Toothsome Chocolate Emporium Review: A Late Reservation Tests the Steampunk Icon’s Table Service
We visited Toothsome Chocolate Emporium and Savory Feast Kitchen for a meal after the theme parks closed. This Toothsome Chocolate Emporium review covers a 9:15 p.m. reservation with slow drink and entree service, plus honest takes on the Monte Cristo, Croque Monsieur, meatloaf, and two sundaes.
If you’ve walked the length of Universal CityWalk Orlando after dark, you already know Toothsome Chocolate Emporium & Savory Feast Kitchen by silhouette alone. The wrought iron, the copper pipes, the giant chocolate extruder machine parked out front like a steampunk float that got lost on its way to a parade, it’s one of the most photographed storefronts on property, and for good reason. The Toothsome Chocolate Emporium & Savory Feast Kitchen has spent years building a reputation as the place you go when you want dinner to be a photo op, too. The question my group set out to answer on a recent visit wasn’t whether the restaurant looks the part. It’s whether the kitchen and the service can keep pace with the theming once you’re actually sitting at a table with a fork in your hand.
We had a 9:15 p.m. reservation on a weeknight, a slot chosen specifically to dodge the dinner rush that tends to swallow this restaurant whole between 6 and 8 p.m. On paper, a 9:15 p.m. seating should be the easy lane. In practice, our night was a mixed bag: quick to get a table, slow to get fed, and a kitchen that mostly hit its marks except for one dish that fell short of what a table-service restaurant charging table-service prices ought to deliver.
Getting Seated: The One Thing That Went Right, Fast
Let’s start with the good news, because there is some. We checked in for our 9:15 p.m. reservation and were walking to our table within a few minutes. No long wait in the lobby and no hovering near the hostess stand watching other parties get called ahead of us. For a restaurant that regularly runs a wait list even for guests without reservations, that’s worth calling out. If you’re planning a Toothsome visit and dread the idea of standing around CityWalk killing time before your table is ready, a later reservation still seems to deliver on its core promise: you booked a time, and the restaurant honored it. That’s step one, and Toothsome got it right immediately. Unfortunately, step one was also the fastest part of the entire meal.
Service: Where the Night Slowed to a Crawl
Once we were seated, the pace of the evening changed dramatically. We ordered a beer early in the meal, a simple enough request at a restaurant with a full bar built into its theming. That beer took roughly 15 minutes to reach our table. Not a cocktail with six ingredients, not a flight, just a beer. Fifteen minutes is enough time to wonder if the order got lost, enough time to flag down a passing server to ask, and enough time to set a tone for the rest of the meal that the kitchen and bar spent the next hour and a half failing to shake.
The entrees followed the same pattern. Once ordered, they arrived slowly, well past what you’d expect from a restaurant of this size and price point, especially at 9:15 p.m. on a weeknight when the dinner rush should theoretically have thinned out. To be fair to Toothsome, slow does not mean forgotten. Nothing was lost, nothing came out cold, and the servers we did interact with were pleasant rather than dismissive. Still, pleasant service delivered on a serious delay is still a service problem, and it’s the kind of problem that colors how forgiving you’re willing to be about everything else on the table.
The Waiting Game
For context, and to be fair, Universal Orlando Resort’s table service restaurants generally don’t have a reputation for running this far past their reservation windows. When a beer takes a quarter of an hour, and entrees crawl in after that, it stops feeling like an isolated hiccup and starts feeling like a kitchen or a front of house that was understaffed, overwhelmed, or both on the night we visited. We can’t speak to whether this is representative of every Toothsome visit, but it’s exactly the kind of pacing issue that turns a fun theme park dinner into a check-your-watch dinner.
Toothsome Chocolate Emporium Review: Entrees
The Monte Cristo: Right Idea, Wrong Execution ($19.99)
ham, turkey, Swiss cheese, berry jam, French loaf, battered and fried, topped with marinated berries and powdered sugar
For this Toothsome Chocolate Emporium review, our group ordered the Monte Cristo, and this was the dish where Toothsome’s kitchen fell short for us. On paper, the Monte Cristo has everything it needs. Ham, turkey, cheese, a battered and fried exterior, all the components that make this diner classic a guilty pleasure worth ordering at a theme park resort restaurant that leans into indulgence as a selling point. The bones were there. The execution wasn’t.
Out of Balance
The first issue was balance. This sandwich came out heavy on cheese to the point where the other components got buried underneath. A Monte Cristo is supposed to be rich, that’s the whole appeal, but there’s a difference between rich and one-note. Here, the Swiss cheese dominated every bite so completely that the ham and turkey read almost as an afterthought, more texture than flavor. Instead of a sandwich with layers to discover, we got a sandwich where the first bite told you everything the last bite would also tell you.
The second issue was the fruit. The Monte Cristo traditionally comes with berries on the side, a sweet counterpoint meant to cut through the richness of the fried, cheesy sandwich. It’s a smart idea in theory. In practice, on our plate, it didn’t work. The berries felt like a garnish that showed up because the recipe card said to include them, not because they actually complemented what was happening on the sandwich itself. Rather than cutting the richness, they sat next to it, disconnected from the dish rather than part of it.
Sadly, the Jam Does Not Work
Then there was the jam. Finding jam inside the sandwich itself, layered in with the meat and cheese, was an unexpected addition that didn’t read as intentional so much as one more sweet element piled onto a dish that was already leaning hard into rich and heavy. Between the cheese, and the jam, the Monte Cristo ended up tasting like a sandwich that had three or four ideas about how to be sweet and rich at once, with no single one of them given room to actually shine.
The bottom line on the Monte Cristo: this dish didn’t match the quality bar you’d expect from a table-service restaurant charging table-service prices. The components were all recognizably correct. Nonetheless, recognizing the components of a good dish and executing it well are two different things, and this one landed closer to a rushed version of the sandwich than a refined one. If you’re debating what to order at Toothsome, we’d steer you toward something else on the menu until this one gets some kitchen attention.
Croque Monsieur: The Steadier French Sandwich on the Table ($22.95)
country ham, gruyére cheese, Béchamel sauce, grated Parmesan, French loaf toasted
Sitting next to the Monte Cristo, almost as a direct comparison point, was the Croque Monsieur. This is another sandwich built around the same basic principle, ham and cheese with a bechamel element, but it fared noticeably better at our table. Where the Monte Cristo felt like it was drowning in sauce, the Croque Monsieur struck a more workable balance between the bread, the ham, and the melted cheese on top. It’s not a dish that reinvents anything, and it’s not trying to.
However, the Croque Monsieur suffered from being too dry. Additionally, the portion size does not make this a good overall value. It’s a straightforward, savory sandwich that did what it was supposed to do without the over-correction that hurt its Monte Cristo neighbor. If you’re choosing between the two, the Croque Monsieur was the safer, more consistent order on the night we visited.
Brisket & Wild Mushroom Meatloaf: The Comfort Food Anchor ($27.95)
chocolate red wine demi, crispy fried onions, gruyère mashed potato, grilled asparagus
In the past, this has been one of the best values at Universal CityWalk Orlando, along with the former French Toast Patty Melt. We had heard rumors that, with menu changes at Toothsome Chocolate Emporium and Savory Feast Kitchen, the quality had dropped. We can now confirm that!
In fairness, the Brisket & Wild Mushroom Meatloaf gave our table its most straightforwardly comforting plate of the night. Meatloaf built around brisket and wild mushrooms is a smart way to dress up a diner staple without losing what makes meatloaf appealing in the first place, which is that it’s supposed to taste like a home cooked meal you didn’t have to make yourself.
Meatloaf at a Chocolate Emporium?
Yes, we know it sounds odd. However, we have ordered the Brisket & Wild Mushroom Meatloaf many times at the Toothsome Chocolate Emporium & Savory Feast Kitchen. Although it’s the weakest version we have tasted here, it still makes a decent meal, especially with the salad substitution.
The mushrooms added an earthy depth that a plain beef meatloaf wouldn’t have on its own, and the brisket kept the texture from feeling like a single dense block. It’s not a flashy dish, and it doesn’t need to be. After the Monte Cristo, it was the entree that reminded us Toothsome’s kitchen is capable of getting the fundamentals right when the plate isn’t overloaded with competing sweet and savory elements.
Nonetheless, the portion size is much smaller than in previous Toothsome Chocolate Emporium reviews. The dish lacked the “wow” factor.
On the plus side, we could substitute the asparagus with a side salad. The side salad may have been the best thing we ate all night. Also, the portion size of the salad offers excellent value with fresh vegetables.
Toothsome Chocolate Emporium Review: Dessert Time (Each Sundae Costs $16)
No trip to a restaurant with an entire chocolate factory built into its facade should end without dessert. Our group ordered two sundaes to close things out: the Birthday Cake Sundae and the Brookies, Cookies & Cream Sundae. This is Toothsome’s home turf. At its core, the restaurant exists to sell you an elaborate ice cream dessert with a name that sounds like it belongs in a candy shop, and both sundaes delivered on that promise better than either entree did.
The Birthday Cake Sundae leans into its name with cake pieces and the funfetti-style sweetness mixed through the ice cream, the kind of dessert that’s built for celebration menus and Instagram photos in equal measure. While we have enjoyed better funfetti-style desserts in our travels, this made a nice end to our meal. However, based on this most recent visit to Toothsome Chocolate Emporium & Savory Feats Kitchen, we would recommend the Brookies, Cookies & Cream Sundae.
The Brookies, Cookies & Cream Sundae layers brownie and cookie elements into a cookies and cream base, giving you multiple textures in every spoonful rather than just one. Neither dessert broke new ground, but neither needed to. Dessert is where Toothsome’s reputation was built, and on this visit, dessert is also where that reputation held up best.
Toothsome Chocolate Emporium Review: So, Is Toothsome Worth the Reservation?
Here’s where we land after this visit. Toothsome Chocolate Emporium & Savory Feast Kitchen remains one of the most visually striking restaurants at Universal CityWalk, and that hasn’t changed. The problem on this visit wasn’t the theming, and it wasn’t the concept. It was the execution gap between what a table service restaurant should deliver and what actually reached our table.
The seating itself was fast and painless, which matters and shouldn’t be overlooked. Still, a 15 minute wait for a beer and slow moving entrees turned a 9:15 reservation into a much longer night than it needed to be. On the food side, the Croque Monsieur, the Brisket & Wild Mushroom Meatloaf, and both sundaes mostly held up their end of the bargain. The Monte Cristo did not, undermined by a heavy hand with the cheese, berries that didn’t complement the dish, and jam inside the sandwich that pushed an already rich plate further into overload.
Toothsome Chocolate Emporium Review: We’d Still Go
If you’re planning a Toothsome visit, we’d still go. The atmosphere alone makes it worth a look if you haven’t experienced it. Just go in with reasonable expectations about pacing, especially later in the evening, and maybe steer clear of the Monte Cristo until the kitchen finds a better balance. Maybe order a burger, save room for a sundae, and budget more time for dinner than you’d expect from a restaurant this size.
In fairness, we frequent Toothsome Chocolate Emporium & Savory Feast Kitchen. This is far from our first Toothsome Chocolate Emporium review. In fact, we have been reviewing this place for almost ten years.
Toothsome Chocolate Emporium Review: Quick Tips for Your Visit
- Book later reservations if you want to avoid the lobby wait, but don’t assume a later slot means a faster meal overall.
- Skip the Monte Cristo for now. Order the Croque Monsieur if you want a similar ham-and-cheese sandwich with better balance.
- The Brisket & Wild Mushroom Meatloaf is a solid, comforting choice if you want something hearty without the risk of an overly sweet or rich plate.
- Portion sizes are getting smaller at Toothsome Chocolate Emporium & Savory Feast Kitchen. However, prices have not increased that much.
- Save room for dessert. Both the Birthday Cake Sundae and the Brookies, Cookies & Cream Sundae outperformed the entrees on this visit.
- If drink service seems slow, don’t hesitate to flag a server. Our beer took about 15 minutes to arrive without any explanation.
Worth Your Time (Mostly)
Toothsome Chocolate Emporium & Savory Feast Kitchen is still worth the walk down CityWalk, especially for first timers who haven’t seen the chocolate extruder machine in person. Just know that on at least one recent night, the kitchen and the front of house needed more time to get a relatively simple order of drinks and entrees to the table than the menu or the reservation slot would suggest. Hopefully it was an off night rather than a pattern, but it’s worth knowing before you sit down.
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