Review: 2024 Wonderful Walk of Colorful Cuisine at Festival of the Arts

Every EPCOT Festival comes with a “completer challenge” for the Festival kitchens, and at Festival of the Arts this challenge is about eating all the colors of the rainbow! If you’d like to mark off your passport and collect your prize, here’s what to know about which dishes to scoop up and which dishes to skip.

Wonderful Walk of Colorful Cuisine Basics

Before we get to the dishes themselves, let’s review the rules. There are seven dishes you can choose from, one for each color of the rainbow. For each dish that you buy, you’ll get a colored stamp in your Festival Passport. When you’ve got 5 stamps, take your Passport to the Deco Delights Food Studio to redeem your prize. This year’s prizes are an Artist Palette Cookie and a purple Mixed Berry Smoothie in a keepsake plastic cup.

You’ll find a page in your Festival Passport that lists the eligible dishes. This year they are:

• Pop Eats:
  • Tomato Soup with Grilled Cheese – $5.75
• Pop Eats:
  • Tomato Soup with Pimento Cheese, Bacon and Fried Green Tomato Grilled Cheese – $6.50
• Vibrante & Vívido:
  • Chorizo and Potato Empanada with Turmeric Aïoli and Annatto Aïoli – $6.75
• Gourmet Landscapes:
  • Verjus-Roasted Beets with Goat Cheese, Petite Lettuce, Blackberry Gastrique and Spiced Pecans – $5.50
• The Deconstructed Dish:
  • Deconstructed Key Lime Pie – $6.50
• Deco Delights:
  • Neapolitan Dessert Trio – $5.25
• Figment’s Inspiration Station:
  • Blueberry-Filled Pastry Tart with Purple Icing – $4.75

A couple of key points: you don’t need to finish the whole walk in one day – keep your partially stamped Passport and come back a different day to finish if you prefer. You can turn in your Passport any time through the end of the Festival on February 18. And, you don’t need to buy 5 different dishes! If you’re in love with the first dish you try and you just want to get that one 4 more times, it counts.

Now, on to the reviews!

Recommended Colorful Cuisine Dishes

Gourmet Landscapes: Verjus-Roasted Beets

If you only get a single dish five times, we think it should be this one. The beets are candy, with a side of yummy cheese. The pecans give it a little bit of crunch, and the gastrique ties it all together. As our team rounded the World Showcase, they told everyone they saw how happy they were about this dish. It’s a must-try, even if you’re not doing the Walk.

The Deconstructed Dish: Deconstructed Key Lime Pie

We loved this last year, and we love it again. The flexible key lime curd is still the star (and so cool!), but everything on the plate is good. Tart, sweet, creamy, crunchy — no need to try mashing it all together on the fork for a complete bite. Unless you want to.

Pop Eats: Tomato Soup with Grilled Cheese

This is great comfort food, really, it’s a classic. But here’s a secret: our team feels that while this is fine for finicky palates and picky eaters … you should get the “other” one at the same booth instead. Well, unless you want to try both for comparison purposes. That’s fair too.

Pop Eats: Tomato Soup with Pimento Cheese, Bacon and Fried Green Tomato Grilled Cheese

Do you have kids who don’t like spicy? The pimento has just enough kick that you can tell them you’re not sharing because they won’t like it. But if you’re only mostly a spice wimp, this stuff is the real deal, an adult version of the classic. And like its counterpart above, it’s grilled on a real grill for that toasty goodness.

Deco Delights: Neapolitan Dessert Trio

Not every dish is as beautiful as its “mug shot”, but this one definitely is. The presentation is beautiful, and there’s lots of variety in taste and texture. If you’re doing the walk with your family, everyone should have a favorite on this plate. Well, assuming you’re willing to share, that is.

Vibrante & Vívido: Chorizo and Potato Empanada

This is large enough to share and filling enough to make a meal. Our team loved the flaky crust and the beautiful colored aiolis. This one has a tiny bit of heat, but not so much that it should bother any but the wimpiest of spice wimps — more warming than hot.

Wonderful Walk of Colorful Cuisine Dishes to Skip

Figment’s Inspiration Station: Blueberry-Filled Pastry Tart

Everybody loves Figment and who doesn’t love a pop tart? How could this be on the not-recommended list? Well, it’s meh. And kinda dry. It definitely brings the looks, it’s snazzy on the plate. But compared to everything else you could get … this one just doesn’t make the cut.

Have you visited the Festival of the Arts this year? What did you think of these Wonderful Walk of Colorful Cuisine dishes? Let us know in the comments!