Gluten Free, Marrakesh Restaurant, Epcot.
Gluten free does not mean dead but it certainly means no choices at Epcot’s Marrakesh where all allergies must choose from one severely limited menu. We specifically choose Disney World to vacation at so we could eat well. Here we had a few problems. And because of these problems I recommend all but the most severe allergy cases to skip this restaurant. You see, that is how the menu is designed. All allergies get one menu. So in another words, no selection and no choices to explore. I have had excellent luck with wonderful food at a Portland, OR restaurant also called Marrakesh. That is, in part, one of the reasons I know that this restaurant could do so much better than it does. Disney staffers, if you are listening, that is Marrakesh in Portland, Oregon. The Portland restaurant did not have GF bread but they allowed us to bring in our own.
Disney’s Marrakesh restaurant does not follow the Disney guidelines for allergy sufferers. All of the other Disney World restaurants chefs at quick service and sit down restaurants greet me and let me know exactly what can be done for my intolerance. Epoct’s Marrakesh does not and unfortunately I found out why. In the course of requesting food at the quick service restaurant next door to the Marrakesh which is also serviced by the same staff I spoke with the available chef upon the restaurants opening. He recommended food that was binded with gluten because he didn’t know what was in it. There are meats at this restaurant that have gluten added to them and the chef didn’t know it. Thank goodness for the quick minded counter staff that said I couldn’t have it. If I was taking names the counter person would have gotten a bonus and I’m not sure what I’d end up doing with the chef.
It is incidents like this that cause me to be emotional and take a bit to calm down. Eating is an expeience meant for groups and is an emotional bonding experience. Often you expect bad service at fast food. You do not expect bad service at Disney.
Epcots park manager at guest relations did help me out and assured me that this wouldn’t be happening again. We were contacted by the manager at the Marrakesh and were compensated a meal to try again. So in a cantankerous mood I decided not to order off of the chefs allergy ‘cheater menu’ presented on a photocopied single sheet of white paper. Instead I ordered the Lemon Chicken. Due to the ingredients I got just the Chicken. That was fine. I just wanted to see if the chef understood what was going on. The manager and the wait staff certainly took it seriously.
Last year we got the same menu with everything but the fish scribbled off of it. We walked out last year.
So after finally eating here I’d have to say that the belly dancer and music was great. The desert was nowhere near authentic and the food was just so-so. However due to the problems we had earlier we had awesome service. Here make your reservations and just have a drink.
Until this restaurant gets a severe makeover I’d suggest skipping it for all but the more severe allergy cases where the sufferer has multiple allergies and the menu selection actually makes sense to present. Your food credits can be spent at better restaurants like the Coral Reef, Garden Grill, Whispering Canyon Cafe, Le Cellier, Sci-Fi Cafe, etc. I’d suggest quick service restaurants like Flame Tree and even Pop Century’s Food Court with Gluten Free pancakes over Epcot’s Marrakesh.
Yes this is harsh but accurate. With the amount of money we’re shoveling out I just won’t say thank you to poor quality when I know it can be better with minimal effort.
The only other restaurant we visited at Epcot that presented a ‘all allergy inclusive cheater menu’, was at the Mexico sit down restaurant. They still presented a chef to talk with even though the restaurant was packed. I also didn’t order off of the cheater menu there either. I do not go to be singled out but I am forced to be demanding to get the same food treatment as everybody else gets.
Will that be fish or kabob?
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Filed under: Dining Out, Disney, Gluten Free, Travel
what s wrong with a white sheet menu???? alergy to me at least means limited food choice, so what is wrong with a limited safe white page menu. Restaurants in general are not hospitals. I eat at marrakesh restaurant 3 times and it was the best service in walt disney world over all. my server was the best.
Thanks for the comment.
There is nothing wrong with an abbreviated menu. But when it is a photocopy with everything but one item crossed off because it isn’t available there is a problem. The problem with the restaurants in this Morocco section of Epcot was that they were sub-par of the rest of the Disney restaurants on our last visit. This was the only place I (didn’t) eat at because the chef on the staff recommended foods that were infused with gluten. The counter person at the walk up counter informed us that the meats the chef recommended were indeed fused with a wheat containing broth after we paid for our meal and it was almost in my mouth.
The only other place of a near gluten experience was at Jiko’s, which I think was due to a server/chef miscommunication. After the food was fixed, the Jiko experience was a 10 out of 10.
For the elevated Disney prices there needs to be some choice and some flavor for everybody in the party. I’ve been to other Morocco restaurants in other parts of the country that were much better in food and GF choices and entertainment for less money.
This was the first restaurant recommended when asking for GF on our last visits. Other choices are better to have parties of GF and non GF to have similar experiences. Both of the Epcot steak houses, the mexican restaurant, and the seafood restaurant should have been recommended before the Moroccan restaurant. By the number of bodies in the restaurant I can see that the purpose of recommending that restaurant was that of capacity rather than for allergy purposing.
After the complaint was processed at park management we got a free meal to get us in there for the Disney experience, the wait staff were excellent and the entertainment was Moroccan but there still wasn’t any chef to greet us. It wasn’t busy enough for this to be necessary. Every other ’sit-down’ meal we were at had a chef available.
You must have been there on good days and we tried only on the bad days.
An allergy doesn’t mean your life is over and your taste buds should agree.
Glad you had a good experience.