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My family loves visiting Busch Gardens theme park any time of the year. You can see why in our Busch Gardens Guide.
But one time that is particularly special is when they are having their Food and Wine Festival. And luckily, the Food & Wine Festival is going on right now! In fact, it will still be going on weekends (Thursday through Sunday) through June 11, 2023. So there is still time to try it.
How the festival works is that there are special booths set up throughout the park. They have different themes, mostly to different locations. This includes areas of America (like Virginia, Hawaii, or the French Quarter). Or it could be a different country, like Japan, Jamaica, or Mexico. You can read more about the festival in depth in our Food & Wine Festival Guide.
One of the booths my family likes, in particular, is Italy. We want to tell you about the food & drinks available there, what our favorites were, and how you can save money there.
Food & Drinks
The shining start of the Italy menu is actually an item that is brand new to the Food & Wine Festival, and that is the Giant Meatball. This is a very popular item. Usually if you see a long line for a booth at these festivals it’s for the drinks. But most of the people in line with me were talking about getting the meatball. And right as I got up to get the meatball, they ran out and I had to wait until more were ready.
But it was worth it.
The Giant Meatball is comprised of (what else?) a meatball but also marinara sauce and shaved asiago cheese. And it was cooked just right: not too spicy and not too hard. The meat with the sauce tasted so great together. The tastes complimented each other perfectly. Once again, it was worth the wait.
Another menu item we liked was the Sundried Tomato Alfredo.
This Fettucinni Alfredo dish consists of house-made pasta, spinach, kalamata olives, and sundried tomato alfredo. One thing we really liked about this dish is that they were not shy at all with the cheese. And that was great.
If we had a complaint, though, it would be that we wish there had been more olives. But otherwise, we liked this dish.
Another dish we liked was the Caprese. The menu said it was Fresh mozzarella, tomatoes, basil pesto, and a Balsamic Glaze.
This is a small dish but it is really good. I especially liked the tomatoes. They were quite delicious.
And you can’t talk about the food without mentioning the dessert. In this case, it is the Lemon Ricotta Cake.
The Lemon Ricotta Cake was really great. It was sort of like pound cake with a lemon zest twist. And the almonds added a delightful crunch to the dish.
So there is definitely a lot of good food available at the Food & Wine Festival. But what about the, well, wine?
Well, luckily, that was great, too! The best is the Tormaresca Chardonnay.
How to Save Money
Well, first of all, in order to attend the Food & Wine Festival, you will need a ticket to Busch Gardens. If you don’t already have a ticket, then check out this Busch Gardens Guide to find out how to get cheap tickets.
But if you want to save money on the food and drink items available at Italy, you could purchase a Food & Wine Festival Sampler Lanyard. You may or may not save money by purchasing this: we discuss the pros and cons of buying the lanyard here.
