolate Chips” has been the dessert that Disney has offered here for a few years now. It replaced the Tiramisu in a cup. You weren’t missing anything there.

Like just about every standard quick service dessert, it’s probably best skipped in favor of a sea of other options.  The options at Zuri’s Sweets in Africa come to mind. Our Cannolo was much more soft and flaccid than you’d hope for from the Italian pastry. It’s best when it’s a little crunchier. Its fate was sealed long ago when a cast member stuck in a refrigerator for some number of hours. Then, a cast member served it to the one blogger who couldn’t remember if they’ve previously reviewed it.

The cake portion was pretty good. It’s a basic chocolate cake underneath a thick layer of smooth cream. It probably would have benefited from some actual ricotta cheese and actual pieces of chocolate mixed in with it. That would have been the case a couple of years ago, when a thick layer of ganache separated the cream and cannolo on top. If Disney didn’t call this the Cannoli Cake and didn’t arrive with a Cannolo-esque pastry on top, I don’t think I would have connected the two. If you have to add a dessert at Pizzafari, then you could probably dream up some worse finishers. But I don’t think that I’d seek this one out on flavor or value.

Seating:

Pizzafari enjoys air-conditioned seating, along with outdoor patio seating. Like Restaurantosaurus and Backlot Express, you’ll find a variety of fun themes throughout the seating sections. Check out the animal murals and custom chairs.

Pizzafari did lose some of its seating to Nomad Lounge and Tiffins. That happened a few years ago, and is probably a good thing overall, but there are still typically seats available.

That’s less true from 11:30am to 2:30pm. During those peak lunch hours, crowds descend on one of Animal Kingdom’s more-visible, more-accessible fast food options. Eat after 4pm and it’s a lot less chaotic inside.

If things are a little cramped…

Then you might take your food outside, where there’s typically more opportunities to spread out a little.

Pizzafari isn’t going to top the list of any hoity-toity guides to dining at Animal Kingdom. It does certainly fill a niche, and may be just what you’re looking for on a hot day.