What to Order at Jaleo at Disney Springs

I have been eagerly waiting for the opening of Jaleo at Disney Springs and am so happy to see it finally open! We visited for the first time last month and tried so many of the delicious tapas options. This review contains food pictures and my thoughts on whether Jaleo is worth going to over other Disney Springs restaurants.

To start off, I will say that I loved this restaurant and think it’s a great addition to Disney Springs. It is extremely different from any of the other restaurants here though, and I think it’s important to know what to expect. It’s considered a signature dining experience and a lot of the food is pretty exotic. However, we dined here with a party of seven all with varying tastes and everyone enjoyed it! Because of this, I think most people will like it as well.

Location and Atmosphere

Jaleo at Disney Springs is located right across from Splitsville and the Orange Garage in the West End of Disney Springs. It is where the old Wolfgang Puck restaurant used to be. You really can’t miss it with its sprawling roof meant to resemble an artichoke. There is some seating outside, but most of the action occurs inside the restaurant.

The restaurant is extremely ornate with tall ceilings, an open kitchen and an upstairs dining area. You could say the design is funky with lots of red and yellow throughout and a giant mirrored chandelier. My favorite part was the giant mural along the stairs displaying a famous beach in Spain with a red chandelier inserted into the picture. It made me very excited for our upcoming trip to Barcelona!

The upstairs was still in works, but they did let us go up and take a few pictures. Our table of seven sat downstairs, near the far side of the bar. We were also relatively close to the, what became an inside joke, “wall meat”. Basically there is a pretty small display of hanging pig legs and what not, as to resemble a Spanish market place. We were not offended by this, but I know it was a big turn off for some vegetarian Disney bloggers. Keep this in mind if you don’t want to see it during dinner.

We had a 6:30 reservation and the restaurant was about half full at this point. Since they have only been open for a month, it doesn’t appear too hard to get a table even without a reservation at the moment. With Disney though, it’s never a bad idea to have one, especially if you have a big group.

What We Ordered

Between the seven of us, we shared the following dishes. I came armed with a list of what to order and only made a few changes. I would recommend doing something similar, because with over sixty items to choose from, it can get overwhelming!

• $19 Selection of Three Quesos (Cheese)
  • Rey Silo Blanco-Cow milk cheese with honey, rosemary and almond shortbread
  • Caña de Cabra-Semi-sweet goat milk cheese with a rosemary cracker and fig jam
  • Queso Manchengo-Traditional Manchengo with apples
• $45 Selección de ibéricos-Ham, sausage, chorizo and cured sausage with little bread croutons
• $20 Gin and Tonic Oysters (5)
• $9 Escalivada Catalana – Roasted red peppers, eggplant, onion and toasted bread
• $12.50 Croquetas de pollo-Chicken croquettes (2 orders of 5)
• $10 Patatas Bravas- Roasted potatoes in tomato sauce and aioli
• $18 Bikini de jamon con queso Manchengo- Mini ham and cheese sandwiches (2 orders of 3)
• $69 Secreto Iberico Bellota Con Pan Con Tomate y Salsa Verde- Skirt steak from a pig with sauce and tomato covered bread
• $25 Arroz de Verduras y Setas de Temporada- Vegetable Paella

This ended up being eleven dishes for seven people. They recommend two to three dishes per person but the last two are considered large plates. It came to a total or $309 after the 18% tip added for a party of six or more and tax and before our drinks. We left very full and were barely able to finish the paella.

My Thoughts on the Appetizers at Jaleo

Overall everything was delicious! The meal started out excellently with all our starters. They brought the cheese, meat, vegetables and oysters out shortly after we ordered. The oysters were crazy flavorful and probably the best I have had, although I will say they were on the very small side.

The meat and cheese were both a good size for the price. Everyone loved the selection of meat, especially the thin sliced Paletilla Ibérica de Bellota. I do have a few gripes about the service and one of them was the up-selling. On my list, I had planned to order the $14 serving of just the ham, because I knew it looked like a hit from online. The waiter however insisted we order the $45 Selección de Ibéricos.

If you don’t know what iberico means, you are not alone, as I didn’t either. It’s a type of ham from Black Iberian pigs that are free-range and only eat acorns. Apparently this makes them taste really good, and I can confirm, it was out of this world. You see iberico on eleven items on the menu, so it gets confusing! Anyways I didn’t realize he was trying to get us to order the most expensive appetizer on the menu, because there were so many similar menu items. This was the only upsell I was okay with because it was still nice to have a selection of different meats and the mini crouton things.

As for the cheese, this was one area that half of our party did not love. Everyone agreed that the Manchengo and all the accompaniments were fantastic. However, a few found the other two cheeses to be a bit too tangy and potent. If you aren’t a fan of goat cheese, then you might want to stay away from the cheese plate. I am a lover of all cheeses though and was blown away by the quality of these. Shockingly, the veggie platter was a beloved choice with everyone finding the veggies to be a nice compliment to the meat and cheese

My Thoughts on the Jaleo Tapas Items

After the initial appetizers, our orders started coming out randomly. We pretty much always had some dish on the table. First up was the chicken croquettes which are kind of like mozzarella sticks with chicken inside.

Apparently Jose Andres serves these inside a shoe at his other restaurants. It’s a joke between him and his grandmother because she told him to keep his shoes off the table and this is her famous croquettes recipes. He wanted to make a special way to present them at Disney World, so he decided to make a little pillow like Cinderella’s glass slipper was on. We all found it to be a strange presentation but the croquettes were really good! The waiter later told us that the staff likes them ham ones better than the chicken we ordered and I could see that from a texture point.

Then we got two of our favorites of the meal-the potatoes and the mini ham and manchengo sandwiches. This is an understatement of both items as the potatoes are perfectly roasted in a delectable sauce. The “sandwiches” on the other hand are kind of like crostini’s as it is crispy bread stuffed with succulent ham and a sharp Manchengo. I could have eaten a whole plate of these to myself!

From here, we were planning to order a serving of paella and the $15 Carne Asada with piquillo peppers. I think that would have been the perfect amount of food. Unfortunately, the waiter talked me into literally the second most expensive thing on the menu, the $69 ham skirt steak. It was the same thing as before as I thought he was referring to the $28 iberico tenderloin. When I saw it served with the additional tomato bread, I knew I had messed up.

The good thing about this dish is its a pretty good amount of meat with the $12 tomato bread. So maybe we could have used that $15 steak dish and the bread, but still this was much more than necessary. And it wasn’t even close to my favorite thing. That skirt steak had a unique flavor, but was a bit too fatty for my liking.

Lastly, we finished with the vegetable paella. Jaleo serves two to three types of paella each night. On this night they had the vegetable and then the classic with chicken and rabbit. None of us are into rabbit so we went with the vegetable and wow, it was amazing! It was seriously the best of any other paella we had before and was more like a risotto than that dry yellow rice you usually see. They say this takes up to forty-five minutes to prepare and to order it early, but we ordered it half way through and it came out before we had finished the skirt steak.

The Drinks at Jaleo

With so much food, I almost forgot to mention the drinks! You will definitely want to try at least one here. With seven of us, we got to experience a variety of drinks.

A few of us got the $14 Salt Air Margarita. This contains Milagro Blanco Tequila, Combier Liquer (triple sec), and a salty foam instead of a salt rim. We found this to be a sweeter than expected, but still very tasty and interesting, mainly because of the foam. If you don’t like sweet drinks though, I wouldn’t recommend this one, even though our waiter said it was not sweet.

Andrew got the best drink in my opinion. It was the Doesn’t Take an Empire Gin and Tonic. This had an amazing blend of Fords gin, Indian tonic, two kinds of bitters, lemon and orange. It was also $14, but a larger serving than the margarita and soooo flavorful. This would be my recommendation!

I know someone ordered a sangria and I believe a few other cocktails were ordered. Everyone was happy with their drinks, but still felt they were a couple dollars overpriced. I personally like the drinks at Frontera Cocina better. When Andrew and I finished our cocktails, we each got an $8 Alhambra Spanish Lager. This was very clean and refreshing. The waiter tried to get convince me to order the $22 Shandy served in a porro, which is like a pitcher with a spout to drink from. I finally realized at this point that he kept overselling and was not tricked with this! The pushiness was really the only downside of this dinner.

The Rest of The Menu At Jaleo at Disney Springs

Believe it or not, there were still dozens of things that we did not order! Besides the oysters, we did not get any seafood, because we had a couple non-fish eaters with us. The seafood options are pretty adventurous, with options like head-on shrimp, octopus, and squid sofrito.

The salads are another thing we did not try and there were six options. They all sound like a lovely mix of ingredients, but seem kind of difficult to eat with a tapas style meal. If you are a vegetarian, I would recommend getting one of these, the potatoes, the cheese plate, and the vegetable paella. There are surprisingly a lot of vegetarian tapas options for a place with meat hanging on the wall! However, many of the items have cheese, so there are very few vegan options.

There are four other large plate options besides the skirt steak one we got. Judging from the size of ours, if you are just a couple dining, you could split a large plate and one or two apps, and be plenty full! If you really want to go all out, you can get the Jaleo tasting experience. They offer a $70 per person and a $110 per person options, where you get to try ten and thirteen different small plates respectively and a few desserts. That would definitely be a splurge worthy meal to remember!

As usual, I never really get desserts at Disney Springs restaurants, but there was an interesting selection. This included olive oil ice cream, flan, and pan con chocolate. As for the kids’ menu, it’s pretty much just tapas options that they think kids will like such as the croquetas, the little ham and cheese sandwiches, a mini burger made out of the iberico pig meat and the fried potatoes. I can’t imagine many children liking these options or parents wanting to pay the high price of them. Jaleo is definitely best for an adult meal, especially considering all the other kid friendly spots at Disney Springs.

What I Would Order Next Time at Jaleo at Disney Springs

This may seem excessive for a restaurant, but if you aren’t familiar with tapas like us, then it can definitely be a confusing experience. I read multiple reviews before going and came with a list and still had a difficult time ordering! If money is no object, then you can just go off you waiters suggestions, but I can only imagine how expensive that would get.

We were pretty happy with our dinner, but there are still a few things I would change. Here’s what I would order next time if I had a group of six or seven people, with a few of the things we got this time crossed out ad replacements.

• $19 Selection of Three Quesos (Cheese)
  • Rey Silo blanco-Cow milk cheese with honey, rosemary and almond shortbread
  • Caña de Cabra-Semi-sweet goat milk cheese with a rosemary cracker and fig jam
  • Queso Manchengo-Traditional Manchengo with apples
• $45 Selección de ibéricos-Ham, sausage, chorizo and cured sausage with little bread croutons
• $20 Gin and Tonic Oysters (5)
• $9 Escalivada Catalana – Roasted red peppers, eggplant, onion and toasted bread
• $12.50 Croquetas de pollo-Chicken croquettes (2 orders of 5)
• $10 Patatas Bravas- Roasted potatoes in tomato sauce and aioli
• $18 Bikini de Jamon con Queso Manchengo- Mini ham and cheese sandwiches (2 orders of 3)
• $69 Secreto Iberico Bellota Con Pan Con Tomate y Salsa Verde- Skirt steak from a pig with sauce and tomato covered bread
• $18 Carne Asada con Piquillos- Flat iron steak with peppers
• $12 Pan de Cristal con Tomate – Crispy bread topped with tomato
• $25 Arroz de Verduras y Setas de Temporada- Vegetable Paella

This would have made the meal a much more manageable $240 after mandatory tip (before drinks), that I think would have been more reasonable. The oysters were good, but were a minuscule portion for the price. $30 for the carne asada and the tomato bread would have been preferable to the $69 skirt steak and tomato bread, especially since the portions would be similar. I think most groups would be happy with these items and I recommend following a similar list for a group of five to seven people with a moderate appetite.

Now if just Andrew and I were going for a date night, I would be tempted to do the $70 tasting each, so we could try the same amount of food, but not have so much of it. However, if you are a couple on a budget, I think this list would suffice:

• $14 Jamon Serrano – 24-month cured serrano ham
• $9 Escalivada Catalana – Roasted red peppers, eggplant, onion and toasted bread
• $12.50 Croquetas de pollo-Chicken croquettes
• $10 Patatas Bravas- Roasted potatoes in tomato sauce and aioli
• $18 Carne Asada con Piquillos- Flat iron steak with peppers
• $25 Arroz de Verduras y Setas de Temporada- Vegetable Paella

That’s looking at about $90 before tip for two people, and you could live without either the patatas or the roasted veggies, if you wanted to take another $10 off. That would be a satisfying selection for a date night. If you are still hungry, you can always add more, or go somewhere else at Disney Springs later for a snack!

Know Before You Go

I hope this post has not intimidated anyone, because I think Jaelo is a unique spot that brings a lot to Disney Springs! This really expanded our culinary horizons and has me feeling more confident about ordering food in Barcelona. We certainly did not know about the acorn-eating Iberico pigs before we came here, and now I’ve seen multiple menus for Barcelona restaurants mentioning it! If you are a tapas fan already, you will love this place, and if not, just heed my advice and try it out!

• Jaleo at Disney Springs is open for lunch from 11:30 AM – 3:55 PM and dinner from 4 PM – 11 PM, and the menu is the same all day.
• You may want to make a reservation here, up to 180 days in advance.
• The restaurant is located on the West Side at Disney Springs and is closest to the Orange Garage.
• Seating is mainly inside with a small section outside.
• You do not need a park ticket or hotel reservation to dine here and parking is free.
• Jaleo is part of the Disney Dining Plan and costs two table service credits. These credits entitle you to one alcoholic beverage under $25, two regular tapas or one plated dish or one tapas for two dish or one paella, and one dessert.

Are you going to visit Jaleo at Disney Springs? I know it has some tough competition, but add it to your Disney Dining bucket list! For more tips on where to eat at Disney Springs, check out my best restaurants guide here!