Bigfire: Dinner, Cooked Over an Open Fire

Most of Universal CityWalk announces itself at maximum volume. Bigfire whispers. Set on the Islands of Adventure side of the waterfront, it is styled as a lakeside summer lodge — wood beams, warm light, an open hearth visible from the dining room — and built around a single idea executed seriously: cook dinner over live fire, the way a good camp cook would, with real wood and no shortcuts.

The fire is the menu

Bigfire’s kitchen works over cherry, pecan and oak, and the menu says plainly that the lumber can change a dish’s flavor profile — a sentence you do not expect to read in a theme-park district, and the truest one on the menu. The hearth turns out the core of the list: wood-fired steaks, including a cowboy ribeye; freshwater fish given the same treatment; scallops and a half lobster tail from the fire; and vegetables — charred Brussels sprouts among them — that pick up the smoke as a seasoning rather than a garnish. A Wagyu burger and a bourbon cheese fondue round out the comfort side of the ledger.

The effect, at its best, is that Bigfire tastes like somewhere else. The smoke reads as depth rather than novelty, the room stays calm while the promenade outside churns, and the whole experience feels closer to a good standalone Orlando steakhouse than to a resort restaurant. Of the current CityWalk lineup, this is the kitchen most often described by other guides as the district’s best food — a judgment our own eating supports, offered here as reporting rather than a magazine ranking, since CityWalk’s venues have not yet been scored by our Top Businesses program.

S’mores, taken seriously

Dessert is where Bigfire’s concept completes itself. The signature is s’mores prepared tableside — graham crackers, chocolate and marshmallows finished at your table over flame, equal parts dessert and small ceremony, and the order that turns a good dinner into the one people describe afterward. The drinks program plays along, with smoked cocktails, including a smoked old fashioned, carrying the hearth theme into the glass.

When to go

Bigfire is primarily a dinner house, opening in the late afternoon on weekdays and earlier on weekends, when a brunch service joins the schedule. Reservations are the smart play, especially on Fridays and Saturdays and any night the parks close early enough to push the whole resort toward dinner at once; the firepit-side outdoor seating is worth requesting in the cooler months. It is the natural anchor for a CityWalk date night, and it leads our CityWalk eating guide for a reason.

It also travels well across occasions. Families do fine here earlier in the evening — the s’mores ritual is catnip for kids, and the menu’s comfort register (burgers, fondue, fire-kissed vegetables) gives cautious eaters solid ground. Business dinners and celebration tables use it for the opposite reason: it is the CityWalk room whose noise level permits conversation and whose kitchen gives a special occasion something to stand on. That range is rare in a resort district, where restaurants usually pick a lane — spectacle or seriousness — and stay in it. Bigfire’s lodge theming is present but restrained, a backdrop rather than a show, and the service style matches: attentive without hovering over the fire story.

Practical notes: Bigfire sits inside the free-to-enter CityWalk district, so no park ticket is involved; standard parking applies before 6 p.m. and is free after, on non-event nights. Find it in context via the CityWalk hub and the Top Spots Map. In a district built on spectacle, Bigfire’s bet is that fire, wood and patience are spectacle enough. On the evidence of the dining room, it is winning that bet.

Filed under Bigfire · Orlando Dining · Steakhouses · Universal CityWalk · Universal Orlando

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