Tony’s Town Square: A Disney Nerd’s Perspective

In a recent family trip to Walt Disney World, myself, my wife and our two teenage children, 18 and 16 were in a store on Main Street. The one with all the purses that also has the Pandora counter. We were all getting a little grumpy because it was past lunch time and we hadn’t had anything to eat yet that day. We are a family that usually sticks to counter service meals and that’s fine for us. That Day it was hot out and I decided to try to find someplace that we could sit down and enjoy a meal in the air conditioning. With my phone in hand, I opened the My Disney Experience app and searched for possible dining options. There were actually a few options available but the one with the soonest availability was the one sit down restaurant in The Magic Kingdom that we had never tried. Tony’s Town Square, so I went ahead and grabbed the reservation that was just about 15 minutes in the future.

I have been around the Disney fan community, reading blogs, listening to other podcasts and participating in Disney messaging boards since about 2006. I have never heard anything really good said about Tony’s so it had never been on my list of places to try. Well just two nights prior to this I ran into a friend from of the Disney Facebook groups I am in and he had just eaten at Tony’s and told me there was a new chef. He told me they had a brand new sauce and now served fresh pasta made in house but he still wasn’t too impressed.

We walked into the building which I had been in a couple of times before because that’s where the Magic Kingdom tours begin. We checked in and waited to be seated. Although I had been in the building before I don’t remember how beautiful it is inside there.

They called our name to be seated and escorted us to our table which was right inside of the main dining room.  I was pretty much in a little awe of the place, with the Lady and Tramp pictures on the walls, the black and white checkered floor tiles, the white tablecloths.  The wait staff that were dressed much nicer than you would expect in a theme park.

They gave us menus and our waiter took our drink order.  The menus seemed to be what you would expect at any hometown Italian restaurant. After the waiter brought our drinks we were not quite ready to order but I did ask him to bring us calamari as an appetizer and they also brought out some bread with olive oil to dip.  When he brought our appetizer and bread we were ready to order lunch.  Me and my wife decided to share a Caesar salad and also split the Italian Trio which consisted of, meatball with sauce and pasta, Chicken Parmesan and Fettuccini Alfredo. My son got the Chicken Alfredo and my daughter got spaghetti and meatball from the kid’s menu.

Let me say that overall I was wowed by the quality and flavors of the meal as a whole at Tony’s Town Square.

The calamari was very good, fried crispy but the inside had a great texture and not rubbery at all. To me, the Caesar salad was the highlight of the meal.  The crisp lettuce, shaved cheese, and crunchy croutons made this the best Caesar salad I have ever had. The meatball was very well seasoned and was also very good with the pasta and sauce, I am not a huge fan of cream sauces but the Alfredo sauce was very good as well as the chicken parmesan. Another highlight to all the dishes was the pasta.  You could certainly tell it was freshly made and it was cooked perfectly for my taste.  I’d like to tell you how awesome the desert was but we were all way too full to have tried any.

I guess if you take anything away from this post it should be to go out and try these places yourself.  Don’t take all the reviews too seriously because a lot of the people who write those reviews take themselves too seriously.   Another thought is that Chef’s and menus change over time.  So if you tried it 10 years ago, good chance that place has a new menu.  Give these places a shot for yourself! Even had our food been mediocre, I would still not have regretted dining there, just the ambiance was worth the price of admission.

Kwaherini

For the Free Dining Package, contact Jimmy Horne at Once Upon a Time Travel. He is the official travel agent of The Disney Nerds Podcast.

Tony’s Town Square