Victoria and Albert’s

Dr Dreiz’s Disney Delights #3

Victoria and Albert’s

Welcome back to another riveting weekly edition of Dr. Dreiz’s Disney Delights. Today I’m going to touch on a subject near and dear to my heart, the fine dining of Victoria and Albert’s in the Grand Floridian Resort & Spa. This is a special place for me because it was the nicest thing we did on our honeymoon in October 2008. Actually it’s the nicest dinner we’ve done together in 6 years. Probably the nicest dinner we will ever do.

Victoria & Albert’s restaurant is located in Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort & Spa. They describe their food as contemporary American cuisine. The restaurant is an 11-year recipient of the prestigious AAA Five Diamond award.

Victoria & Albert’s restaurant offers an intimate 2-hour to 2.5-hour dining experience in a Victorian dining room. Butler service, personalized menus and a long-stem rose for each lady are just a few of the touches that are unique to this experience. This is an adult’s only experience and children under the age 10 will not be served.

This is a very upscale dining experience, and reservations need to be made several months in advance. The menus are fixed so if you have preferences and/or allergies you need to give them adequate time to prepare. Dinner jackets with dress pants/slacks and shoes are the required attire for men. Ties are optional. (no jeans, shorts, sandals, flip-flops or tennis shoes.) Cocktail dresses, dressy pant suit, skirt/blouse or nice dress for women.

So that’s the low down, now of course I’m going to tell you my story. Stacey made our reservations about 6 months in advance as they only take reservations at 2 times (I believe 630 and 9 but don’t quote me on that) and only seat a handful of tables to keep the atmosphere quaint. We were really looking forward to this as we had heard that this is the only 5 diamond restaurant in all of central Florida. On the evening of October 22, 2008, Stacey and I showed up at Victoria and Albert’s for our dinner reservation on our honeymoon. I had on a shirt and tie with slacks but when we arrived I was told I needed a jacket. No problem, they had a loaner for me.

I remember walking into the dining area and hearing the beautiful sound of harp strings being strummed as I realized the peaceful melody was one of my favorites: “A Whole New World”. This was going to be fun. The place was unbelievable. I’ve never seen anything like it before. It had a small number of tables and a harp being played and was immaculate. I felt like I absolutely did not deserve to be there but that didn’t stop me from really enjoying myself. We were seated and received individually customized, tri-fold menus displaying each of our names on the outside. Upon opening the menu we discovered a congratulatory message on our marriage and the two or three choices for each of the six courses that we were about to embark on. They gave us the hard sell on adding the wine pairing so we gave in. It was actually a pretty easy sell. They start you with champagne and end with a dessert wine and I remember nothing in between.

Now I had some fun in college but I’m honestly not much of a drinker anymore. I don’t usually ever drink wine with dinner (my Sicilian grandmother just rolled in her grave) and no one ever shared with me that at things like this where you receive multiple servings you aren’t actually supposed to drink the entire glass every time. Whoops. Apparently no one shared this information with Stacey either and we had a jolly good time.

Our menu’s differed slightly because the day of I had informed Stacey that I don’t eat seafood so she called the host and they said it was no problem at all that I’m a snobby, picky eater (they actually said something much nicer but this is what Stacey heard). Stacey started out with the stone crab salad, the Minnesota Elk, The Alaskan king salmon, the Lamb and Ratatouille, and the Tanzanian chocolate pyramid with edible flakes of gold (no kidding), kona chocolate soufflé and Peruvian chocolate ice cream and puff pastry.

My menu consisted of tomatoes and miniature greens, the Minnesota elk, butternut squash crème with pumpkin ravioli, the Australian Kobe beef tenderloin with smoked garlic potato puree, white chocolate gelato, and the caramelized banana gateau.

Everything was excellent and the presentation was phenomenal. We had six courses of world class cuisine, six courses of fine wine and now a bill to match. The food was $125 per person. Wine pairing: $60 per person. Upgrade to Kobe beef tenderloin: $35. Tip 20%. Needless to say it’s not an everyday meal by any means. It is, however, one of my favorite memories of our honeymoon. I fondly recall the part where I had to give myself a pep talk that I could walk out of the restaurant in a straight line and not run into anything. Mission accomplished. As we exited they informed us that we now had to come back every year on our anniversary and eat there to celebrate. Wait, what does he mean we have to? I can’t afford this every year! We paid for this from our wedding money we aren’t going to have another wedding ever. I’m going to have to start working nights in the Urgent Care Centers and sell my big TV just to afford next year’s dinner. Then what? Oh wait, he’s smiling it’s a figure of speech. Whew.

There you have it a tale of gluttony and drunkenness…….errrrrr ahhhh a tale of a fine dining experience on our honeymoon that I will never ever forget.

See you next Friday!