This is my favorite Italian restaurant in all of Disney World. I loved it so much that we ate there twice on our last visit. I had a wonderful vegetarian minestrone soup and a cheese pizza. For my daughter, who has a dairy allergy, Chef Julie prepared a wonderful salad with fresh pear and a tasty dried cherry vinaigrette dressing. She also had the option of having vine-ripened tomatoes with balsamic and basil scented olive oil along with fresh sweet basil leaves. After her salad, she had spaghetti with marinara sauce as her entrée. She loved it! At many other restaurants, pasta marinara is an option, but it’s not memorable. Mama Melrose’s is now her favorite, too.
Chef Julie and our server, Holly, were so accommodating and listened carefully to our daughter. Chef Julie made her salad with what she liked and, literally, went out of her way for her dessert — she had to go to another restaurant to get Enjoy Life cookies. She even asked what flavor of cookies she wanted. Chef Julie went above and beyond — a true testament to Disney’s commitment to food allergies.
We ate here in May, when it was very hot. Mama Melrose’s was an oasis of great food, great drinks and cool air conditioning! It was such a wonderful experience. Incidentally, it was also Star Wars Weekends at Disney, so we dined with a few out-of-this-world guests.
we had the same wonderful experience at Mama Melrose’s last summer, so we went there this past May also. I must say our experience was less than it was the previous summer. The chef did not come out to talk to us, the server reeled off my daughter’s choices and there were no GF rolls available. All in all a very sad experience considering how good I know it can be. We wonder if the difference was that we were not on the dining plan the second time around…
During our last visit, we did not use the dining plan and had two great experiences. We did make Advanced Dining Reservations for each, including the second visit, where we decided the day before to visit Hollywood Studios again. We’re really surprised about your visit, especially since they do have access to other restaurants to acquire gluten free items. Maybe the server was new?