Bonjour! Morgan here, with Neverland Navigation Co., your personal guides to all things WDW and beyond! I’m too excited not to mention this at the beginning of today's blog, so bear with me. We also started a PODCAST! Check us out on Apple Podcasts or Spotify at Neverland Navigation Radio! So now we are doing this blog, a vlog on YouTube, the podcast, TikTok, and all the social media platforms. Ok. Now that I got that off my chest, on to the review! Join us as we travel the World (Showcase) to try out Chefs De France! Will it have that certain 'Je Ne Sais Quoi' that makes for a magnifique meal? Read on to find out!
Chefs De France is located in the, you guessed it, France Pavillion in World Showcase in EPCOT. The restaurant has huge windows that overlook the ‘street’ that runs through the France pavilion and around the world showcase, and past the street, you can see the World Showcase Lagoon, where Harmonious takes place. You may get a table by a window, or you may not. You can request one and they may let you wait until one opens or they may not. It really depends on the host you get and what kind of day they are having. Either way, let it be noted that they do not guarantee a window seat. We were hoping for a window seat because we were hoping to get a glimpse of the fireworks (or better yet, discover a hidden gem of a place to view the fireworks from) and we timed our reservation just right. We were in luck. Without even asking we were taken to a window seat. Très Magnifique! Check out our vlog below to see our full video review, or keep reading to see if this is worth the (kind of excessive) amount of money that would spend here.
Let us start with the bread. Saying this might be a bit of a spoiler as to how the rest of this blog is going to go, but... The bread was the best part. Which isn’t a death sentence for the rest of the meal (you’ll have to keep reading to see how that went) because the bread was heavenly. When we walked in the first thing we smell is freshly baked French bread. YUM! I wish there was a realistic smelling “freshly baked bread” candle or air freshener or something. I loved the smell, I loved the warmth, I loved the flavor.
Despite being HEAVILY pressured into purchasing alcoholic drinks from our server we chose to stick with water because we were feeling very dehydrated from the long, hot park day. He must have tried to push alcohol on us 5 times or more at the beginning of our meal and not at all in a subtle way, which was wild.
For appetizers, I got the Escargot. Escargot is a classic French dish that is snails in some sort of garlic butter sauce, topped with crusty bread for dipping in the garlic butter. If you have never had the pleasure of eating escargot, it has a chewy and smooth texture and it does not have much flavor on its own. It takes on the garlic butter flavor. Not everyone is willing to give these a try, but if you are someone who loves them this is a good place to get them! This wasn’t the best escargot I have ever had but it was quite good and an escargot dish is hard to find.
We also got French Onion soup. It seemed like a no-brainer. We were in a French restaurant, you’ve gotta try the French soup. It was also good but not the best. It had the bread inside and the melted gruyere cheese on top. It was pretty traditional.
Jake ordered the Salade de chèvre (Baked Goat Cheese). The way I wrote it is exactly as it is written on the menu. What are you picturing right now? Is it mostly goat cheese? We were too. Instead, it was a plate filled with mostly mixed greens, a couple of walnuts, a couple of grape tomatoes, a few grapes, and a golfball-sized (golfball might be being generous) piece of fried goat cheese. The lack of goat cheese was disappointing, but the salad was really fresh tasting.
For entrees, Jake got the Boeuf Bourguignon, linguine. This was similar to an American pot roast. It was nice and tender and the sauce that was on the beef had good flavor but it desperately needed salt. The crazy thing is how it is served with plain, unsalted noodles. We wound up asking for salt and more sauce. Once we got those things it was better, but at this price point, it was overall disappointing.
I got the filet de saumon mariné au vin blanc et citron, riz, sauce champagne. So this was broiled salmon that had been marinated in lemon and white wine and was served with a champagne sauce. The sides were peas and carrots and white rice with a weird slice of tomato on top. These sides were ridiculous to me. It felt very TV dinner. Except for the slice of tomato on the rice, I've got nothing for that. I assume they were just trying to add color? With both of our entrees, I really cannot understand the choice of sides. The Champagne Sauce was the saving grace for this dish. It was creamy and tangy. The salmon was a little dry, had no flavor, and needed salt, so I had to drench it in sauce. I had to ask for extra sauce for this entree as well.
We did get to see fireworks from our window seat which was a nice bonus. Unfortunately, they do not pump in the audio from the Harmonius firework show nor dim the lights as they do. In lots of other EPCOT restaurants with a view of the show. So that part was unfortunate, but I was thrilled that we got to see the fireworks from our comfortable table.
By the time we got what would have been dessert time we were so disappointed and underwhelmed with everything that we did not want to spend any more money here. Which is crazy for us. We were really heartbroken by this experience. I tried this restaurant years ago, and at that time I loved it. So I don’t know what happened. We had high hopes and they were dashed. The hardest part about this restaurant is how bad of a value it was for us. The two entrees, that we disliked, were around $34 each. The appetizers were around $15 each, except for the soup which was $10.95. So with tax and tip and without drinks or dessert it was around $150 and was enough to feed 3 people.
I hope this review helps you, or if you have gone to or plan to go to Chefs De France I hope you have a better experience than we did. Please consider pinning this blog, and subscribing to our YouTube channel or to our podcast to hear more from us! Au Revoir!
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