EPCOT's Festival of the Holidays Adds a Diwali Holiday Kitchen for 2026, One of Two New Kitchens Alongside 98 New Items

EPCOT's holiday festival menus are out, and the headline is a first for the event: a Diwali Holiday Kitchen. Disney's foodie guide for the 2026 EPCOT International Festival of the Holidays, posted Thursday, November 12, on the Disney Parks Blog, counts 186 food and drink items across 20 Holiday Kitchens, with 98 of them marked new. Two of those kitchens are new this year, the Diwali Holiday Kitchen and Season's Eatings.

The short version: The festival runs November 27 to December 30, 2026, and is included with EPCOT admission. The new Diwali kitchen sells pani puri, chicken biryani, a mango mousse cup and a thandai milkshake. Season's Eatings in CommuniCore Plaza adds a turkey bánh mì. The guide lists no prices for any item.

The new Diwali Holiday Kitchen

The Diwali kitchen sits on the walkway between World Showcase and the Imagination! pavilion, the same stretch that holds the Mele Kalikimaka and Nochebuena Cocina kitchens. Its whole menu is new:

• Pani Puri (plant-based): filled with curry-spiced potatoes and chickpeas, served with tamarind water.
• Chicken Biryani: spicy chicken over basmati rice with yogurt sauce, pomegranate seeds and bird's eye chilis.
• Mango Mousse Cup (plant-based): topped with plant-based lime whipped cream and cardamom cookie streusel.
• Thandai Milkshake: milk with almond, fennel, poppy seed, cardamom and saffron flavors, garnished with rose petals and toasted almonds.

Diwali itself fell on Sunday, November 8 this year, almost three weeks before the festival opens. The kitchen joins the festival's other holiday-tradition kitchens, L'Chaim! and Las Posadas among them.

Season's Eatings and new dishes outside World Showcase

Season's Eatings, the other new kitchen, is in CommuniCore Plaza. It serves the new Holly Jolly Bánh Mì (smoked turkey with cranberry-Chambord liqueur mayonnaise, pickled vegetables, cucumbers, Fresno chilis and cilantro), a new Cranberry-Almond Frangipane Bar, and Reuben Croquettes, which the guide does not mark as new.

Inside CommuniCore Hall, Experimental Prototype Cookies of Tomorrow adds the new Prototype Cookie, a caramel blondie with peanut butter buttercream and TWIX pieces on a shortbread cookie, and a new Jelly Doughnut Milkshake. Holiday Hearth Desserts in The Odyssey adds peppermint bark and a hot chocolate mousse cup. In World Nature, Sunshine Seasons has a new Snickerdoodle Milkshake topped with a spiced cookie and snickerdoodle Bundt cake.

New dishes worth knowing around World Showcase

• Mexico, Las Posadas: new Empanada de Carnitas and Taco Nochebuena, plus a new Churro-Horchata Margarita.
• Italy, Tuscany Holiday Kitchen: new tortellini carbonara, potato and cheese croquettes, and an orange-pistachio biscotto.
• Germany: Sommerfest adds a Christmas Market Bratwurst with sauerbraten pot roast on a pretzel roll. Bavaria keeps pork schnitzel, cheese fondue and Glühwein.
• Japan, Shi Wasu: new miso ramen with grilled chicken, corn and butter, and a strawberry-chocolate dessert bao.
• Morocco: a new lamb and chickpea chorba.
• The American Adventure: carved roasted ham is new at American Holiday Table, and the Funnel Cake stand adds a Hot Cocoa Funnel Cake. Regal Eagle Smokehouse adds a chocolate-covered cherry shake.
• Canada: La Poutinerie adds an English pub poutine with bangers and caramelized onion gravy.
• Nochebuena Cocina: new rotisserie lechón, plancha-seared corvina and a warm Bauducco Chocottone with almond turrón ice cream and pistachio sauce.
• Swirled Showcase: a new liquid nitrogen eggnog cheesecake mousse and a Dubai-style chocolate liqueur float with pistachio soft-serve.

Returning favorites Disney called out include the Lomilomi Salmon at Mele Kalikimaka, the potato latkes at L'Chaim! and the Hazelnut Linzer Cookie at Bavaria.

The Figment bucket, the cookie stroll and a new photo

The festival's novelty is a new Figment Holiday Sweater Bucket filled with jelly doughnut popcorn, sold at Holiday Hearth Desserts. Disney limits it to two per person, per transaction, while supplies last, and gives no price.

The Holiday Cookie Stroll returns: buy five eligible cookie stroll items to fill your Festival Passport, then redeem it for a treat at Holiday Sweets & Treats near Port of Entry. Disney PhotoPass also adds a new Magic Shot with a cookie tray prop, taken near the Christmas tree at the World Showcase entrance.

What the guide does not tell you

Prices: none are listed yet, for food, drinks or the Figment bucket.

Evening time: as we reported in September, EPCOT closes at 9pm during this year's festival, so plan any kitchen crawl for the afternoon and early evening. The Candlelight Processional also returns, with Jordan Fisher narrating on opening nights.

Disney says all offerings are subject to change and availability.