Jiko - The Cooking Place is a fine dining experience serving a blend of traditional African, Indian and Mediterranean cuisine located at Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge - Jambo House. This was probably one of the best meals I've had in my life.
✅ Food is phenomenal
✅ Service is phenomenal
✅ Ambience is phenomenal
🥩 Only real criticism is that the popular filet is quite a small cut of steak
The restaurant is beautiful and hosts large brick oven-fire ovens. Our server told us each element of the restaurant design has its own story, and there's so much to look over. A lot of effort truly went into the construction of this restaurant. When you visit, ask your server to point out a few details!
Our server introduced himself and brought us some hot towels to clean up. At this point, we ordered some drinks. While Jiko has the largest selection of South African wines outside of South Africa, we're not huge wine drinkers, we stuck to the delicious Kungaloosh beer that's brewed just for Walt Disney World only sold in here, Nomad Lounge, and Skipper Canteen.
To start we ordered the Wild Boar Tenderloin and the Duck Confit Flatbread. Afterwards, our server brought over the bread service.
The giraffe bread was absolutely beautiful, as was the accompanying Jiko butter and black salt. The other item was the Egyptian flatbread, which tasted sort of like pitta bread, which was good as well. Our server offered us more but we didn't want to fill up too much on bread.
Braaied Wild Boar Tenderloin.
Duck Confit and Honey-Raisin Flatbread.
Cocoa-crusted Venison Loin.
Oak-grilled Filet Mignon.
Everything we had above was absolutely delicious. The filet is a bit small, but all the dishes had such unique flavours. The duck flatbread in particular was incredible. Such a delightful mix of honey, cheese, and perfectly crisp dough. The boar and tenderloin were incredible as well, and not usually meats we go for but they were beautiful.
We were too full for any dessert, but as it was my other half's birthday, our server brought us over a little happy birthday treat.
We did finish with a couple of Zebratini cocktails instead of a full dessert. And as if the meal couldn't get any better, these cocktails were divine!
This was an incredible meal that lasted about 2 and a half hours. Our server was phenomenal and was probably one of the best servers we've ever had at Walt Disney World. He told us to take our time and enjoy the flavours as there was no rush and kept our drinks topped up through the whole night.
This was probably the closest thing you can get to a perfect meal. The food was all stunning, the service excellent, and the restaurant its ambience was beautiful. The only real dig I can give it is that for $54 - as nice as it is - you get quite a small cut of filet. I'm not expecting a 20oz slab of course, but it was definitely on the skimpy side.
The meal cost $230 before tip, but we did have 4 beers between us and the after-dinner cocktails. Not cheap by any stretch of the imagination, but it was a phenomenal meal and a great fine dining experience that included unique and delicious dishes. The food here is better than California Grill, and although there are no fireworks viewing, when comparing food and ambience alone, Jiko wins. We will absolutely be back here for our next trip, and I'm already looking forward to it.
Food 5/5
Service 5/5
Experience 5/5
Overall 5/5
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