Situated just above the secondary exit of Wimbledon station and the main entrance to the Centre Court shopping centre, The Terrace has been a key building and reference point for more than a decade thanks to its central position. You cannot miss the bright green entrance that takes you to up to one flight of stairs and then into the main round space completely surrounded by glass panels. The atmosphere is entirely dictated by the flood of naturalight, which is partly filtered by green leafy plants and partly sucked in by a heavy black and white furniture.The blazing sun outside helped the colours shine but the lack of air con meant an ever rising indoor temperature.
We could not book in advance for an outdoor table so get there early. The outdoor, however, is not as spacious as the inside. It is simply a balcony running the edge of the perimeter, which is split into outside bar and outside restaurant. Due to the space limitations, a group larger than six is going to struggle to sit down at the same table and enjoy the company. This is what happened to our group as we were forced to have two tables, and still we were not as comfy as we wished. The larger table holds six but the oversized chairs made it difficuly to sit without elbows in people's face. The good weather helped push aside the discomfort and enjoy the company.
Menu choice is pretty varied at The Terrace, with a good continental selection on offer, from pizza and pasta dishes, to salad and meat dishes. Waiting for someone to take our order and waiting for the orders both took quite some time, and it made us feel slightly grumpy under the scorching sun without a refreshing beverage at hand. What made it worse was the mistake on one or two drinks, where we got what we actually did order. The food finally came, at the same time as drinks, and we started flavouring the dishes as the early afternoon sun placidly wrapped his warm hands on our tender skins.
Opposite to what we experience on our last Wimbledon Eatery session, this time we felt the lack of seasoning. We missed the salt, the spices, the pepper, the punch on your tongue. Althought it could be down to personal taste, we were surprised that around six dishes out of eight felt bland in our mouths. Even the basic house salad with either chicken, or calamari, or goat's cheese, felt tasteless and did not seem outstanding. Moving onto the Pad Thai Noodles, where thai food needs the kick to be what is famous for, it just did not meet the basic expectations of taste. Food was really bland, including a pizza that did not differentiate it much from a Domino's one. Fortunately, we had exceptions to the rule in regards to the sizzling faijtas and the fresh mussels. Flavours here did not abandon us, although we recommend to go for chicken rather than steak faijtas as we felt the meat was a bit too tough and fatty.
Service overall let us down as well, not just from a waiting perspective, but also for two other reasons: (1) food came before cutlery and serviettes; and (2) waiters did not seem able ti give us their attention on a half-full stretched balcony. To their loss and also our deep regret, we did not have the chance to order and try a refreshing icecream or sorbet under the glorious. We just settled for the bill and left. Thank God, the good weather helped.
Our verdict is as follows:
Quality of Food 2.67Hygiene 3.83
Value for Money 3.00
Speed of Service 1.83
Quality of Service 2.67
Ambience & décor 4.00
The Terrace gets an overall rating of 59.4%
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