Explore Fresh Tastes with New Menus at Universal Islands of Adventure

At Universal Orlando Resort, opportunities to satisfy your hunger abound, especially with so many different restaurants across our theme parks dropping new menus like nobody’s business. Specifically, at Universal Islands of Adventure, our fabulous team of chefs really went to work!

Ensuring that the menus at our restaurants stay fresh and up to date is one of the best ways to keep our guests both on their toes and excited to visit the theme parks. Here’s what new menus you can explore around Universal Islands of Adventure:

Confisco Grille

Who knew the best spot in town for confiscated theme park goods could also make a mean menu? I did, and now you do, too. Confisco Grille in Islands of Adventure has just revamped its stellar menu, and there are quite a few standouts. Need more convincing? Here are the culinary team’s top six new items:

Stop asking where the beef is because you’ll find that and more in the Grilled Angus Beef Churrasco Steak. This tender charred skirt steak is dressed in jalapeño bacon and sweet corn relish, tomato, cilantro rice, and fresh chimichurri sauce.

While the Grilled Angus Beef Churrasco Steak was conceptualized by four of the chefs on Confisco Grille’s culinary team, there’s one chef in particular who this dish hits closer to home for. “I grew up in Puerto Rico, so I took a little pride in (this dish) because we use that a lot in the Caribbean,” Confisco Grille sous chef Josh Flores says.

We already know Confisco Grille doesn’t play when it comes to making good hummus; I raved all about it in my blog here. That’s why I heavily implore you to give the Summer Avocado Hummus a try. It’s topped with spiced Fresno chili sauce to give it a little kick, crisp garbanzo, and crunchy pita chips with a sprinkle of everything seasoning on top. Bonus: It’s vegan-friendly!

Confisco chef Brandon Smith says he and his team wanted to bring dishes to Confisco Grille that make guests think of summertime. “We thought that the avocado would give a really good creaminess to the hummus,” he says. “It’s a refreshing dish.”

If you fancy more vegan flavors from different parts of the world, the Curry Dosa might be calling your name. This dish has a potato and serrano chili pepper filling and is made with coconut jalapeño ginger puree and tomato cilantro chutney.

There are few hearty dishes that serve the body well during the heat, and luckily the Herb Roasted Corvina Fillet at Confisco Grille is one of those few. This fillet is pan roasted with a chimichurri marinade and Parmesan and served over spinach orzo salad, baby heirloom tomatoes, and a tangy butter lemon sauce.

Enough dinner. Where’s the dessert? Right here, and it’s called the Flan Brûlée. Picture flan and crème brûlée in one decadent dessert. This treat features cream cheese flan, sugar brûlée, whipped topping, and warm cinnamon sugar churros altogether to bring you tastes you’ve only experienced in your dreams.

Chef Josh took another trip down memory lane for this dessert and says flan was a staple in his childhood home. “Flan was a big thing in my house,” he says. “As I was becoming an adult, I jumped into the cooking industry and started seeing desserts from all around the world and became a really big fan of the crème brûlée.”

Once tasked with creating new items for Confisco Grille’s menu, Chef Josh came to director of culinary operations Chef Ron Cope with a stellar idea. “What if we create a fusion between the flan and the crème brûlée?” Chef Josh says. Chef Ron told him if he could pull it off and it tastes good, then he could roll with it. And roll they did!

Don’t pull out that sweet tooth just yet because I’ve got one more decadent dessert in store for you: Tres Leches Bread Pudding. If you’ve ever wondered what two delicious treats in one look like, this dish will show you. This tres leches bread pudding is dressed in caramel sauce and topped with salted caramel ice cream and croissant crumble.

Mythos Restaurant

When tasked with creating a new menu this summer, the chefs at Mythos Restaurant knew there was only one thing to do: deliver. And deliver they did! The tastes on this menu bring a whole new meaning to Florida’s endless summer, and once you see these four show-stoppers, you’ll understand why.

As you make your way around Islands of Adventure, step into Mythos and refresh yourself with a Watermelon Salad. Handcrafted by former Mythos Restaurant manager, now snack carts manager, Tammy Crowe, this salad is filled with a medley of arugula, spinach, watermelon, feta, tomatoes tossed with pumpkin seeds, spiced garbanzo beans, and cucumbers while drizzled in a strawberry-lemon vinaigrette.

Tammy says when given the opportunity to create a new menu item, she thought back to her childhood summers. “The long summer days in the middle of July with my cousins in Southern California that had us playing in sprinklers and enjoying watermelons fresh off the stands — those warm, summer memories and the flavor of crisp watermelon really were a driving force,” she says. “I wanted to take that sweet crispness of watermelon and balance it with the sharp profiles of lemon and feta cheese, bringing in the spiced garbanzo beans to add in an earthier element that truly blended Greek summer with my California summers.” 

For all my fellow ravioli lovers out there, you need to get a bite (or 10) of the Spinach Garlic Ravioli. This dish is made with a fresh sauté of tomatoes, spinach, and piquillo peppers with an in-house pesto base made with lemon, olive oil, and a robust flavor of herbs, topped with a light burrata.

The only thing fishy around here is the Catch of the Season, which consists of the chef’s daily selection of fresh fish, roasted potatoes, sweet corn, baby spinach, charred tomato and fennel cream with a crispy fingerlings chips and lemon oil garnish.

Mythos chef Justin Jones says he wanted to create a dish that was hearty enough to escape hunger but light enough to beat the Florida heat. “Tomatoes are a staple of the summer season,” he says. “They’re beautiful in Florida right now, so I wanted to highlight the freshness that we have locally. We put a nice char on that, which enhances the sweetness of the tomato, and the fennel is a perfect balance.”

You can never go wrong with a combo of savory and sweet. That’s exactly what you’ll get when you order the Sea Scallop & Sweet Corn Risotto. This dish consists of sweet corn purée, jalapeño bacon crumb spicy ajvar (Serbian red pepper relish), fresh corn, and grana padano cheese.

As a former restaurant manager, Tammy strives to continue challenging herself to make sure Mythos stands out as a restaurant at Universal. “It’s my belief that Mythos will remain a flagship of the parks, and we have a duty to bring newer, fresher takes on dishes to our guests and to inspire our teams to keep doing what they do best,” she says. “My hope for the future is that Mythos will continue to be looked at as the mecca of theme park restaurants that we have come to be.”

Which restaurant in Universal Islands of Adventure are you going to dine at first? Let us know in the comments below!

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