The Best Food and Drinks at Epic Universe

For decades, theme park food was considered the lowest of the low. Lower than ballpark fare; fast food quality without the speedy service or the affordable price. You were lucky to get a well-cooked burger or a crispy chicken finger at an amusement park — or at least that was the (not entirely unfair) stereotype.

Things have definitely changed. As theme park companies began to build detailed lands inspired by popular films and television shows, they also started to recognize that carefully themed foods enhanced guests’ feeling of immersion. When Universal built the first Wizarding World of Harry Potter, tourists could not only dress like Hogwarts students, they could drink like them too — thanks to the bars and stands that served frothy mugs of Harry’s favorite refreshment, Butterbeer.

Universal’s new Epic Universe park contains four themed areas inspired by How to Train Your Dragon, Nintendo, the Dark Universe, and a new Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Each of the four contains its own intricately designed restaurants, with foods and beverages meant to give guests a literal taste of what it feels like to live in a Viking fantasy realm, the Mushroom Kingdom (and Donkey Kong Country), a fictional village at the mercy of mad scientists and monsters, and a magical Paris of the 1920s.

I attended the Epic Universe press preview, where I gorged myself on offerings from every corner of the park. I don’t think I ate a single burger or chicken finger, but I consumed all kinds of elaborately themed movie tie-in food — which longtime ScreenCrush readers know is a particular interest of mine. (Particular interest, unhealthy obsession, whatever.) Here are the 12 best things I tried at Epic Universe and can heartily recommend. Keep in mind at least two of these things straight-up look like human brains. Epic Universe is that kind of place.

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