Tria Terra

Closed for business

This place is wonderful. Looks like a little strip mall restaurant next to Chuck E Cheese but inside it’s super nice and romantic. Great tapas and Italian/​Spanish food. The stuffed veal special is amazing. Nice wine list with good prices and by the glass the offerings. Service has been top notch on every visit. We will be back.

Was really good first and second time we went! 3^rd, I ordered frest Eggplant Parm. Taste was really good and a big slice of fresh tomato on top, BUT, the tomato was not hot and not cooked enough. They rushed it out. Would have been great with 10 more mins. in oven. They always have really good tomatoes. The owner told us he buys them specially (not from local store) and they are expensive. So anything with tomato is usually good.

I wanted to like Tria Terra, I really did. I love being proven wrong after reading Unilocal reviews, but it just didn’t happen this time. I had purchased a Groupon (Livingsocial?) a while back and it was about to expire, so I figured we’d better check it out. We tried to eat there a week before we actually did, but were told by the hostess, after discovering we didn’t have reservations, that «We are all booked. Well, it might be a couple of minutes.» To which I replied, «Oh really? Like, how long?» And she said, «Well, like an hour.» Um, no thanks.
So a week later, I made reservations and we were seated promptly. The service was actually very good and our server was helpful in making recommendations and answering weird questions I thought of. They were also very good about attending to my random weird food issues (ie — my hatred of onions). Unfortunately, the food itself left a lot to be desired… even after a bottle of wine.
We had the calamari (ordered fried, received grilled, tried it anyway, it was rubbery), the meatballs (overcooked, sauce needed a bit more salt and overall flavor), stuffed zucchini (stuffing was very good, zucchini was a bit undercooked for my taste) and the chicken and potato croquettes (Delicious! If they didn’t have pesto sprinkled all over them, really distracted from the flavor of the croquettes and the sauce they are served with).
I want to like Tria Terra, truly. The atmosphere is surprisingly cute for being in a strip mall, but the food just doesn’t warrant another trip.

Very busy place but fortunately, we had a reservation and were seated almost immediately. We decided to share a Pimiento Rellenos con Queso de Cabra tapas appetizer and it was delicious. We were 3 and it came out with one for each person. My friend and I both ordered the Pappardelle ai Gamberi E Funghi (homemade pasta w/​shrimp, mushroom in light cream sauce) and it was also really well made. The shrimp were perfectly cooked, ie light and tender, the mushroom flavor was prominent and the sauce was light but creamy. The third person in our group ordered their black pasta with the spicy seafood marinara. I couldn’t find it on the online menu. She raves about it and I trust her judgement!
I would say the only drawback, why it doesn’t have 5 stars, is due to the noise level and it was extremely crowded and our table was next the entrance to the kitchen so the constant traffic did not make for a cozy dinner.

I really wanted this to be great… but it was fair. There was only one main server for the restaurant and it took us about 20 minutes to order– though the staff were friendly. The food was fair– not bad– but just nothing I would rush back for and sadly I will not go again. I had a living social coupon to use so that helped but I would not recommend it. I do however thing that it has potential. And I am big supporter of local mom-​pop places. I hope this place is able to get better. :)

Nice place ad great food!

I should have read some of the reviews before purchasing a LivingSocial half off coupon. It took 2 ½ hours for dinner alone. On the few occasions we could finally get a waiters attention it then took forever to respond to our needs — water, drink refills, etc. The empanadas and eggplant dish had a nice black crust from being burned. A nice touch if you like charcoal flavoring. They took the leftovers to put them in takehome containers for us, a nice touch. Unfortunately some time later the waiter returned and informed us that they accidently discarded them but not to fear they were cooking replacements. Unfortunately when we got home we realized we got a smaller portion of something else. We were charged for a salad we had not ordered. Throughout this experience the waiter seemed oblivious to our concerns.

My wife had eaten here before with girlfriends and enjoyed it so we tried it out on a Thurs night. I had read online about the service being spotty at best, but thought we would risk it. I liked the look of the place as we entered. Nice romantic lighting and ambience, busy not too noisy, though there was a slight funky smell to the place. But everything went rapidly downhill from there. We were ushered to a table near the end of the bar, which wasn’t great, but did not seem worth protesting at the time. After a minute or so we were brought menus and water. And then nothing. No waiter, no one saying «I’ll be with you shortly». We waited for about 15 minutes, and I was consistently looking around to see who our waiter might be; no eye contact from anyone, despite all the traffic of staff by the bar and our table. Completely ignored. I noticed an older couple beside us that had been waiting for their check this entire time also. We folded up the menus, took a last sip of water and walked out. As we were leaving the older couple told us we were making the right decision and that their service was awful. Sorry I didn’t get a chance to try the food, but I won’t be back unless I hear of a whole lot of improvement in the pathetic service. Next time I will pay attention to experiences of all my fellow Unilocalers.

I created a Unilocal account just so i could comment on this restaurant because I w disgusted by the experience. The waitstaff was horrible. The restaurant was not even busy. As people arrived, they made them wait 30 mins and then seated them at tables that had been open the entire time. The food was good but I will never go back given the horrible experience.

If you read my previous review my fiancé and I went to Tria during restaurant week and we were not able to try their tappas menu. Unfortunately, we have been dying to go and try the tappas but we were so disapointed. I am not a fan of writing negative reviews to mom and pop businesses so I will try to be very brief and as nice as I can be… To start, the service was horrible and very disrespectful. The waiter was clairly upset to start off because we did not order any wine at first. We then decided that we wanted to try as many things as possible so we ordered about 7 different items off of the tappas menu. I am certainly not a tappas professional but the few other tappas restaurants I went to brought out the food as soon as it was done so that it comes out fresh. Tria brought out all of the items at once and it was not only a very long wait but it was also a bit overwhelming. Specially with the very small table that we were seated at. As for the food it was subpar. All the seafood dishes seamed to of came from a frozen bag of mixed seafood. Most of the dishes were extremely bland. In particular the ceviche did not have any flavor at all. I honestly think that the chourico was store bought bratwurst that they tried to sauté in cayenne. You can not pull something like that off with a Portuguese guy who was raised on chourico. Sadly, I very much doubt we will think about going back to Tria Terra.

HORRIBLE SERVICE!!! My husband and I eat out every weekend and wanted to try something new. We were going to be in that part of town and thought it looked like a fun option. We made our reservation through Open Table and arrived promptly at 7 pm. We were shown a table that was right next to the door and the hostess stand and asked if we could instead wait for a more comfortable table to be available. The hostess told us we could wait at the bar. We went to the bar at the back of the restaurant and sat down and literally WAITED. Several people walked behind the bar and got drinks but none made eye contact with us or asked us if we wanted anything. Finally after 5 minutes of being ignored I asked one of the servers behind the bar if there was a bartender. He said no, but asked if we wanted something to drink. He gave us a wine list and then walked away. A few minutes later another waitress took our wine order and poured us our selections. Just then the hostess came by and told us our table was ready. We went to our table and the waitress who had taken our drink order came over to tell us the specials. She mentioned a scallops appetizer that sounded wonderful so I told her that I wanted that. She left to give us a few minutes to look over the menu. She showed up not more than a minute later to ask us if we were ready. My husband and I were still looking over the tapas and told her we needed a few more minutes. She then disappeared for 10 minutes. Finally, my husband flagged down another server and asked him to find our waitress. We gave her our order at 7:20. We order two salads and five tapas plates in addition to the scallops I had said I wanted. And then we waited and waited. We got bread but that was it — no scallops. Finally at 7:50 we got our salads. I was starving by then. We ate our salads and then waited and waited. At 8:20 I was getting really irritated and our waitress had not come by at all. Another server brought us sorbet. Our waitress came by and said that our tapas would be coming soon. My husband said that we were getting very hungry and I told her we had been waiting an hour already. She said nothing and walked away. Another server came by and said that the kitchen had made a mistake and the food would be out soon. He offered us more wine which I didn’t want. Finally at 8:30 they brought us part of our order and then the rest at 8:40. I never got my scallops. I asked for the manager and told him how disappointed we were in the slowness and how our waitress walked away and didn’t offer any explanation or apology. He said that the restaurant was very busy and that is why our food was taking so long. No apology. I told him that other tables had gotten their food quickly. He offered us more wine which we still didn’t want and told him we wouldn’t be coming back again. I have never had such horrible service in my life or not even been offered an apology or explanation. We won’t be back again.

Terra is a gem tucked into a big, LONG shopping center on Pineville-​Matthews Road. Look behind McDonald’s as it is small and hard to see.
The chef is from Peru, the wait staff is Argentinian and the menu is eclectic. And the chef is a very well-​known, award-​winning fellow from south of the equator. Yes, tapas, Italian and Spanish all available, along with blends of unusual and delicious ingredients.
Cozy and could be the place to propose or impress a date.
The wait staff is excellent, friendly and know the menu, so rely on their recommendations.
Wine list is excellent with lots of wine choices from Chile, Argentina, Italy and Spain. And the prices will not kill you.
We have done both lunch and dinner here and have not had a bad meal or experience. Serious diners, including food snobs, will be pleasantly surprised with just how good the food.
If you want to practice your Spanish language ability, the wait staff will truly warm to you, along with lots of laughter.
A very comfortable and delicious place to dine.

Quick lunch? Not so much…3 tables occupied in the place and it took almost an hour. When a waiter brings bread more than twice, there’s a problem. I ordered spaghetti and meatballs (lunch portion), so it was pretty simple in my opinion. Food was just OK. The sauce was watery and not full of flavor. The angel hair pasta it was served with was cooked well though. Too many quick options in the area to settle for this, unless of course you’re working a half day and don’t need to go back to work.

So would the third attempt at finding a good place to eat in Charlotte be the charm (scroll through my previous reviews and see the other two attempts)? The short answer is no. After another shopping excursion to Charlotte we had originally planned to go to Concord Mills and hit up the outlets. Unfortunately we had not done our homework and upon getting there we were surrounded by a horde of rabid Nascar fans, traffic jams, and State Highway Patrol vehicles. I still haven’t decided which was the bigger mess that day, Concord Mills, or our pasta selections at Tria Terra. Generally I will only attempt a place if they have a good amount of reviews but decided to give this place a try since the two reviews it did have were from seasoned Unilocalers. The concept that this place was an Italian/​Tapas restaurant was also intriguing.
We arrived here around 5:00 pm on a Saturday evening and were the first occupants of the place. Some people would straggle in after us but for the most part the place didn’t seem to be all that busy. Our waiter was attentive throughout the entire experience but seemed a bit too timid. Then again I had been irritated earlier that day and my aura of annoyance was probably enough to alert his innate sense of self preservation. I don’t need you to have a vigil beside the table but at least show some animation. I usually like to offer an insight into how the interior of a place is decorated to add spice to my Unilocal.For once in my life I can’t even begin to convey the mixtures of styles other than «wow». The music was also very unusual and a bit distracting. It was a mixture of what you would imagine that John Tesh listens to in a yoga class thrown in with some Daddy Yankee Pop Lite. They apparently offer live music on Wednesday nights if you are feeling adventurous. They have a decent wine menu if you like to partake in spirits with your meal (trust me you may want some ETOH to temper your expectations for the meal).
Now on to the food. They do bring a nice selection of breads to the table, the best of which was the focaccia bread. We were initially going to order two items off the tapas menu but decided to scale it back to one after the bread. We had the Croquetas de Pollo which was very good. Nice flavor and dipping sauce and it was served piping hot. The tapas was by far the best part of our whole meal. They have an extensive tapas menu so if you are a fan of this kind of thing you are in luck. Out of all the Italian pastas I love gnocchi the most. So whenever I hit up new places I usually end up trying any of the dishes that feature this. I ordered the Gnocchi alla Bolognese. First and foremost the portions here aren’t all that great for the price. One serving will barely fill up one person and you won’t be taking any home to the dog. Then again considering how flavorless the Bolognese sauce was maybe it was a blessing in disguise to have a smaller portion. Seriously I have had more flavorful sauce from the Olive Garden. The gnocchi was cooked properly but was flavorless. I know gnocchi isn’t supposed to have a distinct flavor but when you have a subpar sauce the gnocchi better blow your socks off. The sig-​o ordered their Fusilli toscano which had Italian sausage, mushrooms, green peas, and tomato basil sauce. The pasta was way too al dente for my liking. Cooking pasta isn’t brain science. Make sure to get a generous helping of parmesan and pepper on your dish as this may cover up some of the seasoning problems they seem to have.
As for our quest to find some good eats in Charlotte (I know they exist so don’t try and hunt me down local Charlotte folk) we will continue on. Had in not been for the very good focaccia bread and tapas I would have given this place two stars just based on the entrees. Service was good and the owner even visited our table to check on us (even though I had to lie to him as to not crush his feelings when he asked how our meal was). If you do decide to hit this place up I would gravitate towards their tapas menu.

Found this place while on a day trip to Charlotte. Kinda odd, never
encountered a Spanish tapas/​Italian bistro before. The first page of the menu is all tapas, divided into vegetarian, seafood, and meat, while the remaining pages were antipasti, pasta, and Italian entrees.
We were brought a basket of bread and pesto that was pretty good, especially the focaccia and their take on breadsticks. We ordered the croquettas de pollo from the meat tapas menu, they came out in short order and were the highlight of the meal. I had their fusili toscano as my main dish, basically fusili pasta with sausage and a basil tomato sauce. It was good, but not outstanding. The BF had gnocchi in a
bolognese sauce, also good, but not jaw dropping.
I think on a return trip I’d stick to the tapas, instead of venturing onto the Italian side of the menu.
Tapas ⁴⁄₅
Italian ³⁄₅

If you don’t visit Carmel Commons often, or drive too fast down Hwy. 51, you’ll miss Tria Terra. It’s tucked away at the end of the strip mall next to the former Midtown Sundries space.
When you enter Tria Terra, you are whisked away from the strip mall setting by the décor and the owner’s Italian accent.
My friends and I visited on a Wednesday night. We were one of two tables in the restaurant, which is a shame. After stuffing our faces with the bread basket and divine homemade pesto we ordered three appetizers to share. We split the stuffed peppers (with goat cheese and a sun-​dried tomato cream sauce), the beef carpaccio (with arugula, heart of palm, and lemon juice), and the polenta (with a sausage marinara sauce). All three were delicious. The stuffed peppers were my favorite. I found the carpaccio was sliced a little too thickly for my taste.
The owner suggested a great Tempranillo blend for my glass of wine. It was quite good for $ 7.00.
If I lived in Charlotte, I would make this my «go-​to» neighborhood Italian restaurant. I can’t wait to go back and try some of the pasta or an entrée.

This little place is down right charming. The dining area is kind of small, so if you have a big party call ahead. Now that warning has been given, I’ll move on. The interior of the restaurant is made to look like a Mediterranean village, and it does a really good job creating the image. Very cozy and intimate. The food is a mix of Italian, French, and Spanish cuisine and is really out of this world. Everything I had was fresh and cooked with lots of flavorful herbs.
The staff is super as well. I had a very nice discussion with the waitress about the pros and cons of various wine. My only complaint would be that I ordered my sandwich with no avocado and it had avocado on it. It still tasted fantastic though