Paso Terra Bistro — Restaurant in Paso Robles

Our party of 13 had a fantastic dining experience at this family owned restaurant...

Paso Terra ambiance and service: Christina was our host for the evening and she was so friendly, sweet and assisted throughout the meal. We say down to a complimentary glass of champagne and tartar, fantastic. Our two servers were on point through the evening with keeping the dishes cleared as the plates came in quickly from the kitchen. The resto is a boutique sized family restaurant with limited seating inside and outside. The dining experience will definitely be intimate but not uncomfortable. The walls are adorned with pleasant sea life influenced paintings.

Paso Terra cuisine: The group appetizer was the yummy paella and it was loaded with shrimp, scallops, sausage and mussels. I started off with the escargot with garlic butter and it was the perfect tasty appetizer for me. I know their specialty is seafood but the Rack of Lamb with pesto caught my attention and I went with it. It was absolutely delicious as the pesto complimented the lamb in a way I've never tasted before. Everything I sampled from the mixed seafood grill was flavorful but the swordfish was my champ. I also sampled the Miso Cod and the seabass and both were lovely. That mustard miso sauce on the Cod was a creative compliment. All the desserts we sampled were personal size, sweetened but not too sweet.

Overall this was an amazing dining experience for our group. The chef is very creative with the full-flavored dishes we ordered. Coupled with the great personal service and you have nice dining experience at seafood resto. If we're in the area for wine tasting, we'll definitely be...

It was our first time in Paso Robles. We haven’t stayed away from home like most in a year. My husband and I wanted to get away for his birthday. We left Orange County around 2:00pm and made it with ease. We were blown away by this beautiful town. When we first walked into Paso Terra we were greeted with the warmest of smiles. They recognized we had a reservation and acknowledged it was my husbands birthday...which was so beautiful and so often overlooked. My husband and I are the type who love to chat and sit at the bar. Well..since those aren’t options anymore, we were so pleased to be able to get to know Christine and Chef. What a marvellous meal. My husband is Portuguese and grew up in London. He is a huge seafood lover. He said it was the best lobster bisque he ever had. I usually don’t order bisque because it will fill me up before the meal. I wish I had because it wasn’t too creamy. It was just all the flavor with big chunks of lobster. The octopus and crab cake appetizer had too many flavors to count. Branzino is my favorite fish and I had never had it served in a Milanese style. This did nothing disappoint. We ended with the chefs Cheescake which was like no other Cheescake texture I’ve ever had. It was complete with a french press coffee (yum). We spoke to other diners who said they had been coming for years and drive in just to come. My husband said it was one of the best birthdays he has ever had. Thank you Paso Terra for bringing a lot...

So… I haven’t returned a dish from a restaurant in 20 years. Based on reviews we decided to dine at Paso Terra. We were met by the owner, Christine, who gave us a nice table and we proceeded to order: Branzino, Octopus, Crab Cakes. The first thing that struck us is that almost every dish coming out of the kitchen had squiggles of a strange mayo based sauce all over the top. My Octopus was mushy and swimming a a yellow sauce. (Turmeric??) and the Crab Cakes were very thin and covered with the “magic Mayo”. The Branzino was overdone and mushy, with the “mayo”. We returned all plates and then the owner came over very PRISSY and cleared the table without saying anything she did offer our wine complimentary, which was nice. We decided not to order anything else. When the bill came we were charged for the wine, which was okay even though we didn’t expect it. We paid the bill, left a tip for our waitress and got up to leave. Christine was standing at the front door so I went up to her and mentioned I had owned a restaurant and understood that restaurants sometimes had an off night. She just stood there and glared at me, not saying a word. I said we were sorry and she just glared!!! In my experience as a restaurant owner the customer is right and being gracious is paramount to return business! Needless to say we weren’t treated that way and...