If you are celebrating a special event during your holiday in Orlando, or want to really treat yourself to an occasion, which you will never forget, you won’t go wrong if you make a reservation at Walt Disney’s Grand Floridian’s ultra posh restaurant Victoria and Albert’s.
I strongly advise you to make your dining reservation before you leave for Florida as this is a very popular venue, being the only AAA Five Diamond restaurant in Central Florida, and well deservedly so. Gentlemen must wear jackets although ties are not essential.
Our last visit to Orlando coincided with our 30th Wedding Anniversary and so we felt a visit was definitely on the menu (no pun intended! ). We decided to treat ourselves, on arrival at the hotel, to the valet parking service. What the heck, this is a special occasion and if it costs an extra $10 it would be worth it. However, as the parking attendant took our car keys from us he asked where we were dining and when we replied at Victoria and Albert’s he informed us that the valet service would be free! Wow, our first surprise of the evening.
We had chosen to eat at 6. 00pm, which is quite early for us but as there are only two sittings at the restaurant, 6. 00pm and 9. 30pm, we felt that finishing our meal at approximately midnight would be a little too late.
On entering the restaurant we were instantly greeting by a lady in Victorian costume who showed us to our table. From then on we were waited on as if we the King and Queen of England. Nothing was too much trouble for our servers. Our second surprise of the evening was when we were presented with our menus, both of which had been engraved with our names and the date. We have since learnt that if we had told them in advance that we were celebrating a special event, this too would have been mentioned on our menu.
What was to follow can only be described as a “feast for the taste buds”. An eight-course gourmet meal starting off with an “Amuse Bouche”. Having no idea what this was I looked it up later on the internet, and discovered that it means, “tiny bite-sized morsels served before the first course of a meal”. They are meant to excite your taste buds and to offer a glimpse into the chef’s approach to cooking. This is exactly what they did and we could hardly wait for our next course of Lemongrass Poached Gulf Shrimp with Cabbage Slaw and Sesame Seed Tuile.
Please continue to read our report of Victoria and Albert’s Restaurant in the second section of our review
I strongly advise you to make your dining reservation before you leave for Florida as this is a very popular venue, being the only AAA Five Diamond restaurant in Central Florida, and well deservedly so. Gentlemen must wear jackets although ties are not essential.
Our last visit to Orlando coincided with our 30th Wedding Anniversary and so we felt a visit was definitely on the menu (no pun intended! ). We decided to treat ourselves, on arrival at the hotel, to the valet parking service. What the heck, this is a special occasion and if it costs an extra $10 it would be worth it. However, as the parking attendant took our car keys from us he asked where we were dining and when we replied at Victoria and Albert’s he informed us that the valet service would be free! Wow, our first surprise of the evening.
We had chosen to eat at 6. 00pm, which is quite early for us but as there are only two sittings at the restaurant, 6. 00pm and 9. 30pm, we felt that finishing our meal at approximately midnight would be a little too late.
On entering the restaurant we were instantly greeting by a lady in Victorian costume who showed us to our table. From then on we were waited on as if we the King and Queen of England. Nothing was too much trouble for our servers. Our second surprise of the evening was when we were presented with our menus, both of which had been engraved with our names and the date. We have since learnt that if we had told them in advance that we were celebrating a special event, this too would have been mentioned on our menu.
What was to follow can only be described as a “feast for the taste buds”. An eight-course gourmet meal starting off with an “Amuse Bouche”. Having no idea what this was I looked it up later on the internet, and discovered that it means, “tiny bite-sized morsels served before the first course of a meal”. They are meant to excite your taste buds and to offer a glimpse into the chef’s approach to cooking. This is exactly what they did and we could hardly wait for our next course of Lemongrass Poached Gulf Shrimp with Cabbage Slaw and Sesame Seed Tuile.
Please continue to read our report of Victoria and Albert’s Restaurant in the second section of our review