Wolfgang Puck Cafe -- Table Service -- Lunch/Dinner -- Downtown Disney

*This dining experience took place in December 2012.

Interior Wolfgang Puck Cafe

There are those experiences that remind me just how much I appreciate WDW owned restaurants and chefs. The level of accommodation and willingness to customize dishes make WDW owned restaurants in a class all by themselves and their chefs are rock stars in my opinion. Unfortunately, Wolfgang Puck Cafe, a non-Disney owned restaurant, did not even come close to meeting these expectations I've come to know and love at WDW. It's unfortunate too because I would have thought they would be able to customize and work with me like some of the other DTD restaurants like Raglan Road (a gluten free haven!) or even have some good options like its counterpart Wolfgang Puck Express. Lesson learned--this is not a restaurant for me and I should stick with Raglan Road, Cooke's of Dublin or Babycakes or stear clear of DTD restaurants altogether.I know that some of folks may have had great experiences at this location, and perhaps in the future I'll try it again, but it will be a while. A long while. I think my biggest disappointment was that there were very little options for gluten free/dairy free (gluten free is a little easier but not much).When we arrived, we were actually seated by a manager (it was a slower time of day too) and he said the chef would come out to talk to me. The chef I met wasn't overly enthused. Not one appetizer was deemed safe and almost all of the entrees were out. He said I could have GF pasta, but generally I avoid it at restaurants having been cross contaminated by it more times than I can count (and since it wasn't a Disney owned restaurants, I didn't want to take a chance). I was also concerned because he kept telling me Alfredo sauce was safe for dairy free. Yikes!!! That's like the worse sauce possible for dairy free. No way Jose! Basically, after a lot of talking, the only thing we could agree that would be safe would be salads. Unfortunately, I have to be really careful with salad because of Crohn's disease, so I was not too keen on this. I was half on the fence of just leaving and going somewhere else, but decided to try to order it with extra protein and not eat as many of the greens.So weird thing, the cobb salad dressing was not safe, nor was any other salad dressing according to the chef. He told me I could have oil and vinegar. It always surprises me when chefs can't whip up a salad dressing. Um, guys it's the easiest thing to do in about 5 minutes! But I digress. So we went with the cobb salad with no blue cheese but extra protein and oil and vinegar. Not exactly what I wanted to order and at $15 it was not a very cheap or very filling salad even with the extra protein. Plus, I'd had the cobb salad from Brown Derby this past month and it put this one to shame. Same price, tons of flavor and toppings (I adored the avocado puree) and an actual cobb salad dressing! Plus it was chopped so finely that it was much easier for me to digest (a win for me with a salad). The one from Wolfgang Puck was very chunky and even with extra protein was very minimal in its amount of toppings. It felt like something you would order at a fast food restaurant. Not at all what I expected from this restaurant.

Not the best salad I've ever had

Overall, I would not come back here. I had hopes that because of their location at Disney that they might be more accommodating, but it didn't work out for me on this visit. It was disappointing, but a real lesson learned. I give this a 4 out of 10.