When deciding on dining while planning a trip to Walt Disney World you may be wondering what the difference between some of the sit down restaurants are. Some restaurants that are labeled Signature Dining, this means the meal is more upscale as well as the environment. This also means that if you’re on the Disney Dining Plan then you will be using two dining credits for those meals.
One of those restaurants can be found at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge. Jiko — The Cooking Place is located in the Jambo House building next to BOMA. This restaurant has an open kitchen for where they prepare some of the appetizers and fire the bread. It’s also is home to the largest collection of South African wine in the US and also has the largest hidden Mickey on property.
On the menu here we have three appetizers to choose from, one entree, and one dessert. They also have an extensive loose leaf tea list which is where I picked my drink for the evening. It comes with its own pot so you can replenish your cup during your meal. The Mountain Berry was a great option for me. It smelled as great as it tasted with fruity notes throughout.
We ordered each appetizer to try. First was the Jiko Salad. This salad had a nice sweet citrus vinaigrette which also contained baobab in it! I thought this was a cool fun ingredient and also can’t say I’d eaten baobab before. The salad also had Pepitas, oranges, and pomegranate seeds. This was a really great salad in terms of flavors and textures. Plus the plating was absolutely beautiful.
Next on the appetizer list was the White Bean Soup. This dish was fun, they bring out the bowl with just the endive, pickled caulini, sweety drop peppers, and puffed rice. Then they pour the white bean soup out into the bowl. Another stunning presentation and delicious flavor. The soup was nice and creamy and had a strong flavor of the white beans, which I really enjoyed. The parts that were in the bowl pre soup were really good and added a nice texture. Plus I love sweety drop peppers and more places need to use those.
The last appetizer was the Sakuma Wiki Dumplings. I was most excited to try these as they sounded delicious. They were filled with cashew cheese, pickled veggies, and were in a mushroom broth. The dough was mixed with greens as well which gave it a very earthy greens taste, but with the creamy cashew cheese inside it was a perfect blend. We loved all of these appetizers, I would get each of these again.
The entree here is an Ethiopian inspired Injera Basket. This entree comes with three seasonal stews, a basket of Injera bread, and more. Ours had a lentil stew, greens and mushroom stew, and a chickpea stew. Out of the three, my favorite was the greens, especially with some of the harissa with it on the bread. It had a nice smoky flavor and I just loved stewed greens.
The lentil stew was very similar to a dal and was very good. The chickpea one was pretty sweet and not my preference. We also had a tomato and onion salad and then candied kumquats. The tomato onion salad was good, but those candied kumquats were very tart and not a texture my friend nor I enjoyed.
The bread seemed pretty steamed and not as firm as it should be for it being a handheld vessel, but it was a great flavor and offered a strong hold for the stews, you just couldn’t use it to scoop up the stews. The entree was good, but not as good as the appetizers.
Last was dessert, which could only be described as interesting. The vegan dessert is called Dumela and it features a chocolate sorbet, hibiscus cake, passion fruit sauce, mango salsa, and a lime-chocolate soil.
Separated, these components were good and bad. The chocolate-lime soil was more noticeable of the lime flavor on its own, but not when you ate it all together. It did add a fun texture though with the crumbles. The most off putting part was the chocolate sorbet.
The sorbet was very bitter dark chocolate tasting and just weird on its own. It had some strong earthy flavor to it that we couldn’t really pinpoint. When you had it with the cake and the passion fruit sauce it was really good because of the sweetness. I kept eating this dessert trying to figure out if I liked it or not, however, my friend decided she very much did not like it after several unsure bites. It was a stunning dessert, but I think most people wouldn’t enjoy this. I applaud the creativity but I need more of the passion fruit sauce to say I liked it.
After our meal our server brought us these little pineapple gummies. She did say they use pectin for them and not gelatin, so that was a fun little treat after our meal!
As a whole this meal was really enjoyable and I left so incredibly full. The appetizers were the star of the meal for us. The entree was enjoyable but not amazing, and the dessert was … unique. If you’re looking for a fun meal for your next trip that is a true culinary adventure I do recommend eating here. The food was all beautifully presented and absolutely had lots of thought behind the dishes. This was a great improvement since my last visit here (in 2015!).
Price $$$$
Review from April 2024.
