We’re sharing a full review of Biergarten in EPCOT, a buffet restaurant located in the Germany Pavilion as part of World Showcase.

Biergarten Restaurant in the Germany Pavilion has been an EPCOT staple since opening day. As so much continues to change at Disney World and EPCOT specifically, this buffet-style Bavarian restaurant still offers the authentic cultural experiences, wonderful live entertainment, and delicious German food that it has for the last four-plus decades.

Thinking about dining at Biergarten Restaurant on your next visit to EPCOT, but not convinced a sit-down meal is worth your time in a park known for its myriad food booths during festivals? Our in-depth Biergarten EPCOT review will help you decide.

Biergarten Restaurant at EPCOT: What You Need to Know

Here’s a quick guide to dining at Biergarten in EPCOT’s Germany Pavilion:

• How much does Biergarten cost? Biergarten is a buffet-style restaurant with a fixed price. Children 2 and under eat free; children 3 to 9 cost $27 plus tax and tip; and anyone 10 and older costs $49 plus tax and tip. Alcoholic beverages come at an extra cost.

• Do you need dining reservations for Biergarten? Like at all Table-Service restaurants at Walt Disney World, we highly recommend making Advance Dining Reservations for Biergarten Restaurant. However, you may be able to get walk-up seating on the day of your visit. Head to the pavilion as soon as the restaurant opens to talk to a Cast Member.

• When is Biergarten open? Hours vary depending on the day. Check the calendar on Disney’s website or on the My Disney Experience app for the most up-to-date hours.

Biergarten at EPCOT: Review

We recently dined at Biergarten Restaurant and had a fantastic experience. The ambiance and live entertainment are what drew us to the restaurant, but we were pleasantly surprised with how good the food is, with one caveat.

Ambiance

Biergarten Restaurant is one of the most immersive restaurants on Walt Disney World Property. Step inside the restaurant, and you’re immediately transported back outside — in theory. Your host will take you into a German courtyard, meant to mimic an authentic biergarten in Bavaria, at night. At Biergarten Restaurant, it’s Oktoberfest every day, which means the beer is flowing and everyone’s ready to dance the polka.

Communal-style tables mimic the tables you’d find in a true biergarten. Seating is tiered and forms a half-circle around a stage, where an oompah band occasionally comes out to play traditional Bavarian music on brass and woodwind instruments — and even cowbells and alpenhorns.

The seating area is surrounded by faux Bavarian buildings. Everything from the floor, which looks like outdoor patio tiles, to the lighting, which comes from lampposts, creates the illusion that you’re outside. You’ll spot a moon hanging in the night sky, above a perpetually orange-leafed tree, signaling the fall season. It is Oktoberfest, after all.

From the moment we stepped foot inside the restaurant, we felt transported to a quaint Bavarian town. The music, the architecture, even the smell of the sauerkraut — it all took us out of Walt Disney World and planted us in the heart of Germany. We were ready for a beer (and a shot of Jäger) and some delicious food.

Food

The food at EPCOT’s Biergarten does not disappoint. We started with hot, pillow-soft pretzels, which were perfect for dipping in the restaurant’s signature Cheese and Beer Soup. Seriously, this soup is so hearty and filling, that it could serve as an entire meal if you slurp too much. But please don’t, because the Biergarten buffet has so much more to offer.

EPCOT’s Biergarten chefs prepare sausage in all the different traditional Bavarian formats, and you can also get potatoes in multiple preparations — but the German potato salad is the best. Salads run the gamut, from bean salad to a traditional salad with a mustard dressing.

This is a German feast, so you can’t skip the pork and sauerkraut. We did find the pork schnitzel to be hard and overcooked, but otherwise, everything was made to perfection. Don’t sleep on the mac and cheese; it’s not just something to appease kids lacking an adventurous palate here. It’s crusty and crisp on the outside, but ooey-gooey on the inside — and oh, so cheesy.

For dessert, we tried the Black Forest cake (a staple in Germany’s Black Forest, where stories like Snow White originated) and a blueberry crumble. These were very sweet; a few bites are all you need. I also recommend getting a coffee with dessert — especially if you’re feeling sleepy from the liter of beer you ordered.

Speaking of beer, there’s plenty of great beer on the menu, served in half or full liters. You can also sample multiple beers with a flight. I had the Dunkel, and it was quite delicious. Just be careful if you get the full liter — that’s nearly three 12-oz beers in a meal that will likely last an hour. If you’ve been drinking around the world all day, take it easy and stick to a half-liter.

Is EPCOT’s Biergarten Restaurant Worth the Cost?

At $49 per adult (plus tax and tip), I found Biergarten to be well worth the cost. That’s about the cost of four to five different dishes from festival food booths, but we got so much more food — as much as we wanted, really — from the buffet, including dessert.

But at Biergarten in EPCOT, you’re paying for so much more than the food. The ambiance inside is what makes this spot so special. It’s truly immersive in its theming, the live music is incredible, and sometimes it’s nice just to sit in the AC for an hour during a busy park day.

So grab a seat, raise your stein, and clap along to the oompah beats. Biergarten is worth your time.