Terra Plata — Restaurant in Seattle

I came here recently with some coworkers to celebrate one of them moving away. I really really wanted to enjoy it. Its a beautiful space that is simplistic and decorated aesthetically (although, it felt almost a bit too pretentious for me to enter, if you get that vibe). I understand this restaurant has a time limit for eating, which I can understand for a weekend, but felt odd for a weekday where there were other empty tables that could fit our party size. We didn't really find this an issue as the time is reasonable, an hour and thirty, I was told, but what really rubbed me the wrong way was how the waiter kept coming to the table every 10 minutes to check in on us. He seemed too cool to really care that we were trying to socialize and provide us with good customer service and cared more about getting us out on time (even with empty tables). I've been to other timed places before and I do appreciate reminders, but they were always subtle and friendly. A simple "hey folks, just letting you know you have 30 minutes left for your reservation...." would have been fine. Instead, we got really awkward and rude, "Do you need anything else? We're running short on your time" and "how we doing here folks? We'll need to order soon if you want more dishes" every few minutes. It was a bit infuriating in the end. I get the idea, but it could've been done in a more kind way.

Additionally, when we ordered desserts, we got a rude comment. One of our party members wanted to order a panna cotta for herself while everyone else wanted to share churro plates. She asked how big it was (as this is a sharing type restaurant (which I found odd for how they served their food, but more on that later)), and the waiter said it was a large single serving. She replied, saying that she'd like that, with extra spoons for the rest of the group and the waiter laughed and said "okay". When we were served, there was only one spoon, so we asked again for extras to share, and he goes "Oh you weren't kidding, I didn't realize the panna cotta could be stretched so far." It was an odd and awkward moment, the group did not appreciate this at all.

Lastly, the whole entire reservation they were trying to rush us out and when we were ready to pay, it took about 30 minutes for them to process the card and get it back to us. We ended up leaving about 20 minutes after our reservation time, and guess what, there was no one waiting for our table at all, but they were super ready to clear our our table as we were getting up to leave.

Now, for the food itself. It was pretty delicious honestly, which makes me sad that the service was sub par. We ordered the roasted cauliflower, the gem lettuce salad, cheese board, shishito peppers, truffle chips, artisan pasta, the churros, panna cotta, and the roast pig. I'd have to say the pasta and pig were my favorite dishes, although the truffle chips with the garlic aioli are close to follow. The pig was seasoned so nicely and had a nice smokey flavor. It fell apart easily and was a great entree to try. The pasta was vegetarian, and while I don't like peas, the peas in this dish added just the right amount of sweetness to the walnut-mint based pesto. Garnished with some edible flowers, it was a nice carb dish to have. I have about the same comments with everything else, it was nicely seasoned and I have no real complaints about how the food tasted.

I really want to recommend this place, but my group ended up paying about $500 total and it just wasn't worth it for the treatment we got. Maybe it was an off day, but I've seen a lot of other reviews stating that their service is below average. Maybe go...

A bummer experience. The food is, as promised, excellent. In particular, the gazpacho and the heirloom tomato with green goddess dressing were divine. HOWEVER… we had a really disappointing overall experience here. Unfortunately while visiting Seattle we only had the budget/opportunity for one special date night out, and the restaurant was SLAMMED and understaffed. For example: We were seated at 6:14 (reservation 6:15). It was hot as hot could be. It took ten minutes to get some water (we had to ask). My cocktail arrived at 7:05… which is also when the first course arrived. And that was only because I asked what happened to it. We ordered the SECOND we could (6:30?) and put in some simple starters that we hoped could come out fast (ie peppers). Fifty minutes from when we were seated to when any food and my drink when there are all these warnings about a 1 hour 45 minute limit on your table time. Not even bread. No air conditioning. I felt physically ill.

We understand that good food takes time, and that everything is made fresh. But I can’t eat quickly- I get sick- and I could not relax because I was so scared I would have to scarf down my food.

At some point after 7:30-with less than 30 minutes left and most of our food still not there— my husband said something to our server about expecting to NOT be kicked out because we still didn’t have most of our food.

Time the salmon entree arrived: 7:54. 6 minutes before our reservation was supposed to end.

To her credit, the serve did NOT push us to leave.

And to be clear: this is NOT the fault of the hard working kitchen or serving staff, who were clearly working like crazy. There was a 12 top clearly overwhelming the kitchen, the heat was worse for them, and so on. I liked and appreciated everyone who worked there, except the person who seated us, who was NOT welcoming and didn’t seem to care at all that I was disturbed by the heat (if you cancel your reservation you lose significant money. He was profoundly unkind and snobbish.)

I rarely write negative reviews. You can look at my other restaurant reviews, many are raves. But we are not rich. We are upper middle class and lucky enough to be able to treat ourself to a really nice restaurant with food from an award winning chef once in awhile. We are lucky we can do that. But it is NOT an everyday experience for us, and it was tremendously disappointing to have this happen with the one upscale restaurant we selected in Seattle. When you pay that much to eat out, I know you are paying for the cost of the ingredients and a ton of labor- but I also expected good service. Not fawning service. Just not total disarray. Our server apologized and thanked us for our patience. This was NOT her fault. But it was a really sad and stressful and headache-inducing experience, and I’m bummed about it. Not the way we wanted our...

This place has a very nice outdoor patio which really hits during summer - although the seats can be a bit cramped, the atmosphere is great Our group ordered a ton of different appetizers, before having three paellas to share

Out of the seven appetizers we had, my favorite had to be the focaccia. it was incredibly soft, fluffy, and I could eat it fully on its own without any dipping sauce needed. I also enjoyed the albacore crudo. The rest I was kind of mixed on. The baguette was far too chewy for me, and the truffled potato chips were begging for salt that just wasn't there. The peppers had the opposite problem, where by themselves they were good, but the sauce didn't really taste like anything.

For our mains, we ordered two mixto paellas - coming with chicken, chorizo, shrimp, clams, mussels, and rice, and a vegetarian paella These paellas were massive. They were $55 each, but I think one could easily feed 3 different people. There was so much rice, meat, and vegetables involved They also lived up to it taste-wise - as these paellas were easily the best part of the overall meal. Even excluding the meat, the combination of the saffron rice and braised sofrita was delectable. The amount of flavor being held by each grain coated by the sauce is what really makes this dish special. The meats being good made it even better. I loved the mussels, clams, and sausage. The shrimp was a bit overcooked but definitely high quality - but my favorite was the chicken. The skin was incredibly crispy, and the inside was just as good. The amount of chicken provided in the mixto paella was also impressive The vegetables in the vegetarian paella also did their part; tasting both fresh and filling

Along with a drink, the price ended up being roughly $60 per person. The appetizers are way overpriced in my opinion - some being over $20 for something that's not a lot. While the paellas are more expensive, they're also just so much bigger One odd thing: the server felt very short with us, like they weren't making an effort to provide good service. I wonder if the 20% automatic gratuity has anything to do with this - because they feel like they don't need to be polite since there's no additional tip coming anyway

Overall, it's a nice, albeit expensive place, but if you were to come here, I would order one paella for every 4-5 people and that's...