Attention all Orlando visitors from August 15 to September 30: There is a major restaurant bonus coming your way, and it is going to make dining out even tastier than usual! Yes, it’s time for the annual Magical Dining “season,” and there is even more in store for those who like to get maximum value for their holiday dollar.
For regular late summer visitors, Magical Dining – sponsored by Orlando Health – is that special time of year when a wide range of high-quality restaurants introduce a limited-time prix fixe menu that offers the chance to sample a healthy slice of the gastronomic side of our destination at reduced rates.
And, for 2026 – and the 20th anniversary of the programme – there is extra reason to be tempted by what’s on offer for the 47 days of this magical mealtime opportunity!
Here are the headline details:
- Record Participation: With 24 new restaurants this year, that takes the total number participating to more than 160 for the first time.
- Among those record 160-plus are 15 restaurants that are MICHELIN-recognised, including four that are rated as Bib Gourmand, or venues offering fine dining at a reasonable price, and another 11 that are Recommended.
- Special Edition Dish: Many restaurants will feature a limited-edition 20th Anniversary Dish, and you can see those online in advance on the Magical Dining website.
- Easy Reservations: Book online at OrlandoMagicalDining.com, with helpful search filters for location, price tier, cuisine and even dietary preferences (vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free). There’s also an option to show which restaurants are offering the 20th anniversary dish, and what it is.
It seems amazing to us that Magical Dining has reached 20 years so quickly, having started as a fledgling programme, organised by the Visit Orlando tourism bureau, which struggled to get just a few dozen restaurants to buy in to the idea at first. But it has since become a keenly anticipated offering by both locals and visitors alike in recent years, offering the chance to try restaurants that might otherwise be out of their budget.
Top quality restaurants such as Del Frisco’s Double Eagle Steakhouse (on International Drive), The Venetian Chophouse (at the Caribe Royale resort) and Ravello (at the magnificent Four Seasons Orlando hotel) would normally be around $90-$100 for a three-course meal, but the Magical Dining price of $60 per person is an absolute bargain. It’s not quite “How the other half lives,” but it’s close!
Once again, there are two price points for this year’s dining, with the $60 price including some of the very best restaurants in town, while the $40/person choice includes some of our long-time favourites like Seasons 52 on Sand Lake Road (the area locals call Restaurant Row), Café Tu Tu Tango on International Drive and Summer House on the Lake at Disney Springs, all of which offer excellent value for the three-course set price.
Even better, the whole Magical Dining programme raises a LOT of money for Central Florida charities, as $1 for every $40 meal and $2 from every $60 option goes to a chosen non-profit organisation. The full details were announced last week at a special Visit Orlando press conference at the HQ of this year’s headline charity, the Reed Charitable Foundation, which is focused on ending the literacy crisis by ensuring all children have access to reading instruction based on how the brain learns to read, through educator training that’s both affordable and accessible.
Last year’s Magical Dining season raised a whopping $352,218 for its charities and has collected almost $3million since 2009, a truly staggering amount for such a humble programme.
We spoke to Danielle Hollander, Visit Orlando’s chief marketing officer, about the creation of Magical Dining, as she was one of the principal proponents of the idea 20 years ago, and has proudly watched as it has taken flight and become a major part of the Orlando scene each year. She said: “We had to put this in place before its time. We had to split it into Lunch and Dinner options, as we didn’t have enough restaurants at that time to qualify for just dinner.
“But, as we wanted to grow and become known as a dining destination, we needed to bring out the locals, and it was awesome to get them to act as ambassadors for our dining scene and help the city through what was, back then, a quiet time for Orlando, when restaurants struggled to get through September. We saw other cities doing a Restaurant Week, but we have to be bigger and better, so we did a Restaurant Month, which has steadily grown into our full Magical Dining programme. Now, we still have restaurant servers that tell us they wouldn’t have a job but for Magical Dining.”
For British visitors who are more familiar with the prixe fixe concept, Magical Dining has definitely become a valuable extra to their holiday enjoyment, especially as it features a lot of restaurants that might not otherwise be on their radar and encourages them to go further afield in search of a memorable meal in places like Winter Park, the downtown area and Lake Nona.
There is even the special Magical Nights option, with exclusive hotel deals and arts-and-culture pairings, designed to turn an evening out into a summer staycation. These packages offer savings of up to 20 per cent at more than a dozen hotels, including the Lake Nona Wave Hotel, Orlando World Center Marriott, Caribe Royale, Mission Resort + Club, Rosen Plaza, Rosen Shingle Creek and more.
From our point of view, it is a wonderful reminder to get out and try some places that we have been meaning to sample for a while, places like Leiah in downtown, which was voted Best New Restaurant this year and offers a distinctive modern cuisine in stylish surroundings. It will definitely be on our radar when August 15 arrives, and we hope to see a few of you there!
Have you sampled Orlando’s Magical Dining programme in the past? Tell us about it on the friendly AttractionTickets.com Community Facebook page, on X (formerly Twitter) or Instagram.
