La Terraza Romana

Style of food: Italian

Cost: Moderate

Type of place: Paladar (private)

Food
Ambience
Service
Value

Best for: Good quality Italian dining, nice terrace. Pasta to go.

Worst for: Can be a little tricky to find. Attracts a varied crowd which may not be everyone’s cup of tea…

Calle 29E No 7409, entre 74 y 76, Marianao

(+53)7207 - 1707

Open noon-midnight

Having waited years for a good private Italian restaurant in Havana, it is with sheer joy for us pizza lovers that there is another great addition to the scene. La Terraza Romana is an Italian’s Italian, from the décor to the kitchen to the Italian chef who wonders around letting forth a stream of Italian to the Cuban staff as the place fills up.

This is another of those places, which is slightly tricky to find since it is on one of those roads, which no one ever uses. From 5ta Ave. Go up Calle 70 as far as you can go and once the road turns left up to Tropicana keep straight and take the first right onto 29E, which is just behind the attractive Parque Libertad.

To get up the terraced restaurant, you have to go through an attractive house up to the first floor where there are two basic seating areas: a large very Italian-patio-style series of tables with attractive umbrellas to protect from the sun (very Verona!) and a large indoor room, which is perfect for a group of 10-12 people. Indoor but still open, covered not air-conditioned.

The food is straight out of an Italian’s handbook, thin crust pizza, home made pastas. They even allow you to come by and purchase freshly made pasta to use at home. Quality, quality, quality. Our only complaint would be that the pizza was so good it was impossible to wait and a burnt mouth resulted!

The ravioli to go at La Terraza Romana:

This Italian paladar has been open for about a year and is located in the terrace of a house a few blocks from Ciudad Libertad. There are many “ups” in this place, including the wood oven baked pizza, the fresh pasta, the reasonable prices, and the nice seating. There are some “downs” too, like the fact that their food tends to be under seasoned. But one of the big “ups” is the take-away ravioli, and by that I don’t mean a prepared dish of this filled pasta, I mean taking your fresh pasta uncooked, to be frozen and prepared whenever you want to impress your guests or enjoy quality pasta by yourself.