We first went to Da Terra at the Bethnal Green Town Hall Hotel when it opened back in 2019 and completely loved it
We were very happy to see it win a Michelin star in 2020 and then add a second in 2021, which it has held on to ever since. We’ve been desperate to go back and, four years later, we finally got around to it.
Da Terra is headed up by chef Rafael Cagali, who is originally from São Paulo but has lived in the UK for 20+ years, working for the likes of Simon Rogan and Heston Blumenthal. There are definitely elements of Brazilian cuisine in the menu but it’s certainly by no means a Brazilian restaurant, taking a much broader scope in style and invention to produce what is in our book, one of the best fine dining experiences in London.
Dinner at Da Terra is a blind tasting menu affair so you’ll just take your seat and sit back for the ride. The evening menu is £230, with a shorter version available at lunch for £170, and an optional wine pairing for £150.
The menu is completely different from when we went four years ago but the same hallmarks are there – the inventiveness in the cooking, the element of fun, and the serious quality of produce. Rafael is also one of the nicest chefs in the industry and has built a brilliant team of chefs and front of house staff who all make Da Terra such an enjoyable experience.
We began, as these meals always do, with a quick succession of snacks alongside a glass of fizz – so often the marker of what’s to come. There was a brilliant, small bowl of carabinero and tomato bisque spiked with vodka; a delicate scallop tartare; and perhaps best of all, a single-bite riff on a caesar salad made with duck.
Next was beautiful hamachi sandwiched between thin layers of pumpkin and bathed in tucupi (a yellow sauce extracted from manioc root); superb sourdough with bone marrow butter, cultured butter and a clarified olive oil; and quail served three ways – as tortellini in brodo, as a bite of homemade sausage, and as a pate on a slither of brioche.
Then there were two main events, including Middle White pork loin with an exceptional sauce, morel mushrooms, endive and cavolo nero. Next, the most Brazilian dish of the night, a take on the classic moqueca fish stew. Of course this really wasn’t recognisably a moqueca but it did have all the flavours, turned into something entirely new – here a fillet of aged turbot was served with manteiguinha beans and farofa, and topped with a rich seafood coconut milk broth with dende oil. As Rafa told us, if it doesn’t have dende oil, it ain’t a moqueca!
Cheese and guava is such an incredible combination and you never really see it in the UK. In Brazil it’s the starring pairing of a dessert known as ‘Romeo and Juliet’ and Rafa presents a version here that’s absolutely superb. From here we were into baba with pistachio and, unusually, a big dollop of caviar (it absolutely worked); pineapple with coconut and tepache, a fermented drink made from pineapple skins; and, finally, petits fours with some much-needed mint tea.
Da Terra is one of those restaurants that just seems to get everything absolutely right and it easily ranks among our very favourite places in London. If you’re looking for that next exceptional meal out, we can’t recommend Da Terra enough.
Town Hall Hotel, Patriot Square, London E2 9NF
daterra.co.uk