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The Alps Review – 2019 Epcot Food & Wine Festival

As we keep working our way through the booths we ate at during the 2019 Epcot Food & Wine Festival, we now get to the other new food booth this year, The Alps!  If you are interested in our coverage of the other new booth, you can check out our Appleseed Orchard review.  If you’re interested in complete coverage of the festival then take a moment to read over our Ultimate Guide to the Epcot Food & Wine Festival.

When I heard the booth’s name, I immediate thought of Swiss-inspired food, and that is precisely what we get here.  As the Disney World website says and the name implies, this booth invites you to “Explore the delicious tastes of these Swiss-inspired dishes!”  Clearly, I am very myopic in my thoughts on European geography, because as Tom Bricker points out at Disney Tourist Blog, the Alps aren’t actually confined to Switzerland.  I won’t belabor his point, but The Alps would hardly be the first booth with a slightly misleading name at the Food & Wine Festival, so no big deal here.

So, what does a “Swiss-inspired” menu look like?  Well, it’s more eclectic than I thought.  Dishes featuring cheese, venison, and a dessert tart, the booth showed real promise.  A promise that I’d say it mostly delivered on.  If you want to see the full menu for The Alps marketplace, we have a picture of it above.

You’ll find The Alps booth located across from the Norway pavilion, right along World Showcase Lagoon.

Okay, enough of the background, let’s get to the food at The Alps.

Warm Raclette Swiss Cheese with Baby Potatoes, Cornichons, and Baguette (Vegan, Kid Approved) – $5.00

The dish that had me the most intrigued to try for our review of The Alps was the Warm Raclette Swiss Cheese.  I love Swiss Cheese, but I usually have it in slices or as part of a charcuterie plate.  I also didn’t know what “Raclette” Swiss Cheese was before this.  Raclette is a style of Swiss Cheese that is usually made in a large cheese round.  The cheese is then kept warm in a raclette machine, and the warm top layer is scraped off onto your plate.  There is no mistaking it; this is a different type of cheese experience.  Make sure you check out the process of heating and scraping the cheese.  I found it interesting and unexpected.

As for the food itself, the Warm Raclette Swiss Cheese is unbelievably good.  Eating the cheese straight or combining it with the baby potatoes both work together well.  I prefer it with the potatoes slightly more because it gives the cheese a slight bit of firmness, but I could eat the cheese straight just fine.  This would be one of the best dishes at the Festival if the baguette wasn’t another bland, boring piece of bread.  It has the exact same problem we discussed about the bread in our Coastal Eats review.  I will also add, make sure you eat this quickly.  The cheese is best when it is at its warmest, and it will start to firm up fairly quickly.

Anna and Elsa both loved the Raclette Swiss Cheese too.  They were quite disappointed when it was gone.  The girls particularly enjoyed the Cornichons in the dish, which they repeatedly referred to as pickles.  They aren’t wrong.

Even with the significant bread flaw, this is still something I would order again and think you should too.  I think you’ll be pleased.

Venison Stew with Crushed Potatoes — $6.00

The Venison Stew was not something I expect to see on the menu at a booth called The Alps.  Maybe that shows my lack of awareness about Swiss culture, but it makes sense.  As someone who great up eating venison often, I was pretty excited to see it on the menu.

Unfortunately, the excitement ended when the dish was handed to me and only further declined as I ate this.  As you can see in the picture, the venison stew doesn’t look visually appealing.  I can get past the looks though; it is a stew after all.  What I can’t get past are the flavors.  The gamey flavors of venison that I’ve come to love over my life were nowhere to be found.  The potatoes at the bottom didn’t strike me as crushed; instead, they were garden variety mashed potatoes.

This is a dish I’d recommend you pass on.  One other note here too.  Since it is a “stew,” the food is very hot.  Eating it on a 95-degree day in August is definitely not something I recommended either.

Anna and Elsa didn’t care for this either.  They both took one bite and declared that they were done with it.

Blueberry and Almond Frangipane Tart with Crème Fraîche Cream and Blue Diamond® Almonds (Vegan, Kid Approved) — $4.50

The Blueberry and Almond Frangipane Tart was a welcome treat for us at The Alps marketplace.  The Crème Fraîche Cream in the picture above conceals it, but this dessert is loaded with blueberries.  They contrast against the yellow cake in the middle of the tart and add a great pop to the dish.  Beyond the visual it creates, the tart tastes terrific.  Honestly, I could eat this tart without the Crème Fraîche Cream, but it does add a lovely sweet note to it.  The almonds felt unnecessary.  Maybe they were added because they got rid of the Almond booth from last year, so Blue Diamond wanted some presence?  Who knows, they just felt out of place.  But that’s a minor criticism of the dessert.

Anna and Elsa also confirm the “Kid Approved” designation that Disney gave this dessert.  They tried to devour it without giving Dad a single bite.

We think you’ll want to get this dessert, especially if you’re a fan of blueberry-based desserts.  It’s well worth it.  At $4.50, it’s a reasonable price for the Food & Wine Festival food.

Wrapping Up

Hopefully, our review of The Alps marketplace at the Epcot Food & Wine Festival is helpful.  It’s a booth with a couple of tasty dishes and one misfire.  We’d like to see it stick around and continue to develop the menu.

If you’re looking for more of our 2019 Food & Wine Festival booth reviews, feel free to check out our Active Eats review or our Australia review!

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