Narcoossee’s is a signature restaurant at Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort.  The fine-dining restaurant sits at the corner of the hotel’s property, looking out upon Bay Lake and Magic Kingdom.  The dinner menu features steak, seafood and other east-coast inspired dishes.  Narcoossee’s does take part in the Disney Dining Plan as a 2-credit restaurant.  Discounts of 20% are available for those that have an Annual Pass or a Tables in Wonderland card.  We recently had dinner at Narcoossee’s and this review will cover that experience.

The Grand Floridian is the most upscale Disney owned resort on property.  Whether the theme is for everyone is slightly more debatable but stepping on-site here feels like a definite step up in class from rubbing sweaty elbows in a theme park.  With that in mind, Grand Floridian should be home to a popular dining scene, right?  The answer is both yes and no.

The hotel features more restaurants than any hotel on-site.  These restaurants include a counter-service, table-service, 2 signature, Victoria & Albert’s, and a lounge. All receive decent to great reviews.  The dining scene is quite crowded from a restaurant perspective but none of these places, save Victoria & Albert’s, is considered a must-do by most publications I’ve seen.  Likewise, none of these restaurant have ever been crowded when we’ve attended them.  I had always assumed for Narcoossee’s that the environment wasn’t great and the food was lacking, thus the lack of buzz about the place.  We set out for dinner here to make up our own minds.

As I said in the opening, Narcoossee’s sits right on the edge of Bay Lake.  If taking a boat from Magic Kingdom to the Grand Floridian, this restaurant would be the first place seen after getting off the boat.  If coming from the monorail then the walk is farther, although still a pleasant one.  I recommend the boat option but that’s just because I love riding boats.

While the setting on the outside of the restaurant is quite beautiful, being right on the water, the inside is also easy on the eyes.  The tables are adorned with royal blue tablecloths that are a beautiful contrast to the warm wood tones throughout the restaurant.  Narcoosse’s is illuminated by natural light in the early evening.  While not actually open air, the restaurant gives an illusion of being outside.

Part of that illusion is because of the beautiful views out the window.  We spent our meal gazing out onto the lake and Magic Kingdom.  As you can see above, the restaurant has a nice deck around it that you can walk before or after eating.  There isn’t much as far as theme in this restaurant but the views plus the beautiful design more than made up for that.

Onto the food… As with most table-service restaurant in Disney World, we were served bread before the meal.  This was a delicious, warm sourdough loaf.  The menu at Narcoosse’s mainly features seafood and steak.  Here’s a link to the menu.

I started with the Lobster Bisque which was delicious.  Creamy and rich with large chunks of lobster, this was one of the best iterations of the soup that I’ve ever tried.  I highly recommend this.

Melissa ordered the Crispy Rhode Island Calamari and enjoyed it.  The peppers and relish gave the dish a pickled flavor to cut through the rich taste of calamari.  The calamari itself was delicious and cooked perfectly.  There was plenty in this appetizer so I’d recommend sharing this if it appeals to you.

For our entrees we went with the two lobster dishes.  I had the Steamed Maine Lobster.  This was incredibly fresh and steamed to perfection.  The presentation of the dish made the lobster quite easy to pull out of the shell, no matter what part of the lobster this was from.

Melissa went with the Butter-poached Twin Maine Lobster Tails.  Her lobster had a more buttery flavor, which makes sense when looking at the name.  What you prefer will likely depend on if you like a more buttery flavor and if you are more partial to the lobster tails as opposed to other parts of the lobster.  I preferred mine, as the butter starts to become a little too much for me after a while.  Both dishes were prepared perfectly.  This was the best lobster I’ve had and easily the best I’ve had on property (I think I’ve had it at about 5 different spot).

The rest of the dish included asparagus and a corn soufflé.  The asparagus tasted like asparagus, it was good but nothing out of the ordinary.  The corn soufflé on the other hand was what dreams are made of.  Seriously, Melissa had a dream about it.  This tasted like a sweet corn bread but in a soufflé form.  The corn soufflé was one of my favorite things I tasted on that trip.  Going to the restaurant just for that might be worth it.

We were full but pressed on in the name of research.  For dessert, I had this fun take on strawberry shortcake.  I don’t see this currently on the menu but I thoroughly enjoyed it.  The cake was light and the strawberry sauce was delicious.

Melissa ordered the Almond-crusted Cheesecake.  She enjoyed this as well.  On top of a delicious, rich cheesecake, the cherry sauce was fantastic.  The almond crust on the cheesecake gave a nice contrast to the rich taste.  I’d highly recommend either of these dishes.

Now that we’ve gotten through the food let’s talk value.  Narcoossee’s definitely surprised us with an incredible environment and amazing food but does the price measure up?  Well, this restaurant is on par with other signature restaurants.  Appetizers are between $10 and $20.  Main courses are $40 to $70, with the lobster being closer to $70.  Obviously, these are high price points but in this case you get what you pay for.  If you’re doing one or two fancy dinners on your trip then this should be in the running, especially if your family likes lobster.

Our trip to Narcoossee’s made me even more curious as to why this restaurant doesn’t receive more praise.  While I haven’t tried every restaurant, I’d put this squarely in Disney World’s top-ten places to eat.  The environment is beautiful and relaxing, the food is wonderful for seafood eaters, and the value isn’t bad relative to the whole experience.  Narcoossee’s is one of the best restaurants in all of Walt Disney World and deserves more attention.

Overall Rating – 10/10

Have you had a meal at Narcoossee’s?  Let us know your thoughts on the restaurant along with any questions you have in the comments.  If you enjoy what you’re reading here on Wandering in Disney please subscribe to the blog via email or WordPress and like our social media pages.  You can find all of those things on the right side of this page.  Thank you very much for reading, we appreciate it!

– Andrew