FICO Eataly World

The focus of places like Disney World and Six Flags is rides. You pay an entrance fee, and that enables you to go to Space Mountain (or whatever).

Eataly World, however, is focused on all aspects of Italian food: growing, harvesting, processing, and craft. Much of the park's 20 acres are dedicated to farms and factories that you can visit, enabling you to see directly how Parmigiano-Reggiano is made, or how your favorite olive oil is pressed.

FICO Eataly World

In many ways, Eataly World is an extension of what the various Eataly establishments around the world already do — just many, many times larger. At Eataly, you can watch pasta get made by hand and choose to either buy some to cook yourself or have it prepared by an expert cook. You can buy the guanciale, cheese, tomato and whatever else on-site, and go make bucatini all'amatriciana at home. Or you could eat it on-site.

Eataly World takes that concept to a far grander scale, where you can see the cows who produced the milk that became the cheese you're eating. Then you can see the aging process of that cheese before it became a nutty, salty, unbelievably complex and delicious sensory experience.

FICO Eataly World

Eataly World boasts a selection of 40 different food options, ranging from more casual trattorias and street-food carts to "starred restaurants."

Standouts thus far include Neapolitan pizza chain Rossopommodoro and cured-meat purveyor Antica Ardenga, though that's just the tip of the iceberg in terms of options. How about a shop dedicated to mortadella? Because that's totally a thing at Eataly World (it's actually called "Mortadella World," hilariously).

FICO Eataly World

Eataly's marketplaces, if you've never been, are known for having an impressive selection of fresh fruits, vegetables, herbs, and fresh breads. These markets serve the community around them, and they also supplies Eataly's restaurants with fresh ingredients.

At Eataly World, the same concept applies — only at a far grander scale:

As seen in the rendering above, Eataly World features a huge open market with produce, as well as stalls surrounding it. It's essentially a really impressive supermarket.

FICO Eataly World

Orlando is nice, but Bologna is a place with thousands of years of history. You're unlikely to regret the visit! But if Eataly World doesn't do it for you, the rest of Italy's glorious Emilia-Romagna region will assuredly make up for that.

Here's a video tour of Eataly World, featuring a delightful British voiceover. The park opens on November 15, and is free to enter.

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