The Solo Scale:

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Within the Animal Kingdom Lodge, you have a wealth of restaurant options to choose from. There’s the African-food inspired buffet at Boma, the rich flavours at Sanaa, and drinks at the Victoria Falls Lounge. There’s also one more fantastic dining option that you can find. That’s the one that we’ll be chatting about today: Jiko, the Cooking Place.

Located right across from Boma, this is a more elegant experience than a buffet. Don’t get me wrong. Boma still remains one of the best buffets on Disney property. The dining room has multiple sections with a few elevated areas. The decor is simple, yet striking. My favourite element were the metalwork birds suspended from the ceiling.

Our table was situated in an elevated area at the back of the restaurant, which gave us a fantastic view. The windows are also massive, so during the day, you’d also have some pretty good views. As you settle in with your menus and your service, you have both the food menu and a pretty expansive wine list to work with.

Personally, I couldn’t make a decision between the wines, but I was in luck. At Jiko, they do a wine flight from Stark-Conde, featuring several of the wines that they have on offer. Even better (for me), this was a white and two reds. Often, these trios have a rosé, which is my least favourite wine, so it was awesome to get these two options. It was even better given what I was planning to order for my meal. Having two reds would complement it beautifully.

There is complimentary bread at Jiko. While you wait to order, you receive giraffe bread — named for the dappled effect on the top of the bread. The butter was a baobab butter with sea salt, which came with cacao powder sprinkled on top. Personally, I didn’t enjoy the butter as a pair for the bread. The cacao notes were a touch too bitter and distracted from both the butter and the bread. Plus, I found the sea salt balance a little low. The bread was absolutely fantastic, though.

For my main, I opted to take two items off the appetizer menu and pair them together for a substantial meal that still left me room for dessert. The first was the Diver Scallop with Pork Belly. This was absolutely delicious. They have mustard “caviar”, which genuinely has the consistency of real caviar, and the corn cream at the bottom was smooth and absolutely incredible. The white wine was a perfect match for this one.

The second item I got was the Duck Confit and Honey-Raisin Flatbread. This had an amazing punch with the spiced honey, but there is definitely a level of spice with the harissa as well. If you have any sensitivity to spice, this one might not be an option for you. I’m in the middle when it comes to spice tolerance and I definitely needed some full glasses of water as I ate this. However, the cabernet sauvignon paired perfectly here.

For dessert, I went for the Malva pudding. This was incredible and I loved the touch of adding a chocolate bird that matched the restaurant decor. My only note about the dessert is that there was an overabundance of kataifi on top, which felt out of proportion with the rest of the dessert. Given that it wasn’t soaked in anything, I wound up leaving some of the “bird’s nest” on the side. However, the other components of the dessert, notably the sea salt gelato and pudding cake were absolutely divine. Saving my syrah wine for dessert also helped balance out these rich chocolate notes. If you plan to have a similar meal as I did, I absolutely recommend the wine flight as it’s like your own little fine-dining pairing for a fraction of the cost.

Overall, I really liked my meal at Jiko. It’s rare to get a wine flight at Disney restaurants, so this was a nice perk and to have it accompany such fantastic food was a huge plus. The restaurant itself was lovely, and it also brings you to the Animal Kingdom Lodge, which is always a fun visit. If you go early before the sun sets, you can even make some time to go animal spotting! In terms of ease of getting a reservation, this isn’t one of the more popular restaurants. That’s likely due to a combination of Boma being right next door, Animal Kingdom Lodge being out of the way, and the menu being a touch more adventurous. However, that means it’s easy to dine here if that’s what you’re after.

Ready for your own Jiko experience? Check out the menu to make sure there’s something you want to try and make your reservation!

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