Jaleo

Summary

In terms of unique restaurants in Disney Springs, there aren’t too many. I think this is one of them that was a little different than the normal suburbia / city type of restaurant. This is Spanish influenced and is one of Jose Andres’ restaurants. Having been to his other restaurants like The Bazaar (where molecular gastronomy was a focus) in LA, I had some expectations for this. The restaurant itself is actually very noisy and dances around the line of being trendy and hip. The decor has a lot of colors that pop with a festive vibe.

The half pitcher of Sangria roja la sueca was a fruity and spiced macerated wine on tap. The flavors of this was very mild and definitely not the best we’ve had.

The gambas al ajillo was simply shrimp sauteed in garlic. Surprisingly, this had no tails on it. The actual garlic oil was pretty typical.

The patatas bravas was fried potatoes with a spicy tomato sauce and aioli. This was a no frills filler. The potatoes themselves were similar to homestyle breakfast potatoes.

The bikini de jamón con queso Manchego which was a pressed sandwich of Serrano ham and Manchego cheese. This was actually pretty decent. The cheese was melted and does have a slight sheep gamey taste to it. But with the serrano ham, it was pretty good. I wished they gave more ham.

The aceitunas clasicas y modernas was “Ferran Adrià” liquid olives and stuffed olives with piquillo pepper and anchovy. This was one of my favorites of the night. The “olives” on the spoon are actually in some kind of liquid housing similar to gelatin. Inside of the gelatin, there is a liquid olive juice. When you eat it in one shot, it bursts with olive flavor. The stuffed olives were actually really good with the pepper and anchovy.

The carne asada was a grilled flat iron steak with confit piquillo peppers. This was cooked a perfect medium rare and was surprisingly tender.

The butifarra casera con mongetes was a Josper-grilled pork sausage served with sauteéd white beans. The sausage itself had a lot of smokey flavors, but it actually wasn’t full of flavors. It felt like it was missing some salt. The beans tasted as if they were sort of deep fried as they had a slight crisp to them. In general, this dish was definitely on the bland side.

The service here was unfortunately hit and miss. Some foods came out super fast, but our last grilled pork sausage took 25 minutes to come out for some reason. The waiter did an OK job trying to check on it, but it was just way too slow. In terms of COVID compliance, some of the seats were seated fairly close. Just be weary of some of the guests that may get drunk or don’t care to be compliant and hit your glass screens.

Final Verdict

We definitely felt this Spanish tapas restaurant was just OK and not the best we’ve had. Unlike other restaurants during our Disney World trip, this was the only one where its customers didn’t do a great job with social compliance. Some foods are a definite must get (such as the olives), but the others you can do without.

Yelp Jabs

Neat decor, nice service, cool spot. Lots of options on the menu, to the point where it was a little overwhelming at first

The COVID menu is actually fairly small compared to other Spanish tapas restaurants. We were actually very underwhelmed.

Do yourself a favor and go with the tasting menu. It’s incredible, with some of the best dishes I’ve ever eaten.

I definitely would not advise anyone to get the tasting unless they have never had Spanish food before. We were able to get everything we wanted including alcohol for close to the same price as a tasting for 1. You just have to be smart about what to order. Don’t order things that you can make at home or eat anywhere else.