The first thing you need to know about Minion Land is that there are bananas everywhere.
Going in, I thought the Minions’ obsession with bananas was going to translate into a lot of unpleasant eating experiences for me. Why? Because bananas are my least favorite food on the planet. But thankfully, while there are countless bananas available throughout the newest themed area of Universal Orlando Resort, most of them aren’t edible. Some of them can even be shot out of a cannon, as in the Villain-Con: Minions Blast ride.
But if you’re in Minion Land, you’re definitely going to want to eat. The food is very, very good—way better than any quick-service food at a theme park has any business being.
Inspired by those little yellow, gibberish-speaking oddballs who power Gru’s evil schemes in the Despicable Me film franchise, Minion Land took a nondescript walkthrough area in Universal Studios park and turned it into an attraction full of vibrant colors, locations from the films (like the Bank of Evil), character meet-and-greets, and the Villain-Con ride, one of the most innovative rides I’ve ever experienced. On it, you’re auditioning to join the villainous Vicious Six; you take a blaster, walk onto a moving conveyor belt, and shoot everything in sight to get points as you’re transported through set pieces and past enormous screens.
After you shoot your shot at becoming a bad guy, you exit through the Evil Gear gift shop, filled with Villain-Con merch and loads upon loads of purple, crazy-haired Evil Minions. Then, it’s time to eat.
Minion Land’s sophisticated quick-service fare
Given the restaurants that have opened at both Universal Hollywood and Universal Orlando this year, it’s clear the parks have taken a huge step forward in elevating their food. One sign of this was in February 2023 when Universal Studios Hollywood opened Super Nintendo World and its accompanying Toadstool Cafe, which offers food like Piranha Plant Caprese Salad (actually shaped like the piranha plants in the game) and the Chef Toad Short Rib Special, with creamy goat cheese polenta and red wine reduction.
When I visited that restaurant, I was blown away by the complexity of the dishes and their creative artistry (a Bowser-shaped puff pastry on Bowser’s Fireball Challenge; speckled green and white Yoshi egg croutons on Yoshi’s Favorite Fruit and Flower Salad). Almost a year in, the eatery is still delivering the same stunning and well-executed food, even though Toadstool Cafe is serving about 4,000 people a day.
All of this is to say that I should have known Minion Land would have something especially delicious up its bright yellow sleeve—but what I tasted there exceeded every expectation I could have had. The offerings are sophisticated and inventive, but more than that, they’re just plain fun.
The excellent menu at Minion Cafe
The idea behind Minion Cafe (technically “Illumination’s Minion Cafe,” in reference to the animation studio that produces the Despicable Me films which are then financed and distributed by Universal) is that you’re eating in the Minions’ break room, where they go when it’s time to refuel from their—brace yourself for a terrible pun—Gru-eling work. The walls are decorated with parody motivational posters like “Teamwork means it’s nobody’s fault” and “Collaboration: Share the credit not the work.” The lockers, and the vending machine, are unsurprisingly full of bananas.
But while I did try a dessert that looked like a banana, I didn’t eat any at Minion Cafe. That “banana” was actually passionfruit mousse in a white chocolate shell made to resemble the Minions’ favorite food. It was served alongside the Minion Swiss Roll ($7.99), made with vanilla cake and pineapple cardamom ganache.
That dessert is exactly what I’m talking about. Cardamom-infused ganache and chocolate art are a far cry from the churros and soft serve you usually find at theme parks. But that dessert, delicious as it was, was far from the only great thing I tried in Minion Land. In fact, everything I ate was something I would specifically go back for again (and in most cases have already done so).
My favorite thing on the menu, hands down, is Agnes’ Honeymoon Soup ($14.99), which is a savory, slightly spicy green tomato soup garnished with crispy pork belly, a tomato “gummy bear,” and basil oil, served with a grilled cheese made with waffles and pimento cheese. The sandwich is perfect for dunking in the soup, but so are the Minion Tots ($5.49), which are tater tots shaped uncannily like Minions, with precise details down to the glasses and overalls. If these were available at the grocery store, I would buy them constantly—or at least I’d try, because they would definitely be out of stock more often than not.
At Minion Cafe, I also enjoy Carl’s Crispy Cauliflower ($15.99), a plant-based dish with crispy cauliflower florets in a sweet and spicy chili sauce, served with coconut blue rice, Thai cucumbers, and edamame; Lucy’s Top Secret Salmon ($19.99), a bowl filled with wood-grilled Atlantic salmon, coconut blue rice, Thai cucumbers, edamame, and “lipstick taser” sauce; and Uncle Dru’s Belly Fillin’ Pork Sandwich ($15.99), featuring slow-roasted porchetta, chimichurri, mustard aioli, apple butter, bacon jam, and arugula on a Hawaiian pretzel bun, served with green banana chips.
Mel’s Meatball Mountain ($14.99) is a handheld stuffed pizza, filled with meatballs, basil, fresh mozzarella, and marinara, baked in a wood oven. It was so huge that I could only eat half, and so delicious that I took the rest with me and had it as a snack later. The chefs at Universal say this pizza is especially popular as a mobile order, because people like to share it as they’re walking around the park.
While the Swiss roll was tasty, my favorite dessert on the menu is Otto’s Pet Rock ($8.99), which features peanut butter mousse and strawberry jelly around a banana cake, dipped in an adorable chocolate shell that really does look like a rock, served on top of a mound of cookie crumb “dirt.”
The crave-worthy snacks of Minion Land
Both Minion Land and Super Nintendo World have excellent fast casual restaurants, but one thing that sets Minion Land apart is the wealth of delicious themed snacks throughout the attraction. In addition to the walk-up window for mobile orders at Minion Cafe, there are three other walk-up snack locations in the land.
Freeze Ray Pops sells gourmet ice pops ($5.99) in flavors like strawberry, mango, coconut, lemon mint and blueberry lemonade. There are also three “specialty” ice pops ($8.99) on the menu: Minion (blue banana), Gru (Nutella), and Vector (orange cream). I tried the Vector, and it was easily the best orange creamsicle I’ve ever had. The citrus flavor had a freshness that really popped against the creamy interior.
Pop-a-Nana is a popcorn and drink booth that sells regular popcorn and banana caramel-flavored popcorn. I tried the latter, and it tasted like caramel corn dialed up to 11.
But for me, the absolute most delicious option is Bake My Day, a bakery that sells cake pops, cupcakes, whoopie pies, macarons, and s’mores. A lot of the items are banana-flavored, like the Minion Swiss Roll and the chocolate-banana cake pop, and some taste more like banana candy than fresh fruit. My runaway favorite, the one I’m still dreaming about, was the Evil Minion Cake Pop ($10), a bright purple confection made with peanut butter and grape jelly. It had me right away because of extreme nostalgia: the grape “chocolate” shell smelled exactly like a purple Mr. Sketch marker, and it tasted exactly how I always imagined that intoxicating neon grape-smelling marker would taste, if it were edible. Underneath the shell sits a generous portion of fluffy, not-too-sweet peanut butter cake.
The team member behind the counter assured me that if I like grape, I’d love it, and he was definitely not wrong. Apparently I’m not alone. The next time I went back to Bake My Day, the Evil Minion cake pops were sold out.