5 Of Universal CityWalk Orlando's Must-Try Restaurants For First Time Visitors

If you're visiting Universal Orlando Resort for the first time, chances are, you'll pass through the CityWalk shopping and dining complex. CityWalk sits between the entrances to the resort's original two theme parks, Universal Studios Florida and Islands of Adventure. Whether you're driving to the parks or arriving by bus or ride share, you'll be funneled through security in the parking plaza before you reach the ticket gates. CityWalk is on the other side of security, and it acts as a gateway, where you'll cross one of two bridges to the parks after running a gauntlet of chain restaurants.

Since CityWalk requires no ticket and is free to enter, these restaurants — some of which feature their own elaborate theming — are a good dining option for rest days, when you're not busy exploring the parks. Even if you know the ranking of all Universal Orlando hotels, and are staying at one within walking distance, you might still find yourself skirting CityWalk and its restaurants. The closest hotel to the parks, Hard Rock Hotel Orlando, has a pedestrian path that leads past CityWalk's outlying Hard Rock Cafe Orlando and Toothsome Chocolate Emporium on the way to Islands of Adventure. The hotel offers free water taxis, too, but they'll just cruise past the same two restaurants and drop you off at CityWalk in view of the NBC Sports Grill.

Accessing the five immersive worlds in Epic Universe is a bit different, but in a sense, all roads at Universal Orlando lead to CityWalk. With that in mind, we're doing a deep dive into five restaurants that you'll want to consider trying on your next trip to CityWalk Orlando, including The Cowfish Sushi Burger Bar, Voodoo Doughnut, and Antojitos Authentic Mexican Food, along with the aforementioned Hard Rock Cafe Orlando and Toothsome Chocolate Emporium.

The Cowfish Sushi Burger Bar takes fusion food to a new level. If sushi and burgers sound like an unholy marriage, don't worry, you can order them separately. The restaurant offers bento boxes where you can sample a mini-burger and specialty sushi roll — one at a time, if need be. For truly adventurous eaters who don't mind mixing textures and flavors, there's "burgushi" like Doug's Filt Roll. It combines kani (imitation crab) and masago (smelt roe, or capelin fish eggs) with seared filet mignon. Sushi and burger all in one bite, topped with avocado, cream cheese, scallions, and spicy mayo. Also available is Buffalo Chicken Burgushi and an All-American Bacon Double Cheeseburgooshi.

Cowfish hails from North Carolina, where its co-founders literally tore down the wall between a prospective sushi bar and the gourmet burger joint next-door. The actual burger menu at CityWalk isn't as extensive as what you'd find at Cowfish's non-Universal branches in Charlotte and Raleigh. Maybe that's because the movie stars who inspired the Arnold Hamandeggar and Yo Adrian!!! burgers were associated with rival Planet Hollywood (never the most popular Disney Springs restaurant). Whatever the case, you can get burgers at two other restaurants on this list, and Cowfish is more about the unconventional food pairing.

When Cowfish Orlando opened in 2014, CityWalk's VP of revenue ops, Modesto Alcala, explained via YouTube how it landed on Universal's radar before making its way to Florida. "One of our executives and his wife were stuck at the airport in Carolina and were hungry," he said. "The story is that one wanted sushi and one wanted a burger, and hence they went to Cowfish, and fell in love with it." In a funny way, this story illustrates why Cowfish could be a good choice for CityWalk first-timers torn between dining options. Why eliminate burgers or sushi when you can have both?

A doughnut covered in Cap'n Crunch cereal is certainly one way of achieving breakfast on the go. You can also start your day with one covered in M&Ms at CityWalk's Voodoo Doughnut. The signature Voodoo Doll has a pretzel stake through its heart, and oozes raspberry jelly like blood as you eat it. Call it a gimmick or tourist trap, but putting themed doughnuts on display like jewelry outside Universal's theme parks makes a certain sense. Since 2018, Orlando has been the only east coast Voodoo Doughnut location (though more are slated for Miami and New York), and where else can you enjoy a photo op on a doughnut throne worthy of Homer Simpson?

On its website, the Portland-based Voodoo Doughnut chain notes that CityWalk is one of its licensed locations, where "selections may vary." This means that its most risqué doughnut selections, like the C*** N' Balls and Maple Blazer Blunt, aren't on the menu. Universal sanded off the rough edges of a shop that used to only be open at night near an adult movie theater in Portland's Old Town. Health officials there had already stopped Voodoo's "doughnuteers" from using over-the-counter medications as ingredients, so there's no more Nyquil Glazed doughnut or Vanilla Pepto Crushed Tums doughnut.

The Butterfingering doughnut is now just "Butterfinger." Old Dirty Bastard, the peanut-butter-and-Oreo doughnut Anthony Bourdain once sampled, has gone the Kentucky Fried Chicken route and been shortened to a less specific initialism, ODB. Doughnuts with sex-and-drugs-inspired names might raise some hackles at a family-friendly destination like CityWalk, so it's understandable to see them sanitized like song lyrics under a Parental Advisory label. That said, first-time visitors might still appreciate the double entendres found in certain in-store slogans. Satan apparently didn't get the memo about Voodoo Doughnut cleaning up its act, because Orlando's menu still holds the Diablos Rex, a devil's food cake doughnut decorated with a vanilla frosting pentagram.

There are over 160 Hard Rock Cafe locations worldwide, but Orlando's earns bragging rights as the biggest. This goes beyond seating capacity, since the restaurant — styled as a Roman Coliseum, with a concert venue attached — houses a larger music memorabilia collection than any other Hard Rock on Earth. There's even an authentic piece of the Berlin Wall stationed outside the restaurant around back. Inside, you'll see a pink Cadillac suspended above the bar, opposite a stained-glass triptych depicting Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, and Jerry Lee Lewis. The walls are festooned with enough framed guitars and rock-and-roll relics to fill guided tours on weekends. A choice of well-worn entrees like Twisted Mac & Cheese or the Legendary Burger is built into the tour cost.

Admittedly, Hard Rock Cafe (which is separate from Universal's nearby Hard Rock Hotel) isn't the boldest meal choice. Some travelers might balk at dining at such a widespread chain, but on sites like Tripadvisor and Touring Plans, Hard Rock earns better user/reader reviews than many of CityWalk's other restaurants. One reviewer on AllEars chalked this up to it being in the comfort zone of picky eaters, which makes it a safe bet for groups of first-timers with different tastes. If you want to avoid touristy places, CityWalk and its themed restaurant chains may be the wrong dining destination for your party, anyway.

Check out the restaurant's Florida Room, dedicated to homegrown music icons like Jim Morrison of The Doors, who inspired this chain's name with an album photoshoot at an unaffiliated dive called Hard Rock Cafe on LA's Skid Row. You can also request a free, behind-the-scenes VIBE Tour of VIP areas like the John Lennon Room when they're not being used. When you leave Orlando's Rock Shop with that souvenir T-shirt, showing the city's name under the Hard Rock Cafe logo, you'll have earned your merit badge as a travel-inclined music lover.

It doesn't get much more decadent than a milkshake topped with an entire cupcake or Rice Krispies treat. That's what you'll get with the Red Velvet or Marshmallow Crisp at the Toothsome Chocolate Emporium & Savory Feast Kitchen. This 19th-century-themed restaurant, which takes the prize for CityWalk's longest restaurant name, is located between the Hard Rock Cafe and the towering lighthouse entrance to Islands of Adventure. It's a magnet for sweet tooths, and even offers a $55 flight of five mini shakes so you can sample more than one flavor (possibly choking on how much you pay for food when visiting Universal Orlando). While its "dessert foundry" and "candy smith" signs are bigger, Toothsome also peddles "food and spirits" to passersby at CityWalk.

Even the burgers and steaks are slathered in chocolate brandy peppercorn sauce, as if to redefine the meaning of guilty pleasure. You might shave a few years off your life by dining at Toothsome regularly, but for a first-time visitor, it's an experience. Comparisons between it and Willy Wonka's chocolate factory abound, but Universal doesn't hold the rights to any of the films with that setting. When it opened in 2016, Toothsome was already hit with one lawsuit from an Ohio man who claimed Universal stole his restaurant concept. Lest it invite further litigation from the likes of Warner Bros. (the studio that owns the Wonka movies and licenses Harry Potter to Universal's theme parks), it's no surprise this factory-in-all-but-name received an alternate backstory as a "fully industrialized, state-of-the-art chocolate emporium."

As deliberately toothsome as Johnny Depp's Willy Wonka was (the actor wore prominent veneers in character), you're more likely to meet a steampunk robot named Jacques here. Still, if you use your imagination, the lopsided smokestacks over Toothsome's facade almost give it the appearance of the kind of top hat Wonka would wear. The original Orlando location proved so popular that Toothsome has since been cloned across other CityWalks in Beijing and Hollywood.

Around the corner from Cowfish and the Epic Universe Preview Center, there's a building that resembles an old, mission-style Mexican church splashed with tie-dye. The church of chimichangas, as it were, even has a working bell tower that rings when it opens at CityWalk Orlando. Welcome to Antojitos Authentic Mexican Food, where you can choose from over 200 tequilas and see live mariachi music performed onstage. One bartender operates out of a VW microbus flanking the entrance, and this — coupled with graffiti on the walls and Kewpie dolls decorated like luchadores — lends Antojitos the atmosphere of a freewheeling street party.

It helps that the menu features street tacos, including ones made with carne asada and nopal, an edible cactus. Traditional al pastor tacos, stuffed with roasted pork and pineapple, are also on offer, right alongside mass-market staples like tableside guacamole and fajita skewers. Chile relleno is one of several house specialties, while chicken tinga and salsa verde go into those green enchiladas you'll see. Antojitos means "little cravings" in Spanish, and you can satisfy those with appetizers like empanadas and queso fundido, both made with chorizo and Oaxaca cheese.

At a time when Mexican restaurants now outnumber pizzerias in the U.S., just how "authentic" the food at Antojitos really is will undoubtedly be a matter for debate. One of Epcot's World Showcase landmarks is a fake step pyramid where Mexico City's San Angel Inn operates another one of its restaurants. Is Antojitos more authentic than that, or Cafe La Bamba at Universal Studios Florida? You decide. Recent reviews indicate Antojitos' quality might've gone downhill a bit, so it wouldn't hurt to temper your expectations. If nothing else, Antojitos will let you wash your meal down with Hecho en Mexico, or "Mexican Coke," bottled south of the border with pure cane sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup.

This list was compiled by a native Floridian who's been visiting Universal parks since the '90s. It's informed by firsthand knowledge of CityWalk, the restaurants listed, and the author's extensive theme park coverage history. The list considers the novelty of each restaurant for first-time visitors, going beyond personal preference to factor in popular opinion across the theme park blogosphere and travel review sites. The list is weighted toward restaurants with a Touring Plans reader rating of 90 percent or higher, and a Tripadvisor user rating of 4.0 (out of 5) or higher.

At the time of writing, four restaurants on the list checked both of those boxes: Voodoo Doughnut, the Cowfish Sushi Burger Bar, the Hard Rock Cafe Orlando, and Toothsome Chocolate Emporium. Three more restaurants fell within the "runner-up" category because they only had a 3.9 rating on Tripadvisor. These were Antojitos Authentic Mexican Food, Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville, and NBC Sports Grill & Brew. There are variants of Antojitos and the NBC Sports Grill at Universal Studios Hollywood, but you'd need seven hands to count how many Margaritaville restaurants there are in the world. Ultimately, Antojitos was chosen for this list because it was more unique than Margaritaville, and offered a break from burgers (which were already well-represented here beyond NBC's).

The Tripadvisor ratings were cross-referenced by checking individual pages and filtering the best nearby restaurants within a half-mile of CityWalk Orlando. Of the two dozen dining options in CityWalk, some did not have a rating available on Touring Plans, which determines its ratings based on reader surveys. This is also true, however, of other sites with CityWalk rankings. AllEars, for instance, notes that CityWalk's version of Pat O'Brien's — home of the flaming fountain, the Hurricane cocktail, and the original dueling piano show in New Orleans — doesn't have any reader reviews and doesn't appear in any other online rankings. Take that into account as you're appraising the other most popular Universal Orlando restaurants.