California Grill Brunch at the Top

What’s one of the best things you can do on a Disney girls trip? Go to Sunday morning brunch, of course! For our big “fancy” event of our trip we elected to go to the brunch at California  Grill. It’s offered every Sunday morning, with reservations available from 10am-2pm. It’s pricey (I think we paid $89 per person), but the quality was worth it and they do accept Tables in Wonderland.

We went to Magic Kingdom for a little bit before taking the monorail over to the Contemporary for our reservation at 11am. To make a fun day out of it we wore our favorite Disney dresses! When we arrived the host was excited to see our outfits, and in fact moved our table for us so we were right next to a window. He said “you know how to do brunch right!” and wanted to give us the best spot.

Unlimited bellinis are included with the meal and they hand you one right as you walk in. I’m not quite sure this actually qualifies as a bellini, since there’s nothing actually mixed in with it. The drink was actually prosecco with boba balls in it. I loved it, so whatever they want to call it I was board! We definitely tried to get our moneys worth and probably had 4-5 of these each. You can also get all sorts of non-alcoholic beverages (including coffee), or pay extra for specialty drinks and bloody marys.

The atmosphere is really lovely too.  Of course the views are great, but they also have a duo playing instrumental Disney music. Lots of favorite tunes are performed by a keyboard and bass, and it really adds a lot.

Brunch at California Grill is a 3 course meal. There is a large variety of appetizers and beginning courses that you can choose off of a buffet. Then you get a plated dish as your main meal. Finally, they bring out a plate of desserts to share. I’ll be happy to walk through the buffet with you and re-live this wonderful meal!

There is a really nice selection of charcuterie available, with a number of different meats and cheese. I’m a sucker for this sort of thing so I tried a little bit of each.

California Grill is known for their sushi, and they include it here at brunch as well. They have a few different types of nigiri, a spicy tuna tekkamaki roll, a California Roll (with crab meat), and a shrimp tempura roll. And yes, I tried them all. I think the California Roll might actually be my favorite with the crab meat added!

There’s also a variety of salads that you can sample. These salads might change seasonally, but when we visited they had a bacon and egg salad, an apple salad, and a soba noodle salad. I tried just a taste of the apple salad and while it was good, I’m not sure I’d waste any stomach space on the salads here.

Deviled eggs make an appearance here. I actually don’t like deviled eggs, but tried them the last time we were here because they looked and sounded so good. Spicy aioli? Bacon on top? Yum! But at the end of the day they still tasted like deviled eggs and I still did not like them, so I didn’t bother trying it again this time.

There are some pre-made yogurt parfaits that look quite delicious in the chilled glass, as well as a make your own yogurt bar with berries, granola, etc. There’s also smoked salmon with various toppings available. I’m not a huge smoked salmon fan and while the yogurt looked good there were more pressing things on my agenda for food!

There’s also a selection of pastries. I’m a sucker for carbs so I grabbed a cheddar biscuit and a chocolate croissant. They were both good, but honestly I wish I had passed because the best thing ever was still to come.

The last item on the buffet was actually more of a dessert item so we actually had it after our main meal. It’s the California Grill Bourbon Baba, which is a sort of bourbon cake that was served with bourbon orange ice cream and a cornflake crunch. This was one of the most delicious things I’ve ever tasted.  Sweet but not overly sweet, warm cake and cool ice cream, delicious orange flavor. I wish I’d saved more room so I could have a second of these. I think I could go to brunch here and just drink bellinis and eat this baba and feel like I got my money’s worth.

For my main entree I went with the lobster omelette (Lobster – Herb Crème Fraîche, Tomatoes, Midnight Moon Goat Cheese).  I mean, I feel like if I’m spending that much money on brunch and there’s lobster on the menu, I’m getting it! I had gotten the lobster eggs benedict last time so I went with the omelette this time. It was stuffed full of meaty lobster, and the herb creme fraiche was extremely delicious. It was served with potatoes but I didn’t really touch them.

One of my friends got the Shakshuka (Tunisian-style Stewed Piquillo Pepper and Tomato Sauce, House-made Vegan Meatball, Organic Egg, House Pita). This is a good vegetarian option and it was really tasty! I had never heard of it before but the flavors were rich and a bit spicy – a very Mexican feel to it.

This is no longer on the menu so I’m not 100% sure what it was called, but my understanding was it was a kind of a dutch baby pancake.  I think this was good but not great – we are from Pennsylvania so we’re pretty familiar with PA Dutch food!

Finally we were brought dessert, which was a plate of goodies! There were macarons, chocolates, and a few different cakes/pastries. We nibbled at a few things and ultimately look a box for the rest of it.  I had some of the other pastries for breakfast the next morning!

We left stuffed and satisfied. When you dine at California Grill you also have the option to come back in the evening with your receipt and watch the fireworks from the balcony. We had talked about doing that, but when the time came we were rather tired that night and decided to stick around the Boardwalk, where we were staying. But if you’re interested in a great, different view of the fireworks (with the music piped in) that’s another perk of this meal!

Would you be interested in California Grill Brunch at the Top? What would you most want to eat?