Best and Worst Foods Disney California Adventure Food & Wine 2025

The Disney California Adventure Food & Wine Festival has officially kicked off, and we are at the event trying all of the new foods available across the parks!

The Food & Wine marketplace booths this year bring a mix of new foods and drinks, returning favorites, and spins on some favorites from previous years. We will take you through the top foods that you can't miss, as well as some of the missable ones you can skip.

If you're visiting during the festival this year, make sure to check out our guide to the Disney California Adventure Food & Wine Festival for a FREE pdf printable that you can use to mark off the items you want to try. Let's dive into the best and worst foods at this year's Disney California Adventure Food & Wine Festival…

2025 Disney California Adventure Food & Wine Festival Food Review

READ MORE – We Visit Disney Weekly. These 11 Habits Set You Apart as a Disney Parks Pro.

We will list out all of the new food items you can find at this year's Disney California Adventure Food & Wine Festival and our thoughts on whether or not they are worth it. You can also see our guide to the Sip and Savor Pass for details on how to get the most value out of it for the festival.

Interestingly this year, an overall takeaway is you can expect lots of cheese poured over things! Here are our thoughts on the new 2025 Disney California Adventure Food & Wine Festival items we've tried…

We tried the Mini LA Street Dog with jalapeño mayo, pepper and onion relish, Nueske’s Applewood Smoked Bacon, and crispy onions, which is a new item at LA Style. The portion is a smaller half-sized hotdog for this dish. It's a normal hotdog but with some spicy stuff on top.

Another new item from LA Style is the Western BBQ Burger Bao with sweet barbecue sauce, Nueske’s Applewood Smoked Bacon, and crispy onions. They delivered this all together well! This had a sweet barbecue sauce. The bao bun was good with hamburger inside, and it had crispy bacon on top with a good drizzle.

This is a different spin on the Cheeseburger Bao, which was one of our favorite items we tried at last year's festival.

We also had the Mickey-shaped macaron made with SNICKERS bar pieces, which is a chocolate Mickey-shaped macaron filled with caramel ganache made with SNICKERS bar pieces. This year, the macaron is offered at Uncork California. This is a returning item but it’s different than previous years, as it has a different mousse filling.

The Birria Mac & Cheese with onion-cilantro sauce and tortilla crunch is a new item from the new marketplace booth Mercado de Antojos. This had a lot of sauces and was almost like a dip more than a dish. It needs chips, but it does make you want to eat more.

Also from the new marketplace booth Mercado de Antojos is the new Café de Olla Tres Leches Cake, a café de olla-infused tres leches topped with piloncillo chantilly, cinnamon, and a Mickey-shaped cookie. We liked this one! This had a caramel flavor and pound cake kind of consistency and a fluffy topping.

The Cherry Cobbler Pot de Crème is a new plant-based item from Golden Dreams with vanilla custard, cherry filling, and oat crumble. This was pretty good. This dish was distinctly two parts, the topping and the cream. The topping was really good, but the cherry gooey cream part was a little bit runny.

Another new item from Golden Dreams is the Musubi Fried Rice, an Aulani Resort-inspired steamed rice with egg, glazed spiced ham, umami mayo, and furikake. This was just fine, not amazing, with pretty chewy pork.

From Peppers Cali-Ente, we tried the new Corn Chip Chili Pie featuring IMPOSSIBLE Beef, which contains Seasoned IMPOSSIBLE Beef, spicy cheese sauce, tomatoes, sliced jalapeños, and cream.

This was messy with lots of cheese. We say to pour the Fritos out of the bag into the cardboard boat to be able to eat them better.

A returning item from Peppers Cali-Ente is the Shrimp Papas Locas, which is cheddar-bacon potatoes with jalapeño cheese sauce and spicy shrimp featuring Tajín Chile Lime sauce. The shrimp is actually really good and we loved the potatoes!

READ MORE – Disney’s Other Star Wars Bar Sells a $5,000 Cocktail and Actually Feels Like You’re in Space

We tried the new Asa’DOS from Cluck-A-Doodle-Moo, which is grilled skirt steak and chipotle chicken with Spanish rice and salsa verde. This was a nice attempt, but not worth it. We think it's a skip. The meat was so tough and a bit chewy that we couldn't cut it with a plastic fork. The chicken was pretty good but didn't stand out as something special. I like that they tried this dish and it sold out at certain points during the first day because it sounded appealing, but wasn't quite as good as I had hoped.

From California Craft Brews, we tried the new Lemon Pepper Wings with garlic ranch. These were very seasoned with salt and pepper and strong lemon pepper seasoning. We thought this was a good juicy chicken here and had a good sauce on the side.

We also tried some of the festival foods from the non-marketplace dining locations throughout the park. From Aunt Cass Café, we tried the new Burrata Toast, which is toasted sourdough, onion jam, burrata, tomatoes, arugula, and balsamic glaze. This was the best item! You can get this with your Sip and Savor Pass. This had a great, high-end piece of bread from Boudin below, and we loved the burrata and balsamic glaze.

You'll find that the two festival items that we liked most on Sip and Savor were from actual restaurants vs. from the festival booths. This is interesting as it's a testament to just how difficult it is for chefs to get great food out in these temporary spaces where they aren't actually making the food.

From Paradise Garden Grill, we tried the new Chicken Taquito Ahogado, which is served in salsa verde with Spanish rice, avocado crema, sour cream, pickled onion, cotija, and cilantro. We thought it was very good chicken in here and a substantial amount of chicken for being a festival item.

We also tried the new Lime Parfait from Paradise Garden Grill. This contains layers of graham cracker crust, lime cream cheese mousse, and lime-orange gelée topped with chantilly. This tasted like very artificial flavoring and had light cream on top. We thought nothing here was too special.

We tried the Loaded Carnitas Pretzel Bites with cheese sauce, salsa verde, cilantro, and onions located at select outdoor vending locations. This was very cheesy and heavy, and a pretty good set of food here combined.

Lastly, we tried the new Strawberry Shortcake from Clarabelle's Hand-Scooped Ice Cream, which was angel food cake, vanilla ice cream, strawberry syrup, whipped topping, and fresh strawberries. There were not too many strawberries on here but they did taste fresh. The ice cream and whipped cream are the best part of this. My personal opinion is that strawberry shortcake should be a biscuit style more than a fluffy cake style.

Read More Disney Planning Advice

For the best resource and helpful information for planning your Disney trip, make sure to subscribe to our FREE Deals newsletter. We’ll provide you with helpful planning information, exclusive Disney deals, and access to the lowest-priced Disney tickets anywhere.