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There is a scene in Monsters, Inc. that lasts maybe ninety seconds.
Mike Wazowski takes Celia to Harryhausen’s for her birthday. It is a nice place, a swanky night out, and the camera catches a sushi chef in the middle of the dining room working with multiple arms at once. It is a throwaway gag in a movie packed with them, and it has stuck with people for twenty-five years.
Disney is building that restaurant.
Not a restaurant inspired by it. That one, including the chef, is an Audio-Animatronic figure using eight tentacles to prep food in the center of the dining room.
Monstropolis opens at Disney’s Hollywood Studios in 2027, and Disney has now previewed what the food will actually be. The details suggest the culinary team took this considerably more seriously than a themed land menu usually requires.
The Two Restaurants
Harryhausen’s is the table service location, built to look like what you saw in the film, and Disney says it will feature more than just sushi.
Archie’s Scare Pig Pizza is a quick-service spot inspired by Monsters University, designed to feel like the pizza place where generations of monster college students ended up after class.
Named, of course, for Archie the Scare Pig, the Fear Tech mascot whose theft kicks off a decent chunk of that movie.
That structure is worth noting on its own. One table service and one quick service, drawn from two different films, covering a night-out experience and a casual hangout. Galaxy’s Edge famously opened without a traditional table service restaurant, and Monstropolis is not repeating that.
A Name Worth Knowing
Since the restaurant is about to become a real place, the reference behind it deserves explaining.
Harryhausen’s is named for Ray Harryhausen, the stop-motion animation pioneer behind the creature work in Jason and the Argonauts, Clash of the Titans, and The 7th Voyage of Sinbad. His skeletons and monsters defined what movie creatures looked like for a generation of filmmakers, Pixar’s included.
Pixar named the fancy monster sushi restaurant after him as a tribute. In 2027, you will be able to eat there.
The Actual Culinary Problem
Disney spoke with Chef Brian Piasecki, Director of Culinary and Concept Development, and Evan Rosenthal, Beverage Director, about the development process, and the challenge they describe is more interesting than it sounds.
The monster food in these films is deliberately revolting to look at. That is the joke. But a theme park restaurant has to serve something that looks authentically monstrous and also tastes good and also gets eaten by a seven-year-old.
“There were so many moments where we asked, ‘Is this too much?'” Rosenthal said. “And sometimes we’d hear back, ‘No. Can we take it further? Can we make it brighter, bolder, and more interesting?’ Those are the moments of true collaboration.”
The questions they landed on, by their own account, included whether monsters slurp, whether they chew, and whether something had too many eyeballs.
“Monstropolis is full of fun, adventure, zaniness, and craziness,” Piasecki said. “We’re taking familiar dishes and adding unexpected twists that feel authentic to this world.”
The team calls the result “grossly fun” food.
Here Is Why That Approach Will Work
Look closely at what they described for Harryhausen’s, and the strategy becomes obvious.
The ramen bowls being explored use rich tonkotsu broth and alkaline ramen noodles. The monster element is fishcake sliced to look like eyeballs, plus green eggs.
Read that again. The foundation is real ramen. The weirdness is cosmetic.
That is exactly the right call, and the vocabulary gives it away. Alkaline noodles, meaning noodles made with kansui, are the actual technical standard for ramen. It is the ingredient that produces the texture and the yellow color that distinguishes ramen from other noodles. That is not a phrase a theme park press release reaches for casually.
Pair it with tonkotsu, the pork bone broth that takes many hours to build properly, and the signal is clear. Somebody on that team cares about the ramen being good ramen.
The eyeballs are a garnish. The food underneath is the point.
Blort Is the Interesting One
The beverage story is a blank canvas, and that almost never happens.
Blort is established in Monsters University as one of the most popular soft drinks in Monstropolis. No human has ever seen it or tasted it. There is no canon flavor, no established color, nothing to honor.
So Disney gets to invent it.
What the beverage team described is a purple frozen version of Monstropolis’ favorite soda, topped with something called Scream Apple Foam.
Worth noting the hedge, though. Disney’s own language on this is “maybe it’s a purple frozen spin,” which is not a confirmation.
About That Hedging, Generally
This is the part readers should hold onto.
Disney described the Harryhausen’s ramen as among the menu items “being explored.” The Blort description came with a “maybe” attached.
None of this is a finalized menu. These are concepts in development for a land opening in 2027, and the development menus are subject to change. The eyeball fishcake may not survive. The Scream Apple Foam may become something else entirely.
What is confirmed is the two restaurants, their service styles, the films they draw from, and the Audio-Animatronic sushi chef. Everything on the plate is still subject to change.
The Dining Room as the Attraction
Back to that animatronic for a moment, because it is the most ambitious detail here.
Most restaurant animatronics are decorative. A figure that moves a little, or a scene playing on a loop in a corner.
An eight-tentacled figure performing food preparation in the center of a dining room is a different proposition. It has to be articulated enough to read as actual prep work, visible from multiple angles, and durable enough to run all day for years.
That turns the dining room itself into a show element rather than a room with theming in it. If it works, Harryhausen’s becomes a place people book to see rather than just to eat.
Where That Leaves Us
Monstropolis arrives in 2027, and Disney has not announced an opening date beyond the year.
What the preview establishes is encouraging for anyone who has watched theme park food trend toward the safe and the generic. Real ramen fundamentals, a genuinely novel invented beverage, two distinct service tiers pulled from two films, and a restaurant built around a practical show element.
“The best part of our job is that with every project and every story, we get to see it through a new lens,” Rosenthal said. “Whether that’s with one eyeball or dozens of them.”
On that question, the team has already made its position clear. You can never have too many eyeballs in Monstropolis.
Source: Disney Parks Blog interview with Chef Brian Piasecki and Evan Rosenthal.
