Biergarten Restaurant — Restaurant in Bay Lake

Biergarten is a German buffet restaurant located in the Germany Pavilion in EPCOT’s World Showcase, located in the Disney World Resort outside of Orlando, FL. This restaurant celebrates Oktoberfest year-round, offers popular German dishes, traditional Bavarian decor, & a talented polka band. I came here on November 11, 2021. I went to this restaurant because I was visiting EPCOT that day & buffets are excellent places for picky eaters like myself to try new things. When your waitress escorts you into the restaurant, you get the setting of a German nighttime festival with the decor of a traditional Bavarian village that has a festive but warm feeling to it. There are replicas of half-wooden houses & a wooden well that actively pumps water. There are flags hung up on the walls that represent the various kingdoms that ruled over Germany. Some of the flags represented the Kingdoms of Bavaria, Hamburg, Bremen, and many more German kingdoms. At the front of the restaurant, there is a stage where the polka band plays once every hour. The buffet offers many different German dishes, including various types of cold & hot food, including Pork Schnitzel, Bratwurst, Rotisserie Chicken, Pretzel Rolls, Bavarian Cheesecake, Apple Strudel, & many more dishes. However, the buffet is a little disorganized, which confuses people, questioning what foods go with each other. The cold food and the desserts are together, but the hot food section is disorderly. I could not find the appropriate combinations I needed to get a satisfying plate. The food itself can either be exceptional or fair. One of the dishes I was satisfied with was the German Meatballs, which were meatballs tossed into Red Wine Sauce. The meatballs were moist, tepid, & delicious. However, I wasn’t satisfied with the Apple Strudel. The apple flavor was intense, but the pastry around it was just bland. This imbalance made this dish unsatisfying. As I got done with my second plate, the entertainment the restaurant had to offer started performing on the stage. The band consisted of four men who performed six polka songs. They used the trumpet, accordion, bells, & xylophone. One of the men even played an entire melody on the alphorn. The polka band was very talented, bright, & engaging. The polka band did a great job of enhancing the atmosphere & making all the customers happy while eating. A meal at this restaurant is costly. This restaurant regularly costs $46 & $25 for anyone under the age of 10. I felt like I could’ve gotten a more reasonably priced meal at other restaurants in World Showcase, which may cost only $15 to $35 per person. A similar experience I had was with a restaurant named Jai Ho. The food was scrumptious, and all the dishes had a pleasant, fiery flavor to them. In comparison to Biergarten, the food at Jai Ho was delightful. But one aspect that makes Biergarten stand out from Jai Ho is the decor & atmosphere. The decorations at Jai Ho were just a few Indian paintings & wall decorations. Jai Ho had Bollywood Music playing in the restaurant, but Biergarten had a live performance, which was way better than the music at Jai Ho. Overall, I had a pleasant experience at this restaurant. If you want to immerse yourself in German culture, then I would recommend eating at Biergarten. However, This restaurant may have bland or dry dishes. This restaurant can be too costly. If you are more considerate about the price or food, I recommend eating at other restaurants in...

Wow! This was an experience. The inside of the restaurant is wonderfully themed from top to bottom, and the scenery that looks like buildings and skyline makes the whole place just feel larger than life. It's a shock when you walk in for the very first time. You'll find yourself looking around at everything for a while.

The server comes up to you and takes your drink order. He or she will give you refills and take your plates away for the rest of your visit. Also, quite a few times a day, there will be a German band that gets up on stage and sings traditional German songs and they invite everyone to come on down to the dance floor. It really is a spectacle.

As for the food, I had no idea what to expect. I half-expected just rows and rows of sausages with sauerkraut, but I found a lot more than that. I'll go over my top five and mention a few things to avoid.

Numbers 5 through 3 were the Cheesecake, Meatballs, and the Pretzel Rolls. I couldn't get enough of these items. It's nice to have nice creamy cheesecake to cut through all the rich, German food. The meatballs were moist and flavorful all the way through, and the authentic pretzel taste was really nice to come back to after that fad a few years ago where every restaurant under the sun wanted to put out their own pretzel bun.

Number 2 is the Oven-roasted Potatoes. These were all super crispy on the outside and cooked very well all the way through, even though the sizes of each potato chunk varied from one to another. Salty and peppery and delicious.

Number 1 is the Pork Schnitzel. It was lightly breaded to add a crisp to the outside of the nice tender pork inside. It was akin to Chicken Parmesan. My favorite thing I couldn't get enough.

Things to avoid. Maybe the potato salad. It was just uncooked and strangely textured. Looking at the rest of what I was going to say, I think I'll just leave it at that. The rest of my opinions are probably just that, opinions, and I don't wanna put them down. Someone has to like Spätzle out there, I'm sure. But I refuse with the potato salad. It was just bad.

Overall, this was a five star experience that was truly memorable and I would come back in a heartbeat. I have to try all the other Disney buffets first, though. I hear they're all this good or better! Pro-tip, this place accepts Tables in Wonderland, so if you have that perk, pay for everyone for that sweet...

Visited Biergarten restaurant on March 14,2025 at 525pm with my wife. We have reserved a table for garden of rock dinner passes. We arrived 20 minutes early and checked in and were seated about 5-10 minutes later so roughly 515 pm. Once seated we waited for our waitress what seemed to be 15 minutes before we even got water which was frustrating. Once we got out drinks we went to the buffet and began grabbing our food. I saw the various spreads and different meat choices and thought I was in heaven until I wasn’t…. I grabbed every single meat on the menu and out of the 8-9 choices 3 were actually good. The pork schnitzel was absolutely AMAZING, and the brats both variety’s were very good also. This is were the review takes an absolute horrible turn downhill. The grilled chicken was dry and gross, the beef stew had a very strong after taste that wasn’t pleasant, the chicken schnitzel tasted like “Wendy’s 4 for 4 nuggets” (says the wife), the meatballs tasted like cheap meatballs you get at a ordinary sub restaurant. The potato salad was mid at best, even the salad was overpowered by vinegar flavor almost to the point it was spicy/sour. I ordered the grapefruit beer and it was pretty good, very sweet. My wife had the Dr. Loosen wine which was pretty good. The atmosphere was very entertaining as we watched the German music show. The servers were nice but we’re inattentive. Me and my wife paid over $140 BEFORE THE TIP… over all paying over $50 per person with absolutely poor service, disgusting food, just isn’t justified. It gives a suggestion for tips at the bottom which was nearly $25 for a waitress to bring us 2 cups of water and a single beer and wine in a 45 minute period.. absolutely not which took forever by the way. This was great as we have been wanting to try this place for years but this will be the absolute last time. I’m very disappointed I ate only 4 pork chops to get full over the entirety of the menu. Don’t even get me started on the dessert it wasn’t much better than the appetizer and entrees. Do not recommend will not be back...