Pym Test Kitchen
Conceptually fun with good drinks, this Anaheim ode to the Ant-Man movies needs more innovation
Spread across two connected spaces – the mostly indoor Pym Test Kitchen, and outdoor bar Pym Tasting Lab – this Marvel-themed restaurant at Anaheim’s Disney California Adventure borrows the shrinking/growing themes from the Ant-Man movies to present unusually proportioned dining options. Although you can order at counters, mobile ordering is emphasized across the Pym entrances, and you can save yourself a lot of line-waiting time by scanning a QR code and surfing the menu via phone.
The Test Kitchen’s menu has been stripped of its early, controversial $100 sandwich (for six to eight people) and left with simpler fast food options, such as a $15 pretzel with beer cheese dip that two or four people can share, a fried chicken sandwich with a mini bun and oversized cutlet, and Impossible meatless/vegetarian items including pastas. Our oversized pretzel was fine – more like a salted loaf of bread than a pretzel – and we weren’t interested in any of the other food items enough to waste a meal on them.
Drinks were a different story. From a blueberry cold foam-topped matcha to a Shirley Temple-inspired soda with a pipette of grenadine, strawberry puree, and (too few) bursting boba, the beverage menu is at least interesting enough to merit real-life experimentation. The Tasting Lab’s beverage menu expands dramatically on the options available in the Test Kitchen, including mini-pint beer flights and Marvel-fied riffs on popular cocktails. We would come back to explore this part in greater depth, for sure.
Like the whole Avengers Campus area at Disney California Adventure, Pym’s Test Kitchen is somewhat underbaked and plain – the ordering area offers little more than a couple of jokes for Marvel fans, and a lot of waiting under a somewhat desynchronized pretzel-growing animatronic. We hope the menu grows to become more compelling in the future.
Stats
Price: $$
Service: Counter/Phone
Open Since: 2021
Addresses
1313 Disneyland Dr.
Anaheim, CA 92802
714.781.4636