The Flavor Lab: The Top Secret Place Where Disney Dishes Come to Life

If you've been to a Disney theme park lately, you know the food is half the fun. There are entire YouTube channels dedicated to trying the food! With festivals with showcase food booths that occur throughout the year at EPCOT, to highly themed lands like Pandora, Galaxy's Edge, and Avenger's Campus, to the special items that get rolled out for holidays, Disney is always on point with unique and Instagram-worthy food.

And it doesn't just happen overnight. In fact, quite often, it takes years to develop a menu or refine a dish. And it all happens at a super secret location very few guests or even cast members know how to locate, let alone gain access to: The Flavor Lab.

The Flavor Lab is located on Walt Disney World property, but develops menus and dining experiences for all Disney parks. It is supposedly hidden near or among the grounds of one of the moderate resorts, amongst the service buildings. It used to be in a more accessible shared space, but with the rise of social media, recipes and concepts were being leaked before they were even finalized, hence all the secrecy.

What Does the Flavor Lab Do?

Lenny DeGeorge, Executive Chief of Culinary Concept Development for Disney Parks & Resorts was quoted in this Food & Wine article as saying "We're like Imagineering, but for food." Not only do they design and create new food concepts, but they make sure those concepts can be executable in the massive numbers and short amount of time Disney requires. Then, they go beyond this, and design the space the food will be served within, including the dining location's ambiance. This means considering things like the lighting or how high the tables and chairs are. Oh, and they don't just do food - They also do all this for drinks.

What's It Like Inside?

Few outside of those who work there have been there, but it's reportedly broken up into 4 areas:

The Kitchen: Perhaps obvious from the name, this is where the culinary creations are made and tested. It is crowded with some of the highest tech gadgets in the industry, such as a device called a crisp & hold that allows food to be crisped and held crispy (rather than becoming soft in the Florida humidity). Perhaps the coolest mundane fact about The Kitchen is that all this equipment is on casters, which allows staff to move things around into different configurations. Remember, serving food at Disney is all about efficiency. Part of designing a menu is designing a kitchen that allows the menu to be executed as efficiently at possible.

Create: This is the brainstorming space for serving food. You'll find tables and chairs set up along with screens along the walls where the team can work on the story behind new food concepts and refine the concepts. Anything from place settings to ambiance can be brainstormed here.

Drink: This is like the "Create" space, but for beverages!

Eat: This area is like the set of a cooking show or a show kitchen, and is outfitted with equipment that allows for streaming. Once a dish is designed, this is how the culinary team at the flavor lab shows other Disney staff whether they be in California, or Shanghai, how to create the dish.

The "Eat" space of the Disney Flavor Lab - image copyright Disney

Who Gets to Work There?

Well, what we do know is it's not easy. Supposedly chefs who want a position at the Flavor Lab not only have to go through a highly selective application process, but finalists enter what is almost an "Iron Chef" style competition where they must create 4 dishes in two hours to impress the judges.

And whoever that lucky person gets to be, well, they better be patient. Chefs often present prototypes of dishes to be tested a few dozen times before they are considered good enough for Disney guests.

So, What is Disney Looking For in Perfect Food?

Like everything else at Disney, story is paramount. Disney is looking for food that ties to a great story. Once a menu of food is grouped together to tell a story, only then is the space the food (or drinks) served in designed, down to the details of the kitchen layout...

Because another thing Disney is looking for is efficiency. The food must be possible to create in the mass quantities that match the volume of Disney theme park guests and still be high quality.

Another thing is mass appeal. Yes, it's a disappointment to lovers of spicy foods that nothing at Walt Disney World ever seems to be too spicy. Or authentic foods are never so authentic as to be downright strange - This is a particular sadness of mine because I love an Indian dessert called kheer (rice and milk with saffron and rosewater), and found the Disney variant to be like a rice pudding with raisins and only the faintest hint of rosewater. But, it makes sense when you consider that Disney is trying to create food that appeals to the broadest range of guests possible. And when that is considered, it becomes pretty amazing that restaurants like Jiko, Boma, Spice Road Table, Marrakesh, and Sanaa somehow offer unique foods while also appealing to masses.

Also, is it Instagram-worthy? The rise of social media has changed what Disney considers in a dish. You can see this in the various cupcakes now served at the Main Street Confectionary, to the candy apples, to the drinks like the Big Tang, and foods like the pods at Satuli Canteen.

Finally, Disney is looking for a little bit of risk. Without risk, you could never end up with the foods Disney tried first, like the blueberry mousse at Satuli Canteen, or the Fuzzy Tauntaun at Olga's Cantina.

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