Among the new dining venues at Universal Helios Grand Hotel is Flora Taverna, which is open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We dined for breakfast, where guests can choose to order table service or partake in a buffet.
Flora Taverna Breakfast Buffet
Flora Taverna is on the first floor of Universal Helios Grand Hotel, but its floor-to-ceiling windows and outdoor seating provide a view into Celestial Park. Guests can make reservations for Flora Taverna and Bar Helios via Resy.com.
Flora Taverna is open for breakfast from 7 a.m. to 11 a.m., lunch from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., and dinner from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m.
A display showed off some of the food options available during breakfast. Flora Taverna offers pancakes, French toast, eggs, shawarma-spiced beef hash, avocado toast, smoked salmon, pastries, and more. Table-service entrees vary in price around $25. We opted instead for the Sunrise Buffet, which is $36 and includes a drink.
Sunrise Buffet – $36
Indulge in a decadent morning spread designed to awaken the senses and elevate the start of your day. Delight in a selection of freshly prepared dishes, including artisanal pastries, made-to-order omelets, golden pancakes, vibrant fruit salads, and savory options like charcuterie, scrambled eggs, bacon, and roasted vegetables. Includes freshly brewed coffees, fine teas, and freshly squeezed juices.
Lemon Ricotta Pancakes
We’ll start with one of the buffet’s more unique options: lemon ricotta pancakes. This has a great lemony flavor but no hints of ricotta. It’s very dry on its own, so definitely grab syrup or butter. They have Sugarman of Vermont maple syrup, which is a good accompaniment, although it adds an intense maple flavor.
Rating out of 7: 6
Salmon
The salmon is another Flora Taverna signature. It’s presented on a bed of rice, which was delicious and reminded us of paella. It has a bit of a lemon taste. The salmon was great, especially for a buffet. It was crispy on the outside and not overcooked.
Rating out of 7: 7
Bacon and Sausage
The smoked bacon is not as crispy as we would like. It’s typical buffet bacon. We liked the sausage fine.
Rating out of 7: 4
Sides
The breakfast vegetable of the day during our visit was broccoli, which seemed like an odd breakfast choice. It was surprisingly good and crunchy.
Rating out of 7: 5
This is the kind of frozen egg product you’ll find at normal breakfast buffets. It was pretty good considering it wasn’t fresh scrambled eggs.
Rating out of 7: 4
The breakfast potatoes were just okay. The taste was fine, but they weren’t crispy, which we would prefer.
Rating out of 7: 3
Charcuterie
The charcuterie table included goat cheese, manchego, brie, Boursin, salamis, fig jam, and various crostinis. We were disappointed that there were no honeycombs or almonds. We enjoyed the options, though.
Rating out of 7: 5
Dry Cereal
Dry cereal options include Frosted Flakes, Rice Krispies, Froot Loops, Cheerios, Raisin Bran, and Special K.
Breads & Pastries
Bread options include bagels and wheat bread. There’s a toaster available.
There are various spreads and toppings for the bread.
Pastries include lemon poppyseed muffins, banana nut muffins, croissants, chocolate croissants, cinnamon rolls, cherry turnover, pound cake, and pain au chocolat cheese danish.
The pound cake has a delicious lemon-orange flavor. It’s one of our favorites. The rest of the pastries are good. The muffins taste like those you would get from your local grocery store. The pain au chocolat cheese danish essentially tasted like a chocolate croissant. What was labeled as an “apple lattice” was actually apricot, which was fine, but not what we expected.
Rating out of 7: 5
Fruit
The fruit options include figs, watermelon, blueberries, cantaloupe, strawberries, and pineapples. Obviously, availability and flavor might vary depending on when you visit.
The pineapple was excellent. The figs were not sweet at all, which was off-putting. The rest of the fruit was good.
Rating out of 7: 5
There are two smoothie offerings. The green one is a mix of kale, cucumber, apple, and carrot. It tastes like a salad in a bad way. We should’ve just stuck with the breakfast broccoli.
Rating out of 7: 2
The purple smoothie is a berry mix. It had no additional flavors or sweeteners to punch it up. We didn’t like either smoothie.
Rating out of 7: 2
This is a straightforward cup of granola, yogurt, and berries. It’s a plain Greek yogurt, but we added some honey, which made it better.
Rating out of 7: 4
Overall
We highly recommend Flora Taverna. Other than the smoothies, everything we ate was at least passable if not excellent. It’s not cheap, but it will provide a substantial breakfast before a long day at Epic Universe. Just don’t ride Stardust Racers right after eating.
Check out our Universal Helios Grand Hotel tour, Bar Helios review, and Lotus Lagoon pool bar review. Stay tuned for more coverage of Epic Universe.
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