Conveniently located at The Landing at Disney Springs, Terralina Crafted Italian is inspired by Italy’s Lake District, and with innovative (and delicious!!) dishes from executive chef Justin Plank, there is something for everyone. Terralina has been on our list of restaurants to try at Disney Springs for a while now, and I am so glad that we finally had the chance to go- I can say, without a doubt, that Terralina Crafted Italian needs to be on your Disney food bucket list!
Due to COVID-19, my personal comfort level with dining in a restaurant has drastically changed. For our past trips to Florida, I typically sought out restaurants with indoor dining and cold AC to get us out of the Florida sun and get a break from the heat. However, with all of the unknowns surrounding COVID transmission, I am now much more comfortable with outdoor dining, even though that means no AC. With both indoor and outdoor dining options, Terralina Crafted Italian– a new to us restaurant!- proved to be the perfect choice.
When you arrive at the restaurant, they have distancing lines on the ground (even outside!) to ensure that parties stay away from each other. And as soon as you walk inside to check-in, hand sanitizer is available!
They give you a cute paper bag to store your mask which I absolutely love. I’ve seen other places that give you a plate, but I like the bags so you can store them out-of-the-way and not clutter the table.
Terralina is offering a slightly more limited menu than usual right now but there are plenty of choices to please everyone in your family. Menus are single-use paper to minimize touchpoints- and they make a great souvenir!
We started our meal with the Bruschetta and it was a crowd-pleaser! The tomato, basil pesto, and shaved parmesan were the perfect complement to the crusty bread.
Terralina has two options for outdoor dining: a covered patio, and an uncovered area right by the lake. We opted to dine lakeside and it was gorgeous! Even though the high that day was over 90°, we were all totally comfortable dining outdoors in the evening.
Smiling faces ready for a delicious dinner!
If there’s an interesting fish dish on the menu, that’s often what Nick will get (especially if it’s salmon!), so when he heard that the Catch of the Day was in fact salmon, I knew that was going to be his order.
The salmon was cooked perfectly and served over a creamy bed of saffron risotto with blistered tomatoes and olives. I had to stop him from licking the plate clean – it was that good!
Ellie ordered the Pepperoni Pizza off of the kids’ menu and declared it some of the best she’s ever had. Due to COVID, they’re bringing grated Parmesan cheese to the table in disposable cups, which worked well for her so she could dump an entire cup on her pizza.
Lexie ordered the Italian Grinder with the housemade pecorino-truffle potato chips. She absolutely loved the sandwich but said that her meal was kind of bread-y. After eating the first half of her sandwich, she took the insides out of the second half.
Christopher was originally planning to order the Spicy Capicola pizza, but when he heard that the Pizza of the Week was a salmon pizza, he was intrigued. Oh my gosh, let me tell you, the salmon on this pizza was absolutely amazing- such a great combination of flavors!
I ordered one of their more traditional pasta dishes, the Spaghetti Bolognese, made with beef, pork, and pancetta meat sauce. I don’t normally order spaghetti with meat sauce at restaurants because I am partial to my own recipe, but this was amazing and I am so glad I ordered it. I couldn’t finish it so the kids passed my bowl around, gobbling up bits and pieces.
No meal is complete without dessert so you can be sure that we ordered an assortment- it was for research, after all!
The Gelato Sundae traditionally comes with pistachio, chocolate, and vanilla gelato, but they were fine with the kids mixing and matching flavors (including the flavor of the day- salted caramel) to get exactly what they wanted.
As soon as Nick saw the menu, like before we even ordered dinner(!), he decided he was getting the Chocolate Paradiso cake for dessert.
Easily the best dessert we ordered, the Chocolate Paradiso cake is a chocolate layer cake with chocolate ganache and toffee crunch served with a side of mixed berries. I am not a chocolate cake fan and even I thought this cake was amazing- it was moist, decadent, and completely delicious. Nick deemed this one his favorite cake of all time and he wants to go back again for his birthday- or figure out how to get it shipped to North Carolina!
Ellie ordered the kids chocolate gelato and thoroughly enjoyed it, and now prefers gelato to regular ice cream. Can you blame her?!
Overall, we had a fantastic meal at Terralina Crafted Italian and it will become a regular on our Disney Springs dining rotation. Even with the limited menu, there are still many other dishes that I would love to try, and I can’t wait to go back when they have the full menu! They normally offer cooking classes for kids and adults so once all of this COVID mess is over and done with, I hope they start back up again because that would be fun to do on an off-day from the parks.
Speaking of COVID, Terralina exceeded my expectations on that front. From the physical distancing markers, to the availability of hand sanitizer, to the single-use menus, I wasn’t concerned about our exposure. Masks are required from guests throughout Disney Springs and at Terralina, they’re required until you’re seated at your table. Every staff member we encountered at the restaurant, from the hostess to the manager, was wearing a mask the entire time we were there.
While sitting outside is where my current COVID comfort level is at, I understand that others are completely fine with indoor dining. I did take a quick walk through the dining room, and as I expected, tables are distanced, the restaurant is operating at a limited capacity, and guests and staff alike were complying with the mask policies. I cannot wait to dine indoors once this is over because the open-kitchen concept is one of my favorites.
TIPS FOR DINING AT TERRALINA CRAFTED ITALIAN
- Reservations are highly recommended- you can make them online through My Disney Experience or on OpenTable
- Pricing is $15 to $34.99 per adult
- Located at The Landing in Disney Springs
- Parking is free at the Disney Springs parking garages (lime is the closest!); Resort busses and boats are available as well.
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