Restaurant Tèrra

“Be careful,” she smiles, putting down the small, impeccable quenelle of lemon sorbet resting on a bed of frozen pine shoots, “it’s quite concentrated in flavor.” A small careful bite is taken by the diner. And despite the warning, the experience is on the brink of overwhelming. The amount of perfectly zingy citrus flavor backed by a forestry crunch of pine hidden in this unassuming, little package presents a full-on flavor explosion. It is by no means the first explosion of the evening, but a thundering pre-dessert salute in a series of bold impressions on the Tèrra Experience tasting menu that began nearly three hours prior. An experience that has sent the mind wandering to make sense of an overpowering sensory symphony that is anything but what it seems.

It is a beautiful juxtaposition, really: As you step in the door, Tèrra Restaurant seems like any modern restaurant. The interior and ambience are stylish and warm: Bare brick walls. Wooden furniture. Long drapes. Bottles of homemade vermouth and jars of preserved ingredients on shelves along the walls. Upbeat electronic music at the perfect level to add atmosphere to both the ground floor dining room and the open kitchen placed in full view one floor below. It has a certain Italian restaurant ambience to it, but it’s more of an urban NYC-style Italian restaurant than the classical understanding of the term.

And here, as you are warmly welcomed with a tipple of homemade Vermouth and snacks consisting of cheese beetroot cannelloni served alongside a classic albeit rare combination of umami (in this case mushrooms) and cocoa… Here is where the setting changes completely and the mind starts racing for an explanation! Here, the likeness to most restaurants you have ever entered comes to an abrupt halt. More than a simple, cozy dining spot, you see, Tèrra serves as the ideological playground for the charming and warm blooded Italian couple Valerio and Lucy, and as the perfect base for their mission: To craft a better culinary world through a unique zero-waste approach to sustainability.

“Tèrra is a minimalist, innovative and contemporary Italian experience. It’s young and unconventional. We reuse all leftovers to make byproducts, until only fibers are left to become compost for our small kitchen garden, where aromatic herbs and seasonal plants are grown. Primarily vegetarian with a bit of locally produced animal protein and freshly caught fish from the North Sea added” - Reads part of the Tèrra manifesto, in words that make perfect sense to those in the know, yet reveal little of the dining experience.

Tèrra is passion, flavor and heart

To the adventurous diner, Tèrra is passion, flavor and heart. A place where nothing is what it seems. A place that is at the same time very Italian and not very Italian at all; and it’s home to some of the most deceptively simple-looking, thoughtfully complex and surprisingly flavorful bites on the Copenhagen tasting menu scene.

Tèrra is, in many ways, the romantic husband and wife restaurant story in which the husband mans the pots and the pans in the kitchen, while the wife takes care of the guests. A few generations ago, it may well have been the other way around, but then again this is as far away from your classic Italian restaurant as you can get. It is a new and modern experience entirely, but still true to classic Italian ideals of locality and simplicity.

Ingredients are biodynamic, locally sourced whenever possible and used for all their worth. To the absolute extreme. In one case, for example, celeriac tops are blended with parsley to form an attractive green glaze for a dish made from other parts of the very same bulb of celeriac cooked in three different ways. Vegetable and herbal scraps are repurposed to create extra flavor in an extravagant bread serving. Spent parmesan rinds are used to produce broth for pasta filled with pumpkin scraps. Even the house vermouth and sake are flavored using scraps and pieces from the restaurant that would otherwise go to waste.

It sounds highly dogmatic and limiting, perhaps, but it creates in the Tèrra experience a meal so well-planned, playful and engulfing that it has you smiling throughout the ordeal, even laughing at times at the creativity at play. It sometimes even sends you rocking in your seat, surprised by the intensity of flavor hidden in the largely minimalistic presentations. 

A spaghetti and forest mushroom dish, for example, turns out to be made from potato “noodles” placed on a bed of fallen leaves and topped with local berries and an intense stock of wild mushrooms to create an intense and earthy, nearly meaty, umami experience broken by the strange, exotic, rice-like sweetness of the house sake with which it is served. It looks Italian, but it’s really not.

A follow-up dish of preserved tomato glazed in tomato miso and covered with oregano oil and tomato consommé, on the other hand, tastes every bit like the most Italian of summer dishes - even when served as fall turns to winter- but by no means looks very Italian.

Read also: Valerio and Lucy - Introducing the cuple who take sustainability to the extreme; in the most endearing of ways.

It is somehow all Italian. With a twist. And that’s the beauty of it. The Tèrra Project, as they call it, is in some ways a wonderful return to the roots of Italian cuisine in that it uses few, simple and very local ingredients. Not just the best parts, but the ingredients in their entirety. And at the same time, it is something new entirely, using Italian and Nordic ingredients in new ways and taking the anti-food-waste ideology to the extreme. It creates an overall experience that is at the same time strangely classic yet new and exciting. An innovative trick of the senses, that keeps the diner guessing as to what will happen next. It is challenging and provocative yet entertaining and comforting, owing largely to the warmth of the service provided by restaurant manager Lucy and the chefs who from time to time pop out of the kitchen to help introduce dishes to curious diners.

Wines with attitude to match the food’s

Loves of wine will appreciate the Tèrra Experience as well. The wines served as part of the meal are Italian in origin, biodynamic, often bordering on natural in style yet clearly to the pleasing side with clear characteristics of their grape varietal, and the region from which they come. Unlike the vast majority of items served at the restaurant, they are obviously far from local, but in many ways, that is perhaps a good thing. It proves a very important and often overlooked point that is championed by many proponents of the modern sustainability movement: When it comes to sustainability, local does not always equal better!

It would do the diner well to remember that locality is but one parameter to go by. Mother Earth, if asked, will gladly tell you that the environmental impact of conventional wines grown locally may well be much more harmful than the CO2 emission caused by transporting those from afar that were grown with care and respect for the environment around them. For this reason, you will find Italian wines at Tèrra, along with the occasional Italian lemon or splash of olive oil. Thoughtfully and carefully sourced, of course.

It is in sipping the last drops of thoughtfully sourced wine that the final pieces of the mind-boggling experience finally fall into place: If but one word should sum up Tèrra, it would be wholesomeness. Wholesomeness in every sense of the word.

Wholesomeness in thought and flavor

The attention to detail in every aspect of the restaurant experience from farm to table. The combination of unusual flavors and exciting elements presented in a homely and comforting setting with warmth and dedication. All these elements together create a memorable and wholesome experience that is worth seeking out not only for the dogmatic approach that shapes the experience, but just as much for the unique and intense flavors it provides.

It is a wholesomeness in thought and flavor that – through enthusiasm and well-crafted descriptions of the dishes and the thoughts that bore them – is slowly painted for the diner throughout the meal. Not in a preaching or better-knowing way, but in an including, engaging and contagious manner that leaves one to form one’s own opinion.

At Tèrra, sustainability is more than a simple buzzword. At Tèrra, sustainability means absolute dedication on the part of the owners: Dedication to shaping a better world through the best, most engaging, warm and flavorful restaurant experience possible – a restaurant experience that has turned out inspiring, encouraging and heart-warming every inch of the way.

tèrra Restaurant

Price range: Mid-range

Cuisine: Contemporary Italian

Where to go: Ryesgade 65, 2100 Copenhagen

What to expect: Out of this world largely plant-based depth of flavor and a fascinatingly dogmatic yet inspiring and non-preaching approach to sustainability and food waste.

What the vibe is like: Warm, homey, welcoming and inspiring.

What to order: Choices are delightfully simple at Terra. Get the full experience including natural wine pairings and the house-made Vermouth as aperitif and digestif. It truly is one of the better deals in town.