Walt Disney World Florida’s Epcot Centre is like a permanent World’s Fair (our featured image is by LimeBye). Basically, it’s a fuzzy and warm (read: idealistic) tribute to both humanity’s diversity and our technological endeavours.
So it makes sense that the park hosts its own International Food & Wine Festival each year – there can’t be many better ways to learn about and celebrate a different culture than by trying out its food. We reckon sipping some wine from that region to cleanse your pallet before quickly heading on to the next helps the cultural learning process too.
The event centres around 29 marketplaces. Most are dedicated to the food and beverages of one nation – for example, there are marketplaces showcasing Argentina, China, Greece, Mexico and South Africa. Others are oriented around food or drinks like beer, Champagne and vegan food.
Like any self-respecting foodie festival, Epcot’s features a load of live cookery demonstrations from renowned chefs. But it’s seminars on things such as mixology (booking required) and home entertaining (featuring tips on things like table setting and herb gardening) that makes this festival stand above most others.
This time around the highlight is likely to be a new event they’re calling “Party of the Senses”. The idea of a mammoth tasting session (food, cocktails and wine) taking place in the same spot as live musical performances sounds great to us (sadly, only general admission tickets are left).
The festival is held annually late September through mid-November.
And if you can’t make it for the festival, you can still enjoy the parks food and wine delights on any visit. Stay tuned next week for our best tips on a around the world pub crawl through Epcot.
Written by insider city guide series Hg2 | A Hedonist’s guide to…
