LA TERRAZZA: WHAT IS A MEAL LIKE INSIDE SAN MARINO’S NICEST HOTEL?
The Cost -$22
The Atmosphere – Located inside Hotel Titano, San Marino’s highest-end hotel, La Terrazza has beautiful views of the mountains and some of the walls surrounding the medieval city which is set near the top of Mount Titano. The indoor portion of the restaurant features large glass windows that allow you to take in the view while you are dining if you arrive before it is dark. While the restaurant does set its tables with white tablecloths, it is not necessary to dress formally, and casual attire is perfectly fine. In addition, reservations are accepted but, on most days, not needed.
The country of San Marino may not be the biggest country in the world, but it sure does have a beautiful medieval city that is worth a visit. If you are staying inside of the city, food options are somewhat limited, with all of them catering to tourists who are visiting. Unfortunately, because of that, you end up with a lot of overpriced, average, food. In search of a great meal, I decided to head to La Terrazza, one of the country’s most recognized restaurants that features homemade pasta and Sammarinese cuisine.
The Order – Three Towers Tasting Menu (Small salad with Caesar dressing, Tagliatella with Ragù, Mora Romagnola Ribs, Side Dish, and Dessert of the Day).
The Good – The Tagliatella with Ragù was the best dish of the tasting menu. A portion of homemade pasta with a traditional tomato-based ragù sauce that was topped with a sprinkle of cheese, the pasta was solid. The ragù was nice but it wasn’t anything compared to the amazing sauces that you will find in nearby Italian cities like Bologna. The dish wasn’t anything that will blow your mind, but it was a nice post-salad course.
The Mora Romagnola Ribs was the main course and it also earned a Good rating. The plate came with three ribs from the pig breed that hails from the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy with a small mixed green salad with carrot shavings and some cut-up potatoes on the side. The ribs were enjoyable but the meat was not as tender or soft as it could have been. The potatoes, which were a good portioned side, were salted and were not anything special. However, the most disappointing part of the plate was the salad, which was the same exact simple salad served as the first course of the meal (see below) just without the Caesar dressing.
The Dessert of the Day was also quite simple – two scoops of vanilla ice cream over a cookie crumble with a blueberry compote-like topping. The vanilla ice cream was fine and tasted as if it was a decent store-bought ice cream. The blueberry compote wasn’t as warm as desired but added some fruit and flavor to the vanilla and the basic cookie crumble gave the dessert a crunch. Would I expect this to be the dessert at the end of a set menu? No. Would it have been a solid dessert for a lower-end restaurant? Yes.
The Okay - The worst part of the meal was surely the salad, which tasted like a basic mixed green salad with carrot shavings that you would find in a bag at a supermarket. The simple salad came with Ceasar dressing and was served just like that. There was nothing fresh tasting about it and it felt like an inexpensive mass-produced salad at a free lunch. The meal would have been better off without it both as a first course and as an accompaniment to the ribs.
The Verdict – If you are visiting San Marino, it is very likely that you will be spending time in Italy before or after your visit and that you will be exposed to amazing Italian food. Your meal at La Terrazza will not compare to such meals. While the dinner at La Terrazza isn’t priced like tasting menus in most other restaurants, it just isn’t the quality of food you would expect to be served at the nicest restaurant in a city. The meal was incredibly basic and, unfortunately, there wasn’t much in it that gave you a taste of local Sammarinese food. The view at La Terrazza is beautiful, but we’d suggest skipping it for another one of the restaurants in the city of San Marino if you are looking for better value.
La Terrazza
Contrada del Collegio, 31, 47890 Città di San Marino, San Marino