The Epcot International Food & Wine Festival fast is approaching at Walt Disney World with new locations and a slew of new menu items. The event, which begins Aug. 29, will have a couple of global marketplaces based in a newly constructed building, CommuniCore Hall. There we’ll see Macatizers dishing up four varieties of macaroni and cheese and Festival Favorites bringing back some, well, festival favorites.

There won’t be a new country represented around World Showcase this year, but a new marketplace named Bramblewood Bites will be located in the stretch between World Showcase and the Imagination pavilion. Three longtime marketplaces – Mexico, Italy and Flavors of America – will have all-new food menus, although the American one has gone all all-American with all-beef hot dogs.

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Naturally, there will be returning standards, including the cheese soup at Canada and waffles in Belgium. Today we’re looking at the new solid foods only. Ahead: bison, eel, squid ink rice, Italian machos, grilled bushberry and more.

It’s no secret that Disney World is hard at work getting EPCOT ready for this year’s Food & Wine Festival but we just ran across an update we weren’t expecting to find! With all of the booths starting to pop up throughout the park (including a few new ones lined up to join in on the fun this year) and Disney finally releasing menus of what we can expect to pick up at this year’s event, it’s safe to say we’re pretty stoked that we’re just days away from EPCOT’s Food & Wine Festival’s opening day. But, we recently discovered a change that we weren’t anticipating that could change EVERYTHING we know about what’s to come this year!

It’s always a treat when we get to pop in for a visit to EPCOT during our day and today yielded some interesting details! While making our way around the park we decided to stop by the CommuniCore Hall to see how things were going there. If you’re not as familiar with this building, it’s one of the newest to debut at EPCOT from its massive transformation into the area we now know as World Celebration. This building hosts a large seating area inside (with some high-quality A/C), is home to a Festival Favorites food window where you can pick up a few light bites and drinks of past festival offerings, and even has a large outdoor area built for enjoying the nearby live entertainment. 

This is also where you’ll catch Mickey & Friends if you’re looking to say hi to a few of your favorite Disney pals during your day! Ok, we’re getting distracted because this place is beautiful and huge, but when we went to check it out today we were met with a slight disappointment. We learned that access to the inside of CommuniCore Hall has been temporarily closed. While that was sad to learn it was what was mentioned next that really perked our ears up! According to the Cast Member we spoke with, it was closed due to preparations for the upcoming 2024 Food & Wine Festival! In fact, the CM even used the word “demonstration,” but wouldn’t elaborate further.

It would certainly be interesting to see this space included in this year’s plans because when it was originally announced in its very early stages, Disney had originally planned for it to become an integral part of the various EPCOT festivals and be used in the celebration. Is there a chance we could see festival demonstrations and exhibits return to EPCOT as early as this next festival? For now, it seems we’ll have to wait to be sure however, that could be a possibility that was mentioned to us when we asked about the festival prep taking place inside. However, it is important to note that culinary demonstrations and seminars have been noticeably missing from the incredibly popular EPCOT festival for years, so having them return this year would be a welcomed change to getting back some of the experiences we had lost. All of this possibility makes it even more intriguing to keep an eye on until the opening day of the festival to see what’s inside!

We’ll be bringing you all of the exciting details, food, drinks, and entertainment LIVE during EPCOT’s Food & Wine Festival opening day! Be sure to stay tuned with us right here for all the updates!

Which of this year’s EPCOT Food & Wine booths are you planning to visit first? Tell us in the comments below! Below is a rundown of the featured menus:

CommuniCore Hall

• The Mexico marketplaces will offer tostada de camarones (tempura-battered shrimp atop a fried corn tortilla with guacamole, cabbage, chipotle aioli, diced mango, and chile-lime powder); flauta de barbacoa: (fried tortillas filled with barbacoa beef topped with salsa verde, crema Mexicana and queso fresco) and pan de elote (cornbread topped with chocolate sauce and queso fresco).

• At the Italy pavilion, it will be Italian-style “machos”, made of homemade beef ragout, pasta chips, tomato sauce with dried ricotta cheese; polpettine toscane (beef meatballs, rosemary focaccia and pomodoro sauce); and vanilla cheesecake.

• Flavors of America will let the dogs out: New York-style (with sauerkraut, onion-tomato sauce, and spicy mustard in a brioche bun; Chicago-style (with tomato, dill pickle, pickled sport pepper, diced onions, yellow mustard and Chicago green relish in a poppy seed bun; Carolina-style (with chili, coleslaw, and yellow mustard in a brioche bun) and Southwest-style (wrapped in bacon with warm pinto beans, tomatoes, jalapenos, avocado crema and queso fresco in a French roll.

• Oh, but there’s also chocolate pudding cake (with bourbon caramel) at Flavors of America.

Refreshment Outpost Hosted by Coca-Cola

• The Refreshment Outpost also will go all-new for 2024: Impossible spicy sausage, curried chicken with South African boerewors sausage stew in a bread bowl and chocolate Amarula mousse.

Bramblewood Bites

• The Bramblewood Bites menu includes cider-brined pork tenderloin with fennel apple slaw; grilled bison with butternut squash puree; and brussels sprouts and root vegetables with dried cranberries, candied pecans and maple bourbon glaze.

Macatizers

• Macatizers’ four macaroni and cheese varieties will include traditional with herbed panko, cheesesteak, truffle and Impossible chili,

Festival Favorites

• New at the France marketplace are moelleux aux oignons caramélisés et au fromage de chèvre (egg moelleux, goat cheese and caramelized onions) plus escargot brioche with garlic.

• The China pavilion’s menu will include crispy duck bao bun with hoisin sauce and Shanghai scallion noodles with shrimp.

• In Spain, it’s panish charcuterie (jamon, manchego and pan con tomate) as well as paella negra: squid ink rice with shrimp, bay scallops and octopus served with garlic aioli.

• At Japan’s marketplace, look for sushi with American Wagyu beef topped with takana Japanese pickles then eel temaki sushi (grilled eel, egg crumbles, cucumber and pickled daikon radish served with eel sauce).

• Hawaii’s new rice bowl will have Spam, eggs, eel sauce, spicy mayonnaise and furikake.

Brew-Wing Lab at the Odyssey

• Brew-Wing Lab at the Odyssey will introduce “unnecessarily spicy yet extremely tasty Carolina Reaper pepper curry wings with creamy cucumber raita,” Disney says.

Flavors From Fire

• At Flavors From Fire, it’s an Impossible Montreal-style burger slider with cheddar cheese and tomato jam on a sesame-seed bun.

Australia

• The Australia marketplace will introduce grilled bushberry spiced shrimp skewer with sweet-and-sour vegetables and coconut chili sauce.

Funnel Cake Stand Between America and Japan

• At the funnel cake stand between America and Japan pavilions, there will be tiramisu funnel cake with vanilla ice cream topped with chocolate rum sauce and cream cheese whipped cream and dusted with cocoa and espresso powder.

Milled & Mulled

• Milled & Mulled will offer boursin fig and balsamic cheesecake and pear and almond frangipane pate brisee; Forest & Field menu will include chili with bison, lamb, pork belly, root vegetables, jalapeno cornbread, smoked cheddar, and creme fraiche; Earth Eats will sell beef short rib with goat cheese polenta as well as a lemon poppy seed cake.

Swirled Showcase

• The Swirled Showcase will bring out liquid nitrogen frozen sweet potato mousse with candied pecans and maple-caramel sauce.

The American Adventure

• There are about 50 new beverages sprinkled across the festival. There’s a frozen French cosmo, chocolate red wine (at Milled & Mulled) and kyoho black grape cocktail with Japanese vermouth and shochu, among others.

• The full event menu is posted on the official Disney Parks Blog.

• Mexico’s festival margaritas are both new: Mango sunrise and poblano.

• But the pickle shake will be back at Brew-Wing.

Joffrey's Coffee

• The four Joffrey’s Coffee stands will prepare lattes: coconut banana cream pie; PB&J; hazelnut mocha and coconut mocha, depending on location.

Emile’s Fromage Montage

• Emile’s Fromage Montage returns. Eat five specified cheesy things, collect a prize. Remy’s Ratatouille Hide & Squeak again will be a scavenger hunt that leads to a “special festival keepsake.” Pluto’s Pumpkin Pursuit will be a limited-time activity with hidden pumpkins based on Disney characters.

• Early Eat to the Beat concerts include the Fray (Aug. 30-31), Sugar Ray (Sept. 1-2) and Hoobastank (Sept. 6-7).

• The festival has returned to a more pre-pandemic schedule instead of the July start of the past few years. It runs daily through Nov. 23. Attendance is included with regular Epcot admission, but park visitors buy the food and drink.