EPCOT festivals are a a must-do for foodies. Each festival has its own flavor (pun intended) with numerous food booths offering up dozens of delicious menu items. Whether you’re looking forward to returning favorite dishes or excited about new options, there’s something tasty waiting for you.
EPCOT festivals rotate throughout the year. If your Disney World trip is prior to November 21, 2026, you’ll be able to eat your way around the EPCOT International Food & Wine Festival. For many foodies, this is one of the most highly anticipated EPCOT festivals of the year (after all, “food” is literally part of the name).
If you’re not sure where to start with your dining wishlist, I recommend browsing the full list of Global Marketplace menus in advance. If you’d like some inspiration, you can also check out my personal wishlist of food I hoped would return for 2026 (spoiler alert: they all did! Yay!). While I recommend checking out the menus ahead of time, you’ll also want to grab a Festival Passport booklet when you arrive at EPCOT. These booklets are your essential go-to guide to the festival. You’ll find information about topics including:
- available scavenger hunts
- the Eat to the Beat Concert Series
- Food & Wine Festival merchandise
- Global Marketplace locations and menus
- Emile’s Fromage Montage eligible items
Emile’s Fromage Montage
MouseHouseNews.net covered opening day of the EPCOT International Food & Wine Festival, and I had the pleasure of completing Emile’s Fromage Montage once again. To summarize, Emile’s Fromage Montage is this festival’s food stroll/crawl activity (eat select cheesy foods, earn a delicious prize!).
Participating is easy (and cheesy). Near the back of the Festival Passport book is a list of eligible food items for this activity. In order to earn a prize, you must purchase 5 participating items from this list. You can purchase five unique food items, five of the same item, or any combination (totaling five). Each time you purchase one of the eligible items, make sure you collect a stamp in your booklet! Once you have all five stamps, head to Shimmering Sips near Port of Entry to collect your prize.
This activity is available for the duration of the festival. This means you don’t have to collect all of your stamps on the same day, or even during the same visit. You will, however, need to have all of your stamps collected and redeem your prize by November 21, 2026 (the last day of the festival). Want to know what this year’s prize is? Keep on reading!
Erin’s Fromage Journey
Festival food strolls are one of my favorite things to do. They provide the opportunity to sample a variety of dishes, and get a bonus treat at the end. This year, I decided to purchase a mixture of returning favorites, a new-to-me item, and give a past item I didn’t enjoy the chance to redeem itself. Let’s briefly go over my thoughts and recommendations!
Stop 1: Germany for Schinkennudeln
I was pleasantly surprised on opening day to find myself first in line for the Germany booth. I always enjoy this Global Marketplace’s menu, and I’m clearly not alone! In the past, I’ve often had to wait in long lines to acquire my items. It’s not the booth’s fault, it’s simply a matter of how popular Germany is (and for good reason)!
Schinkennudeln is a pasta gratin with ham, onions, and cheese. I would describe it as a baked macaroni and cheese dish. It’s not ooey-gooey, stretchy cheese, but you can easily tell that the noodles are coated in cheesy deliciousness. The ham and onions add a bit of extra savoriness to the dish. The amount of cubed ham and diced onions is noticeable but not overwhelming. One of my favorite parts is the layer of cheese that’s baked on top. Yum! I recommend pairing it with the Schöfferhofer Orange Spritz Hefeweizen if you’re over 21.
One of the biggest takeaways for this item is that it is served hot. Therefore, I recommend making it one of your first stops of the day or waiting until the evening when the weather cools down. It might feel quite heavy if you’re eating it in the heart of the afternoon on a hot day!
Stop 2: Spain for Basque Cheesecake
Our next stop takes us to the Spain booth that’s located between the Germany and Italy pavilions. While I do like cheesecake, it’s not always my number one dessert pick. However, this cheesecake manages to live in my dreams as one of the most delicious items at the festival. I had it for the first time a couple of years ago, and it has been one of my favorite Food & Wine festival offerings ever since.
Basque Cheesecake is a deliciously rich and creamy crustless cheesecake featuring a deeply caramelized top. At the Spain booth, it’s served with a refreshing orange sauce. The sauce is very brightly citrus, which adds a lightness in contrast to the richness of the cheesecake. This continues to be my absolute festival favorite, and I highly recommend you give it a try!
Stop 3: Brazil for Pão de Queijo
Ahhh, the Brazilian cheese bread. Pão de Queijo is a Brazilian cheese bread that is supposed to have a lightly crunchy exterior with a soft and chewy interior. When you purchase this item, you receive two pieces of cheese bread.
If you were curious, this is the item that failed me several years ago. It lives in my memory as something I swore I would never get again (“fool me once” and all that). I decided that I would give it an opportunity to redeem itself in 2026. I told myself things like “maybe it wasn’t served hot enough last time” and “maybe if I eat it as soon as I’m handed the plate it’ll taste better”.
Unfortunately, this one is still a hard “no” from me. Even piping hot and fresh, I did not enjoy the texture at all. To me, it came across as dense and gummy. My understanding is that the interior is supposed to be airy and tender, and this was not that (yet again). If you watched MouseHouseNewsNet’s Food & Wine YouTube video, you’ll notice I attempted to be diplomatic about it. I tried to give it a fair shot. In the end, I just couldn’t bring myself to finish the second one.
If this is your favorite dish, I sincerely apologize that it will not get a third chance from me. I just can’t bring myself to spend the money on it ever again. It was not a redemption story, and my family and friends have taken to teasing me mercilessly about why on earth I thought things might be different in 2026.
Stop 4: Hawai’i for Pineapple Cheesecake
It took me awhile to recover from that cheese bread. However, the next dish on my wishlist was another returning favorite which gave me hope. The Pineapple Cheesecake is served with passion fruit curd and macadamia nuts. The fact that they shaped it to look like a pineapple is adorable, but how does it taste?
It’s a pretty basic cheesecake. The main point of interest comes from the slightly tart passion fruit curd and the crunch of the macadamia nuts. I’ve had it in the past, and it’s a good cheesecake. However, it doesn’t “wow” me the same way that the former Hawai’i booth cheesecake did (the Passion Fruit Cheesecake from around 2023 was my obsession!). If you like cheesecake and a hint of tropical flavor, you’ll like this one. Since this was my second cheesecake of the day, I did ultimately pass this one on to my teammate, Marcus.
Stop 5: Forest & Field for Pumpkin-Mascarpone Ravioli
To complete my cheesy journey, I ended with the Pumpkin-Mascarpone Ravioli from the Forest & Field booth. The Pumpkin-Mascarpone Ravioli is served with brown butter vinaigrette, pecorino cheese, pomegranate seeds, and hazelnut praline. This is another returning menu item, but it was new-to-me in 2026.
Let me just say, “WOW!”. If the Basque Cheesecake wasn’t already my favorite thing, this one would be! I felt like the portion was decent for the price that I paid, and all of the elements worked very well together. The filling of the ravioli was velvety and buttery. The pomegranate seeds had a bright burst of flavor (sweet but a little tart) upon biting into them. The hazelnut praline added some texture, crunch, and sweetness to the dish. Overall, I thought the Pumpkin-Mascarpone Ravioli was amazing. I overheard several other people commenting that it was one of their favorite dishes of the festival as well.
The Prize
If you’ve made it to the end, congratulations! You deserve a prize. The prize for this year’s Fromage Montage is Key-Lime Dole Whip with Vanilla Soft-Serve Swirl served in a souvenir cup. This was the perfect sweet ending to a deliciously cheesy day. It was also quite refreshing in the late August heat!
One thing I was excited to see was that the 2026 souvenir cup was an updated design. Let’s not even talk about how many of the previous design I have in the cabinet after doing this food stroll several years in a row! Anyway, the new design is quite fun. It incorporates the different stamps you can earn at the various food booths! It has earned a place of honor in the cup rotation at my home.
Other Info To Know
If you’re heading to the festival soon, you’ll want to be aware of the phased opening for a few remaining booths. As was the case in previous years, not all booths are available for the entire duration of the festival. Unfortunately, this does impact several Global Marketplaces with Fromage Montage Eligible items.
Thankfully, you’ll find information indicating when various booths will begin operation throughout the Festival Passport book. You can also find Fromage Montage-specific booth availability dates at the back of the booklet. There are already a few additional booths that have opened since my opening day excursion. This means you already have some additional cheesy menu items to try. However, there are still a couple of additional booths that will not officially open until October 2nd. Once they do, you’ll have even more choices!
For sights and sounds directly from Walt Disney World, check out the 2026 EPCOT International Food & Wine Festival video we have posted on the MouseHouseNewsNet YouTube channel. You can see almost all of these cheesy delights in action. Sorry, I got too excited about the Basque Cheesecake and ate it without remembering to film first. Oops!
Plan Your Visit
You have until November 21, 2026 to make your way around EPCOT to sample all of the delicious foods and beverages (it’s not all wine!). If you’d like some help planning your Disney vacation, click the button below to request a free Disney World vacation quote from Marcus with Purely Luxe Vacations.
So, are you ready for my top pick? My absolute must-get selection from the 2026 Emile’s Fromage Montage activity is the Basque Cheesecake. Fingers crossed it returns again and again for years to come! Honestly, I probably could just get that one five times for five stamps, and be completely happy with my decision. Stay tuned to MouseHouseNews.net for more information, reviews. and news from around Disney World. We’ll see you real soon!
