California Grill
California Grill is a signature table-service restaurant on the 15th floor of Disney's Contemporary Resort at Walt Disney World. It serves contemporary American cooking with strong Californian influences, centred on seasonal ingredients, sushi and dishes from an open show kitchen. It is best known outside the food itself for its panoramic view across Seven Seas Lagoon to Magic Kingdom, and for seatings timed to the park's nightly fireworks, whose music is played into the restaurant.
History
A restaurant has occupied the top floor of the Contemporary since the resort opened with Walt Disney World in 1971. The original occupant was Top of the World, a dinner-and-entertainment venue that offered two dinner and dancing shows a night with headline performers. In 1981 it was reformatted as Broadway at the Top, built around popular show tunes. Top of the World closed in the early 1990s as tastes and Disney's own dining ambitions changed.
California Grill opened in its place in 1995. The change was more than a new menu: the room was redesigned, an on-stage kitchen was put at its centre, and the cooking shifted to fresh, seasonal dishes prepared in view of diners. At the time the concept was considered cutting edge for a theme-park resort, and the restaurant is widely credited, alongside Victoria & Albert's at Disney's Grand Floridian Resort & Spa, with establishing serious fine dining as part of a Walt Disney World holiday. It quickly became a destination for local diners as well as resort guests.
The restaurant closed in February 2013 for its first major redesign. It reopened on 9 September 2013 with a mid-century modern interior inspired by Californian design of the 1950s and 1960s, new communal tables, a large wine display, artwork influenced by Imagineer Mary Blair, whose tile mosaic dominates the Contemporary's concourse below, and two outdoor viewing decks, one on the north side and one on the south. The show kitchen was retained but largely re-equipped. For Walt Disney World's 50th anniversary in 2021 the restaurant temporarily offered a special celebration menu drawing on dishes from its earlier years.
Setting
Guests check in on a lower floor and are taken by dedicated lift to the 15th floor. The dining room wraps around the top of the A-frame tower, with floor-to-ceiling glass on the Magic Kingdom side. Most tables have some view of Seven Seas Lagoon, Bay Lake or the park, and the two exterior decks allow diners to step outside between courses or for the fireworks. Inside, the open kitchen forms one side of the room, with counter seating for guests who want to watch the chefs at work. Two private dining rooms, named for the Californian wine regions of Sonoma and Napa, are used for groups and special events.
The fireworks are an organised part of the evening rather than an accident of timing. Lights are dimmed, the show's soundtrack is piped in, and guests who ate earlier in the evening have traditionally been allowed to return to the decks for that night's performance on production of their receipt.
Cuisine
The menu changes with the seasons and has, over the years, combined sushi prepared by specialist chefs, oak-fired steaks and seafood, flatbreads from a wood-burning oven, and Californian-inflected starters built around market produce. Dishes most associated with the restaurant in its earlier years included a tamarind-glazed barbecue beef fillet and an onion-cheese pull-apart bread served at the start of the meal; the 2013 reopening menu leaned lighter, adding items such as baked local prawns and wild salmon with sweetcorn pudding. A large Californian-led wine list, displayed in the entrance wall of glass, has been a feature since the redesign. Dessert has often played on the view and the occasion, and the restaurant also hosts ticketed celebration events in its private rooms on selected nights.