James Beard Award-winning chefs Michael Mina and Todd English are teaming up for the first time ever at this year’s Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Food & Wine Classic, hosting a single collaborative tasting experience on Saturday, November 21, from 3:30 to 5 p.m.
This builds on what we’ve already reported about this year’s event, including the confirmed November 20-21 dates for the 17th annual Classic and the full 2026 menu reveal, which already had both Bourbon Steak by Michael Mina and Todd English’s bluezoo on the lineup. This tasting is a separate, ticketed add-on to that main event, not part of general admission.
Mina and English have both had restaurants at the Walt Disney World Dolphin for years, Bourbon Steak by Michael Mina and Todd English’s bluezoo, but this is the first time the two chefs are hosting something together. The event puts them side by side in an intimate, interactive setting for a limited number of guests, working through 10 courses split evenly between the two chefs and paired with beverages from Italy to Napa. Beyond the food itself, Disney says the format is built around storytelling, with both chefs speaking directly to guests about their heritage, their travels, and the philosophies behind their cooking.
Mina’s five courses lean into the Middle Eastern influences he’s known for, including marinated big-eye tuna with crispy falafel and whipped tahina, a chilled lobster and mango salad with saffron mango sauce, Aleppo grilled poussin with chickpea and orzo koshary, triple-seared Wagyu striploin with matbucha, and a basbousa and passionfruit cheesecake to close. English’s courses head toward the coastal New England cooking tied to his Boston roots, with brown butter miso poached lobster, pan-seared Nantucket scallops with fresh pressed apple cider, house-made pastene cacio e pepe with duckling confit, roasted Chilean sea bass with blood orange glaze, and a roasted red beet chocolate gateau for dessert.
Tickets are $295 per person through FoodAndWineClassic.com, and space is limited, so this isn’t the kind of add-on likely to still have availability close to the event.
What makes this worth paying attention to is how long overdue it actually is. Mina and English have been cooking a few hundred feet apart at the same resort for years, and neither one is short on name recognition or reason to headline something like this on his own. Putting them at the same table for a single, one-time tasting is the rare festival add-on that’s genuinely earned the “first-ever” label in its name.
Two of Disney World’s Biggest Chef Names Are Finally Cooking Together, and Tickets Are Limited
