Da Terra Restaurant — Restaurant in London

A couple of canapés kicked the meal off to a great start. An amuse-bouche of prawn, vodka and tomato was so tasty and warm. The rich shellfish flavour of the prawn married perfectly with the tangy and strong flavours of the tomato and alcohol. It was also served in one of the coolest bowls I have seen. A delicate and vibrant dish of hamachi with a pea dashi followed. The next dish was named 'Humble Chicken'. This was just great; so rich, so satisfying and above all so delicious. The bread and butter was very nice but I didn't like the bone marrow spread beside it as it was far too rich and had very little flavour. The texture reminded me of hardened fat.

Next, I had a sophisticated version of Moqueca, a Brazilian fish stew. The aged turbot was good but slightly too chewy for me. The sauce was packed with all the flavours of the seafood. It had a good spicy kick too. The main meat dish was pork with morels and endive. It was tender and had a good meat-to-fat ratio. The morel added plenty of flavour. The refreshing and subtly sweet bitterness of the endive balanced the dish.

A cheese course named 'Romeo & Juliette' came next. It came in the form of a smooth and sweet cheese which had set to form a small cylinder, topped with a delicate guava gel. This was one of the best cheese courses I have eaten. It could have easily been eaten as a dessert. The first dessert was a Baba, which was served with pistachio ice cream and caviar. Unfortunately, this dessert wasn't the one for me. The liquor was too bitter and the caviar added an overly salty flavour. The flavours were rather unusual. There wasn't enough sweetness. The main dessert of pineapple and coconut, on the other hand, was gorgeous. The coconut parfait was cool and had a great consistency. The pineapple added a refreshing element. It was just the sort of dessert you want in the summer! It was also highly different from many of the desserts I have tasted over time and really had some originality. Some petit fours, including a super boozy liquor candy that looked like a gummy completed the meal.

Generally, the food was brilliant. The Brazilian elements really differentiated it from your typical European cuisine, which made it all the more fun to eat. But I do think that £215 is slightly overpriced and I was expecting a little more from a restaurant that had recently been given 3rd place in the National Restaurant Awards. But I...

I visited for dinner on a Friday night. The venue is split into two sections. The front room faces into the open kitchen and this is clearly the place to be. The back room may still offer a partial kitchen view depending where you are seated, albeit you’re a bit too far back to really appreciate it. Views aside it’s a nice enough venue and it was nice to see they’ve tried to keep things relatively informal.

Only one tasting menu is on offer, priced at £225 per head. Interestingly, apart from the usual wine pairing (£150), they did also offer a non-alcoholic pairing (£95), as well as a half and half option (£125). Our meal started off strongly. The carabineros as well as the ‘humble chicken’ were both stand out courses which were excellently prepared. However, I didn’t enjoy the second half of the meal as much. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t bad, but it just didn’t deliver the standard I would have expected from a 2-star venue. Dishes were all beautifully presented, but I wasn’t convinced by some of the flavour combinations, for example in the moqueca dish. I don’t eat pork, and the one pork dish was substituted with a seafood dish, meaning there was no red meat included throughout my meal, which was a bit disappointing given the Brazilian influenced menu. I also thought the desserts were a bit too adventurous, with two savoury/sweet combos followed by a pineapple based dish. Something more typical (e.g. chocolate based) would have been more enjoyable, but perhaps is just down to personal preference.

Service was excellent. Staff were quite friendly and they created a relaxed atmosphere. I liked how different chefs would come out to present individual dishes. The meal progressed at a decent pace and we were done in around 2.5 hours. The bill for 2 people including a wine pairing came to £900. Overall, although the service was good and there were enjoyable components of the menu, it felt a bit inconsistent and I came away slightly underwhelmed, especially considering the price point which is definitely at the upper end of the range for fine dining in London. Having tried most of the 2/3 star restaurants in town, this unfortunately wouldn’t rank as one of...

If only talking about the savoury courses the food would've been a 4/5, but the desserts were such a let-down. The service was for the most part just as impeccable as you'd expect, however it would have been nice to have an overview of how many courses and what to expect because the first few amuse-bouche plates felt very rushed because we mistakenly thought we had already had our first 3 courses in the first few minutes. Also one or two of the staff recited a script much too quickly rather than actually talking to you, so for the first few plates we were guessing what we were eating (we saw a written menu at the end of the meal). Caipirinha cup was okay. The cocktails were beautifully presented (see Da Terra carved in the ice). The 3 amuse bouche bites were DELICIOUS. The savoury plates were all very good with outstanding presentation. I believe we may have had the best seat in the house too, directly in front of the open kitchen to see the chefs at work. Things went a little downhill with desserts. The first cheese/guava dish I thought was interesting, the cheese was quite intensely flavoured rather than creamy as is typical in cheese desserts. The dessert that was topped with caviar was sadly a 0/5. I have a very broad palate and there's not much that I find truly off-putting, but highly salty caviar, creamy ice cream, sponge and bathed in a spirit... The flavours were so out of sync. I went for a second bite to try and appreciate the pistachio ice cream, but the caviar and alcohol completely overwhelmed it. The pineapple dessert was a little better, but I did not eat past my first bite. Surprisingly, staff did not ask us how we liked the desserts when they collected almost full plates back. I was kindly gifted a chocolate tart as it was my birthday and a card which was a very nice gesture. The final dessert pieces were interesting flavours but nothing wowed us. Sadly the liqueur candy, which we were warned was fragile, was so fragile that it broke/disintegrated as I picked it up, so all I could do was lick my finger. I'm glad we came and we had a nice experience overall, but it didn't meet my expectations of a 2*...