Monsieur Paul

Monsieur Paul: dining at EPCOT — location and planning data on MouseHub.

Visitor sentiment

4.1· 200 Google ratings

Diners like this French restaurant's exceptional multi-course pre-fixe menus, featuring perfectly cooked scallops, filet mignon, and delicious desserts. They also highlight the attentive and professional staff, who provide outstanding service and create an elegant, intimate atmosphere. Some reviews mention the fixed menu can be expensive.

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The MouseHub take

Monsieur Paul is the signature French restaurant upstairs from Les Chefs de France in EPCOT's France pavilion, in the room that was Bistro de Paris. Dinner is one prix fixe menu at $195 a person, and it moves through eight stops: a house cocktail and amuse-bouche, an appetizer, a seafood course, a palate cleanser, a meat course, cheese, dessert, and mignardises. You choose between two options at four of those. Disney asks you to plan at least two hours, and the room serves only between 5:30 and 7:30 PM.

The Bocuse connection is the draw. Paul Bocuse opened Les Chefs de France downstairs in 1982, the first Bocuse-affiliated restaurant in America, and he held three Michelin stars for 53 straight years at his restaurant outside Lyon. His son Jerome owns the company behind this dining room. Guests who want a long, quiet, formal dinner and have budgeted for it come away happy, helped by an age limit that keeps anyone under ten out. Anyone feeding a family or holding a park touring plan is better off downstairs.

At a glance

Best for
Adults marking an occasion who want a slow, formal French dinner and have budgeted two hours and $195 a head for it
Skip if
You are feeding kids under ten, working around a park schedule, or want to order what you feel like eating
Worth ordering
Bar en croute feuilletée, sauce Choron (sea bass in puff pastry), Volaille Fermière en fricassée aux morilles (chicken fricassee with morels and black truffles), Carré d'agneau rôtie en cocotte (rack of lamb with stuffed cabbage and chestnuts), Sphère de chocolat au lait (chocolate sphere with warm chocolate Cognac sauce)
Reservations
Disney calls advance reservations highly recommended, and the dinner-only service runs 5:30 to 7:30 PM, so there are few tables to go around. Cancelling inside 72 hours costs $100 a person
Value
$195 per adult before tax and gratuity, for eight courses and the opening cocktail. Wine is extra and comes off what Disney calls a focused list. The menu prints no child price, which the age limit makes moot

The good

  • Window tables look out over World Showcase
    The dining room sits a floor above the promenade, and Disney's own pitch for a window-side table is a unique vantage of EPCOT.
  • A Bocuse still owns the place
    Jerome Bocuse owns the company behind the restaurant, and it cooks his father's repertoire. Paul Bocuse was named Chef of the Century by the Culinary Institute of America in 2011.
  • Servers walk you through each course
    Diners consistently describe the staff explaining what is on the plate and how it was cooked, at a pace that matches the meal.
  • Portions run bigger than you expect
    A tasting format usually means small plates. Guests here report the opposite, and a fair number leave with a box.
  • The dining room stays quiet
    The ten-and-over rule and the formal service keep the noise down. It reads as a restaurant that happens to be in a theme park rather than the other way around.
  • Eight courses arrive in a fixed order
    The sequence follows the French gastronomic meal, which UNESCO added to its Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2010. The palate cleanser between the fish and the meat is part of the structure, not a flourish.

The bad

  • You pick from two options per course
    The appetizer, seafood, meat, and dessert courses each offer a choice of two. Everything else on the menu arrives whether you wanted it or not.
  • Nobody enforces the dress code
    Disney asks for clean, neat attire matching a sophisticated and upscale aesthetic. Diners who dressed for it report sitting near guests in shorts and t-shirts.
  • Dinner runs past the two-hour mark
    Disney tells you to plan at least two hours, and guests report the meal using all of it. Some of the party is done before the mignardises land.
  • The kitchen only serves for two hours
    Dinner runs 5:30 PM to 7:30 PM, and there is no lunch service. A narrow window and a long meal is a hard combination to fit around a park day.
  • The bill starts at $195 a person
    That is before tax, before gratuity, and before anything you drink beyond the cocktail the menu includes.

Veteran tips

  • Order the sea bass for the house dish
    The menu labels the Bar en croute feuilletée with sauce Choron as grand mets de Monsieur Paul, which is the kitchen naming its own signature.
  • Cancel more than 72 hours out
    Disney charges $100 per person for a no-show or a cancellation inside 72 hours. Cancel online rather than leaving it to the day.
  • Take the earliest seating you can get
    Service ends at 7:30 PM and the meal wants two hours, so a late booking compresses the thing you paid for. The 5:30 seating gives it room.
  • Window tables are luck, not a request
    Disney words it as a table becoming available when you arrive. Turn up on time and ask at the podium, but do not build the evening around it.
  • Say what you cannot eat when you book
    The kitchen handles most special dietary needs with advance notice, and Disney asks you to flag it at booking. On the day, ask for a Special Diets Trained Cast Member when you arrive.
  • Leave kids under ten at another restaurant
    Only guests aged ten and up may dine here. Les Chefs de France downstairs takes the whole family and shares the Bocuse lineage.
  • Dress up, and skip the swimwear
    This is Disney Signature Dining, so clothing should be clean, neat, and in good condition. Swimwear is ruled out by name.
  • A reservation is not park admission
    You need valid EPCOT admission to reach the France pavilion, and a theme park reservation may be required depending on your ticket. The dining booking does not cover either.

MouseHub editorial, written from visitor reports and official Disney sources. Last reviewed .

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