Traditional-african-dishes

Jiko – The Cooking Place is one of Walt Disney Animal Kingdom Lodge’s table service restaurants and a favorite place for Walt Disney World Connoisseurs, who enjoy traditional cooked food.. Jiko, which is Swahili for “the cooking place,” makes making its African and African-infused meals central to the Walt-Disney experience.

Jiko’s dining area encircles the large cooking area, a show kitchen which consists of two large wood-burning ovens and a grill area. The set-up allows guests to watch cooks prepare meals and be surrounded the smell of freshly prepared food. It’s a heady and rich sensory experience, particularly for omnivores.

Jiko

Disney’s Jiko offers African cuisine to create international menu

Jiko draws on various regional cooking to create its international menu. The menu reveals not only traditional African food, but the influence of Indian, Mediterranean and American cuisine.

Jiko offers sophisticated vegan and vegetarian dishes with nuanced flavors – a pleasure for vegetarians whose meals are sometimes afterthoughts – with ingredients like tofu, squash, curried vegetable, quinoa, wheat berries, and maize.

Appetizers and first-course options provide a filling selection of vegan/vegetarian salads and soups with ingredients that tend to balance both citrus and nutty flavors.

Note: When making advance dining reservations, at a Disney table-service restaurant, vegans and vegetarians should note their diet. Disney can accommodate most requests.

At Jiko in particularly, guests should both add the note to their ADRs and ask their servers for the restaurant's separate, generally unpublicized menu for vegetarians.

This menu includes dishes on the general menu as well as other options, and identifies which dishes are vegan.

Disney’s Animal Kingdom

Perhaps ironically given its location near Disney’s Animal Kingdom theme park, though, Jiko’s true focus is on meat, poultry, and seafood entrées.

The menu changes regularly, but chicken, beef, lamb, pork, and shrimp are featured.

Guest favorites, which make consistent appearances, include BBQ braised short ribs, an oak-grilled filet mignon in a red-wine sauce, chermola-roasted chilcken, and curry shrimp.

Jiko’s spices and nuanced flavors – including garlic, curries, coconut, pumpkin, lemon, and various curries – are also found in the appetizers and sides.

Chutneys, lentils, couscous, and rice accompany the entrées, along with stand-bys like potatoes and macaroni and cheese.

A selection of tasty deserts, including pistachio crème brulee, lemon-white chocolate mouse with blueberry coulis, and roasted apple tarte tartin all reflect Jiko’s emphasis on fruits, nuts, and spices.

A variety of African wine, beer and drink selections, as well as other choices, is available to complement the meals and desserts.

Jiko is knowledgeable

Service at Jiko is knowledgeable and attentive, without being overbearing.

Servers can help guide guests through the African menu and wine list, as well as assist guests with allergies and other dietary restrictions.

A Signature Dining experience, Jiko is one of the few restaurants at Walt Disney World with a dress code. (Dress codes, Disney style, are still very casual, with sports coats options.)

The dress code befits the atmosphere of the restaurant and the quality of the dining experience!

Cooking Place

Jiko – the Cooking Place serves dinner only.

Advance Dining Reservations can be made online or at 407-WDW-DINE (407-939-3463).

Guests with the dietary concerns – for instance food allergies or, as noted above, those who are vegetarians or vegans – should provide that information when booking and inform their servers.

Jiko, the best site for Disney World BBQ?

With its emphasis on wood-burning ovens and slow-cooked meats, Jiko is a frontrunner for the informal designation of Walt Disney World’s “Best Barbecue" with its BBQ-braised beef short ribs.

That’s a bold claim, especially given people have distinct preferences for barbecue sauces, meats, and meat and sauce preparations, and that Disney itself doesn’t market its BBQ offerings.

With so many Disney restaurants specializing in the omnivore experience, and in beef in particular, Jiko may have some stiff competition – including its sister restaurants Boma, AKL’s buffet restaurant, and Sanaa, in AKL’s Kidani Village.

Boma, in particular, offers a selection of hand-carved meats and sauces, BBQ like the Tamarind BBQ sauce or Coca-Cola BBQ sauce, to sample and salivate over.

Of course, making such a bold claim about Best Barbecue invites readers to weigh in with their preferences and nominations.

Where is the best barbecue in Walt Disney World and what makes it so? Feel free to share comments and suggestions as well as future Disney Dining Recommendations for those of us whose goals is to eat our way around the World!

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