Roberto and Tanya Hira Passon’s Italian restaurant and wine bar finally makes sense of a tough space: Roberto, who designs and builds his restaurants (including Aria in the West Village and Briciola in Hell’s Kitchen), moved the kitchen downstairs, added a bar-height communal table, and resisted overstuffing the room with tables. The result is light and comfortable. The menu, which is the same at lunch and dinner, has small plates (called cicchetti, as in Venice), pastas, and entrées. Open from lunch on, Terra has a full liquor license, along with 26 wines by the glass, quartino, or bottle, as well as a reserve list of 50 more wines by the bottle. All of the wines are Italian, but the devotion to the motherland ends at the beer list; there are 10 beers on tap plus seven craft beers by the bottle. If you’re planning on staying a while, note the power outlets under the communal table, so you can charge your phone. Downstairs is a dining room with one long table, seating around 40, to serve as overflow dining and as a private-event room. Sit there after 4 p.m. and you can watch, through a window into the kitchen, as fresh pasta is made. Note: Terra has lovely outdoor seating.
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Their website is now http://www.terrawinebar.com/ but any reason why there is still on menu online (on their site or anywhere?)