Review: 2024 Emile’s Fromage Montage at EPCOT’s Food & Wine Festival

Some cheese is divine, and some cheese is stinky, and at Emile’s Fromage Montage, cheese is the name of the game. Ten booths at this year’s EPCOT International Food & Wine Festival are offering up some cheese for the stroll, but which ones are worth your time and money? Never fear, we’ve got the lowdown on which dishes you’ll melt over and which are so stinky you should turn up your nose at them.

Emile’s Fromage Montage Basics

Before we get to the dishes, let’s review the game. We’ve already mentioned that there are ten booths, and some have more than one dish that you can choose from. For each dish that you buy, you’ll get a cheese stamp in your Festival Passport. When you’ve got 5 stamps, take your Passport to the Shimmering Sips Marketplace to redeem your prize. This year’s prize is a strawberry cheesecake soft serve in a souvenir cup.

You’ll find a page in your Festival Passport that lists the eligible dishes. They’re mostly between $5 and $6.50, so the whole stroll will cost about $25-30. This year’s dishes are:

• The Alps Marketplace | Any Warm Swiss Cheese Raclette
• Brazil Marketplace | Pão de Queijo
• Festival Favorites | BBQ Pork Rinds
• Forest & Field | Pumpkin Mascarpone Ravioli
• Greece Marketplace | Griddled Cheese
• Hawaiʻi Marketplace | Passion Fruit Cheesecake
• Macatizers | Any Macaroni & Cheese
• Milled and Mulled | Boursin® Fig & Balsamic Cheesecake
• Spain Marketplace | Spanish Charcuterie
• Germany Marketplace | Schinkennudeln

Just a couple more how-to tips before the what-to-eat tips. First, you don’t need to finish your stamp collecting in one day – you can complete a partially stamped Passport and redeem your prize any time through the end of the Festival on November 23. Second, although there’s plenty to choose from you don’t need to buy 5 different dishes. If you want to stamp your Passport full of Schinkennudeln, it is perfectly within the rules. Be aware that you may need to go through the line multiple times; we ran into a couple of times this year where we were told that the stamp is “per location” and not “per dish”. This makes no sense to us as the money is the same, but it’s probably not worth arguing over.

Fromage Montage 3 Star Dishes

The good news is that the worst dish on the walk this year was still OK. So instead of dividing them into our usual winners and losers, we’re going with a star system.

Germany Marketplace | Schinkennudeln

Cheese and onion and ham and more cheese. Melty cheese, crusty cheese, gooey cheese. We hear there’s even pasta in there somewhere. We adore this whole booth, but this dish is a beautiful ode to cheese and it tastes amazing too. Oh schinkennudeln, we love you so, even if we struggle to spell your name correctly.

Forest & Field | Pumpkin Mascarpone Ravioli

Straight talk, we think this is one of the top 10 dishes at the Festival. You should get it even if you are not montaging your fromage. It’s got nutty brown butter with deep sage and sweet pumpkin, plus a tang from the pecorino that leaves us ready for a cozy 3/4 sleeve shirt. Maybe it’s because we’re deep into Pumpkin Spice at the moment and ready for cooler temperatures, but this dish is all that is good about fall.

Milled and Mulled | Boursin® Fig & Balsamic Cheesecake

The camera eats first unless something is really good, so don’t look too closely at the picture above. Fig jam is magic and is the key to this dish. We’re not upset that we’ll have to get this dish again for a better picture because our photographer was so excited about the figs that one went missing before we could get a good shot. Maybe that one will have an oopsie too and we’ll have to get it a third time.

Greece Marketplace | Griddled Cheese

Warm cheese with pistachios and honey?!?! This has been on the menu for a few years, but we always love this dish. We will always love this dish. We think you’ll love it too. It’s mmm’mm good.

Hawaiʻi Marketplace | Passion Fruit Cheesecake

Cheese in any form is good but it is especially nice in a dessert. Light and fluffy, sweet and tart, this whole booth is great and the dessert is no exception.

Fromage Montage 2 Star Dishes

There is absolutely nothing wrong with any of these choices, and if they are your favorites then you go, you. They just weren’t quite as top tier as the ones that got three stars.

The Alps Marketplace | Any Warm Swiss Cheese Raclette

A cheese show with and without ham! You can’t see it in the picture, but one thing that makes The Alps a favorite for our team is getting to watch the layer of toasty cheese get scraped off the side of the block and into our dish. A huge serving of bread makes this an easy-to-share option and the veg makes it even heartier. Or maybe the veg makes it feel healthier. Right, that’s our story and we’re sticking to it.

Festival Favorites | BBQ Pork Rinds

Sometimes it feels like there’s a dish with Pimento cheese at every Festival, so it’s a good thing that it’s tasty. This one didn’t disappoint, with a touch of heat that will feel great on a fall day, and without so much spice that wimps should be warned off. The pork rinds were solid too, with the crispy, crackly texture you’d expect.

Macatizers | Any Macaroni & Cheese

If you’re visiting on a very hot day (they can happen at any time in Florida), then you might be tempted to pass by the Mac ‘n’ Cheese. We wouldn’t say that’s an inexcusable decision, but we do think this “new” booth is worth your time. Two of the dishes formerly appeared at the Mac and Eats marketplace, two are brand new, and all are worthy. Our favorites were the Cheesesteak and the Truffle, but the Traditional was very solid. And we are normally not fans of IMPOSSIBLE (personal taste), but the sour cream and Fritos turned it into something we’d order again.

Fromage Montage 1 Star Dishes

Both of the selections below were still edible. But they’d be far from our choices, so unless you’re looking to try everything we recommend looking elsewhere.

Brazil Marketplace | Pão de Queijo

While tasty, this has never been our top cheese pick. Spend this $5 on other dairy delights, especially since you can get similar quality from the freezer case in your supermarket. We are always looking for the best taste and value for the money, and it’s hard to get excited about something that’s just par for the course.

Spain Marketplace | Spanish Charcuterie

This is perhaps the only dish that we’d definitely recommend you skip. The Manchego was delightful and the Pan Con Tomate was delicious. The Jamón, however, was too tough to eat. For one of the most expensive dishes on the stroll, that’s a no from us. Germany and the Alps are close by, and Greece is not far in the other direction. Go there instead.

Are you heading to Food & Wine this year? What’s on your Fromage Montage? Let us know in the comments!