Space 220 Restaurant in EPCOT: An Amazing Dining Experience Among the Stars
You look up from your meal—a plate of delicious blue moon cauliflower—to gaze out of the window. Stars stream past as planet earth rotates lazily beneath you. The expanse of the universe, diamond-studded and vast, is at your fingertips. You sigh contentedly and take another bite of tempura-battered cauliflower.
Sounds like a scene right out of a sci-fi thriller, right? Well, that really could be you, at the Space 220 Restaurant in EPCOT!
Located 220 miles above earth (…kind of), this restaurant is your once-in-a-lifetime chance to rocket beyond the reach of gravity and dine like an astronaut—at least until we open a McDonald’s on the moon.
Unique and luxurious, Space 220 is Walt Disney World dining at its finest!
Prepare for Lift Off
Space 220 is an incredibly immersive Disney dining experience, and the excitement begins well before you even get a glance at the Space 220 restaurant menu! Their catchphrase is “elevate your dining”—and boy do they mean it!
Once you arrive at Space 220 (part of the Mission: SPACE Pavilion in Future World at EPCOT), you’ll board a sleek, futuristic-looking elevator that will catapult you, Willy Wonka style, beyond the cloud cover of earth.
With portholes above and below, you can track your upward progress, watching the earth fall away, and the stars draw near. It sounds a little stomach-churning, but it’s actually kind of relaxing! I promise you’ll still feel like eating once you reach the top.
Centauri Space Station
You’ll disembark at the Centauri Space Station and make your way through a quick series of tubular tunnels (where you’ll get to see freshly-grown space produce! Living with the Land…in Space??) before arriving in the dining room. As you exit the hallway, the restaurant opens up before you, the walls lined with windows that offer a panoramic view into space.
The cusp of the earth is just visible amidst the endless expanse of winking stars. Talk about the ultimate stargazing experience!
It’s amazing how real it feels as if that little elevator actually did take you into space. (But that’s literally impossible…right??) The attention to detail is fantastic, with the graphics reflecting the time of day and current weather, as well as little story-telling elements like astronauts floating by, hard at work on the space station.1
As you find your seat (preferably one right next to the windows!), you’ll be served a delectable multi-course meal, made all the better by the dazzling galaxy on the other side of the glass.
Far-Out Food
Although astronaut food is generally infamous for being freeze-dried and unappetizing, the Space 220 Restaurant is high-end dining, and you can be sure every morsel is 99.9% fully hydrated (the 0.1% is for a garnish of freeze-dried blue cheese crumbles).
“Fresh, not frozen” is the motto here.*
*The Creative Editor totally made this up, but most online reviews agree the food here is pretty tasty!
With the food and the view, it’s certainly a celestial dining experience, but it’s also an expensive one. Lunch is $55 per adult, while dinner is a tidy $79. Both meals are prix fixe—that’s fancy lingo for “the price is what it is”—with two courses for lunch and three for dinner.
So, what does fancy space lunch look like?
Space Lunch
For lunch, you’ll get to select one “Lift-Off” (appetizer) and one Star Course (entree).
(Photo: Unsplash)
Lift-Offs include Blue Moon Cauliflower (tempura-fried cauliflower with house hot sauce and blue cheese dust), Space Greens (lettuce, compressed watermelon, spiced pecans, and apple cider dressing), Starry Calamari (fried calamari with cherry peppers, spicy marinara, and roasted pepper citrus aioli) and more!
The Star Courses include every option you could want, from steak to shrimp, chicken to beef—even linguine and vegetable burgers!
The Galactic Salmon (with glazed carrots, maitake mushrooms, baby bok choy, and ginger beurre blanc) and Spaceghetti (with sautéed shrimp, cherry tomatoes, basil, and garlic beurre blanc) sound especially yummy!
Sides like potato wedges and roasted carrots can be ordered for an additional $8 to $10, and there is also an extensive list of fun dessert drinks and cocktails to choose from! A kid’s menu is also available, serving simpler but delicious space fare for $29 a kiddo.
Space Dinner
A ticket to dinner at Space 220 is a ticket to three out-of-this-world courses—one Lift-Off, one Star Course, and one Supernova Sweet (dessert).
The same yummy Lift-Offs from lunch are available for dinner, too, but the Star Courses change as evening begins to blanket the earth below in darkness.
Slow Rotation Short Rib (with cheddar grits and bacon), Filet Mignon (with mashed potatoes, carrots, and French green beans), Florida Red Snapper (with fennel barigoule and potato stew), and Space Glazed Duck Breast (with fried jasmine rice, asparagus, pineapple, and orange hoisin sauce) are added to the selection.
(Sadly, the veggie burger and spaceghetti don’t make the dinner cut.)
(Photo: Unsplash)
For an extra fee, you can have a Space Station Supplemental and order a 24 oz. bone-in ribeye or 1.5 lb baked whole lobster stuffed with jumbo crab. Now that’s what I call luxury!
But remember to save room for dessert because you’ll also be served a Supernova Sweet! Choose from Carrot Cake topped with cream cheese and candied walnuts, Chocolate Cheesecake drizzled in chocolate sauce and cookie crumbs, or various flavors of gelato and sorbet! There’s even Coconut Panna Cotta with lychee, raspberries, and coconut meringue or matcha-flavored Short Cake with strawberries and mousse.
As with lunch, a kid’s menu, sides, and an extensive drink list are also available.
Space Lounge
There’s one more way to experience Space 220, and that’s by hanging out at the Space 220 Lounge. (As of writing, dining plans are temporarily unavailable for the lounge, but we hope they will return soon! Check Disney’s website for the latest developments and changes.)
For a fraction of the Lunch and Dinner costs, you can experience Centauri Space Station and still have a bank account left at the end of the day!
Lounge guests will experience the elevator ride, just like dining room guests, as well as the panoramic dining room itself. However, you will be seated by the bar, overlooking the main dining area. Though further away from the windows, it’s still a great view!
Lastly, your menu is more limited, but it also isn’t prix fixe. You can order whatever you want and even split dishes with your friends! In fact, there are some things that only appear on the Lounge menu, like Astro Deviled Eggs, Chicken on Waffle, and Short Rib Sliders! You also still have a full selection of drinks—AKA “Atmospheric Spirits.”
If you’re looking for a lighter bite (in cost and amount of food), then the Lounge is definitely the way to go! You’ll still get the amazing space experience and have plenty to eat. Some folks even prefer the Lounge to the dining room!2
Wherever you choose to dine, you know it will be out of this world at Space 220!
Space 220 is an immersive, futuristically fun dining experience. Have you been to the Centauri Space Station? What did you think? Tell us about your favorite dish in the comments below!
Cover Image
Photo: Unsplash
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