Disney's Food and Wine guessing game confirms five 2026 EPCOT dishes and the booths serving them

By entgrove · August 22, 2026

Disney Parks has posted a first look at the 2026 EPCOT International Food and Wine Festival menu as a Disney Eats Name It episode, with Brook Lopez, Robin Lopez and food creator Karissa Dumbacher guessing five dishes and the chefs confirming each one. Three of the five are anniversary returns, including a pumpkin trifle from 2011 and a liquid nitrogen almond truffle mousse from the 2015 Chew Lab, and two of them sit at booths that open weeks after August 27.

Disney Parks has posted a first look at the 2026 EPCOT International Food and Wine Festival menu, and it comes packaged as a guessing game. In a Disney Eats Name It episode, NBA player Brook Lopez, former NBA player Robin Lopez and food creator Karissa Dumbacher try to name five dishes coming to the festival, with the chefs behind each one stepping out to give the official name and the booth serving it. Five items are confirmed on camera, three of them returns from earlier festivals.

How the game works

The format is simple. A covered dish comes out, the three guests taste it blind and try to land on its official festival name, and a chef arrives at the end of each round to confirm the answer and say where it will be sold. When the guests stall, they can ring a bell for a hint from a host in an oversized chef's hat who introduces himself as Raphael San Dubois, delivering clues in a French accent. "I am here to elevate your dining experience with my expert knowledge and charming demeanor," he tells them. "Plus, if you need any help at all, you just call on me. I'm there at the drop of a hat, not mine."

Because every reveal is made by the chef who built the dish, the video functions as a menu confirmation rather than a taste test. Each of the five names below matches the item as it appears in Disney's 2026 Foodie Guide, and each booth named on camera matches the guide's marketplace listing.

Round one: the pumpkin trifle nobody could name

The first dish out is a layered pumpkin dessert in a cup, and the guests spend most of the round circling it. They correctly identify granola and a dried cranberry on top, call the texture "parfait vibes," and get to pumpkin quickly. "It tastes like Thanksgiving," one taster says. "It tastes like fall." Naming it is the hard part. The table works through Jell-O, caramel and pudding, then locks in two wrong answers in a row: Pumpkin King parfait, then whipped pumpkin cake parfait.

The hint pushes them toward the right texture and a wrong conclusion. "It is more of a dish that is light, airy, whipped," the host says, before adding that it is named for an animal sound rather than an animal. The answer, delivered by EPCOT pastry chef Amanda, is the Pumpkin Cheesecake Mousse Trifle. Mousse, not parfait.

"So this is a returning favorite," the chef says, describing layers of pumpkin cheesecake mousse, spice cake, citrus sauce and what she calls crunchy cranberry granola on top. She dates the original to the 2011 festival and says it is back for the festival's 30th anniversary. Disney's own guide agrees on the year and the booth, listing the item as introduced in 2011 at Hops and Barley and now carrying PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese, citrus sauce and spice cake topped with cranberry streusel. It counts toward Emile's Fromage Montage this year.

Where it lands matters more than the guessing. The chef says the trifle will be served at Festival Favorites, which is one of the four marketplaces that does not open with the festival. Festival Favorites starts September 9, almost two weeks into the run.

Round two: wings with a big dill

The savory round is a chicken wing, and it is the one the guests come closest to solving on their own. They pick up a herb garnish, then a creamy dip they compare to tzatziki, and they hear the buffalo base with something else on top of it. "It's got to be buffalo, but with a twist," one says.

The hint gives it away with a pun. "This dish may seem simple and familiar," the host says, "but there is one ingredient that, how do you say, is a big dill." The guests get to dill pickle, and the chef confirms the wing as a dill buffalo chicken wing with house-made ranch, served at the Brew-Wing Lab over at the Odyssey.

On the 2026 menu that item is listed as Wing Experiments featuring Pilgrim's Jumbo Wings: Buffalo-Dill Pickle with house-made pickle ranch, one of four wing flavors at the Brew-Wing Lab at the Odyssey. The others are Garlic-Parmesan, Korean Barbecue, and a Carolina Reaper Pepper-Curry served with cucumber raita. The Odyssey booth opens with the festival on August 27, and Muppet Labs branding is back on the building, so Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker front the wing menu again.

A trivia break, and the number that explains the year

Between dishes the show stops for a Disney trivia question: what year did the first EPCOT International Food and Wine Festival begin? A guest answers 1997 and is told he is close. The correct answer is 1996, which makes 2026 the 30th festival.

The show adds two details worth keeping. The festival replaced a smaller wine event that ran a single weekend, and it now spans 87 days. That checks out against the published dates: August 27 through November 21, 2026 is exactly 87 days of festival.

Round three: a milk shake built like a cannoli

The third dish is the only one the guests name without a hint. They spot marzipan and almond notes, identify a maraschino cherry on top, and go straight to the cannoli shake. "Didn't even need a hint," the host says.

The chef confirms it as the Cannoli Milk Shake and adds the build: a vanilla base with ricotta and mascarpone and a little cinnamon, garnished with a cannoli shell, chocolate shavings and a maraschino cherry. It is served at The Wedge, the cheese-focused kiosk hosted by Dairy Does More, where Disney's guide lists it as a new non-alcoholic item.

The Wedge is the other delayed booth in this video. It runs September 18 through November 8 only, a 52 day window inside an 87 day festival, and it shares that span with the Cheers to Cheese exhibit in CommuniCore Hall.

Round four: the EPCOT classic they stopped guessing about

The fourth dish is introduced on camera as an EPCOT classic, and the guests recognize the crab in it immediately. They call out cavatappi pasta, corn and bacon, note the elote-style seasoning, then more or less give up on the name and keep eating. "I don't care what the name is," one says. "I'm just eating it at this point."

The chef names it the Crab and Corn Macaroni and Cheese, also at The Wedge. The full listing pairs it with smoked cheddar sauce, bacon, crab seasoning, roasted corn, herbed panko and jalapenos, and dates it to 2015 at the Farm Fresh booth. It is a Fromage Montage item, and it sits alongside two other macaroni and cheese variants at the same kiosk: a three-cheese version and a cheesesteak version.

Round five: guessing a dessert by sound alone

The final round changes the rules. Instead of tasting, the guests have to name the dish from the sounds of it being prepared. They hear something that could be pounding, something burning, and a food processor, and their guesses go far afield: a lobster bisque, a broil, fireworks heard from five miles down I-4.

Both hints point at cold and at nuts. "Uniquely frozen, but not an ice cream. You'll go nuts for this French delight," the host says, then follows with a clue calling it the coolest thing on the menu. The guests land on freeze dried, then on a peanut butter smoothie, and miss it entirely.

"So not quite freeze dried," the chef says. "So this dish is our liquid nitrogen almond truffle mousse with whiskey caramel sauce and sugared almonds. We're bringing it back for the 30th anniversary, and this item will be sold at Swirled Showcase."

The Liquid Nitrogen Almond Truffle Mousse is one of the anniversary returns pulled from a booth that no longer exists. Disney's guide traces it to the 2015 Chew Lab, and this year it sits at Swirled Showcase in Harvest Hollow, on the walkway between the Imagination! pavilion and World Showcase. That booth opens with the festival on August 27.

Which dishes the guests actually liked

Asked to pick a favorite at the end, two of the three name the macaroni and cheese and the third goes with the pumpkin cheesecake mousse, after a brief detour into calling it an apple pumpkin mousse. The episode closes with the chefs from all five rounds coming out together, and a promise that the full menu is still to come.

What this means for a festival trip

Three of these five items are anniversary returns, and two of them are behind a delayed booth opening. A guest visiting on opening weekend can get the wings at the Odyssey and the almond truffle mousse at Swirled Showcase, but not the pumpkin trifle, the cannoli milk shake or the crab and corn macaroni and cheese. Festival Favorites is a September 9 booth and The Wedge is a September 18 booth that closes November 8, thirteen days before the festival ends.

Three of the five also carry the Fromage Montage marker, so a cheese-stroll run through the festival passport can pick up the pumpkin trifle and the crab and corn macaroni and cheese in the same two stops. Festival dates and marketplace details are posted at DisneyWorld.com.

EPCOT International Food and Wine Festival