La Terrasse

Stopped in after a college basketball game at the Palestra as an alternative to the overly-​packed New Deck and White Dog. There were 10 or so people in our party and we were well accommodated in the bar area. We were helped quickly by a friendly bartender.
We got a round of wings and hummus to share as appetizers. The wings were tender with crispy bits in all the right places and were covered in a mild wing sauce that gave some heat but wasn’t overly peppery. The hummus was fine; the bread it was served with could have been warmer.
My parents and I all ordered cheeseburgers, cooked medium, with pommes frites. Mine was on the well side of medium, my dad’s was on the rare side (which is where I prefer it). Either way, they were all juicy and flavorful. The bun held up to the burger but wasn’t too dense. The frites were hit or miss on the same plate: some were delicious, others were undercooked.
There was a great beer selection but, since it was early in the day, I only had one: an Ommegang Witte, which was tasty, though that’s not really the restaurant’s responsibility.
Friendly staff, good menu, good beer selection… it’s a little expensive, but I’d definitely keep it on my list of places to go after an early game.

Happy hour beer prices are great! I got three good-​quality tasty beers for under $ 10 with tip. Their selection was decent and the bartenders gave me a sample of a few before I bought a pint. A great place to go after work with my co-​workers, we’ve been there twice and always had a good time. I went once with a friend and she agreed that the prices were really decent and the service was great.
I didn’t go there for the food or for the ambiance (as I’ve heard it’s greasy and quite small), but the drinks were cheap and the beer list was long. Whenever I was there, it was happy hour time, so I’m not sure how crowded it gets during the late night. But from 5 – 8 it’s reasonably crowded for a small place with great priced drinks. I would definitely go there again.

2 stars.
I really really wanted to like this place. It’s a nice spacious restaurant with multiple rooms on two levels. Unfortunately I got seated in the room next to the patio doors across from some sorority girls. The room was freezing so I ended up wearing both my hat and coat. It was so cold that the waitress was wearing an arm length wool gloves with the fingers cut out.
I ordered some hot tea which came out fairly fast. From there things slowed down to a crawl. The waitress took so long that I ran out of tea and I was starving. She finally acknowledged me after running downstairs several times to take care of tables downstairs. Finally I ordered the bacon cheeseburger, medium with pommes frites.
The food also took a while, which left me to try blocking out the vapid sorority girls blatherings while I waited. The burger came out almost perfectly medium, which is a rare occurrence these days. They put the cheese and bacon inside of the burger. It was pretty damn tasty as were the pommes frites. I was annoyed that due to the lateness of the hour and an impending meeting, I had to hork down both the burger and the fries, which wasn’t real enjoyable.
Also I was annoyed that there were absolutely no salt cellars/​shakers in site. I rarely add salt to food, but fries are one of the few things I usually add a little bit to usually. Thwarted yet again.
And of course, you guessed it, it took forever to get my check. I’m convinced that La Terrasse means «Glacial service» in French. They need to get some more staff for lunch. That was ridiculous.

We stopped in here because all the other places on the same street was packed and had 20 — 30 minute waits. I know some people would like to stay and wait because there must be a reason for it. I don’t believe that or come from the idea that if everyone’s doing it, it must be good.
The bar area was interesting but the most important part was that the service was great! The fact that there were very little people in the place meant that I didn’t have to fight for service. The food was good and I enjoyed the atmosphere. I will definitely go back.

I’ve only been here for lunch and I know a couple classmates who come here regularly. However, not only would that leave me broke but it’s also not a place I want to break my wallet on. I was happy to try a new restaurant (although it’s been in existence for 34 yrs???) near school that tastes better than Mad 4 Mex, wasn’t a chain like Cosi or leaving me hungry for more like Bubble House (R.I.P.). My friends and I tried the burgers, ribs and penne a la vodka. It was all just disappointing. If I’m going to drop $ 15 – 20 for lunch, it better be damn good and this place falls way short of that.
La Terrasse also advertises very sports-​bar-​y specials and banners for happy hour and weekends, which I find tacky and unfortunate for a place that claims to be so classy. It’s a very large place though so it must be doing well to still be running.

how does a place that’s named la terrasse not serve french food? they claim that their menu changes with the times, but i think it’s insulting to amazing french food everywhere to have a beautiful restaurant name like la terrasse and find out that they are currently serving italian food.
came here for hh with my department, so yay for not having to pay. appetizers were mediocre at best. drinks, however, were good and not watered down. i had the french martini and the bellini martini. the bubbly in the bellini was delicious, but the chambord in the french won me over. no clue how much it costs, but if it’s under $ 7 for hh, i would definitely come back for just the drinks.

I hadn’t been in La Terrasse before since I’m just a poor grad student, but my cohort had a free event there last week. And again, because I *am* a poor grad student, I’m all about free.
The food was absolutely terrible. Honestly, if I want grease like that, I’ll just go to McDonalds and save $ 8. We had all sorts of appetizers: pommes frites (overcooked, weird/​nasty aftertaste), onion rings, calamari (all I could taste was grease). We also had the hummus platter, which came with a mound of hummus that we couldn’t finish because it only came with four pita quarters. We had the same experience with the spinach-​artichoke dip: it came with only three bread slices — not quite adequate for a bowl of dip or a table with nearly ten people. Both of those two appetizers came with a mound of carrot slices, but I don’t know… Carrots to scoop up already-​mediocre spinach dip?
Our server was quite good and very efficient about taking a beer off our receipt that we hadn’t actually been served. She came back frequently to see if we wanted to order more food or drinks. And it was a pleasant surprise to realize that we’d been there during happy hour, and our draft beers were half-​off.
But no, I wouldn’t go back again unless it were another free event, and even then, I don’t think I’d do much eating.

I’ve been meaning to stop into La Terrasse for quite awhile, as it’s less than a block from my office. Finally got there this week for lunch and am sad to report that I probably won’t go back.
Of the three different dishes ordered at our table, none of them looked very appetizing. Fish and chips: uh, no thanks Van de Kamps. Chicken Salad Wrap: thrown into a flaming pit prior to serving; charred remains are everywhere. Burger with fried egg: fries were cold; burger was bland.
The dining area WOULD be nice if not outfitted with fake (and horrifically fluorescent) flowers. Plus, it was at least 32 below in that place. My toes are still warming up.
At least the waiter was nice (in a creepy, staring kind of way…)

I’ve been dying to try La Terrasse forever since I love French food… and also french fries (not French food I know). My hairdresser has been telling me that La Terrasse has really great pommes frites and I saw that they only have them on their lunch menu so lunch it was.
I ordered the pommes frites and the homemade gnocchi. The pomme frites was a LARGE portion. I was not expecting that at all. It came with 3 sauces. Dipping aioli and ketchup. The fries were thick and oh-​so-​good. A little bit more on the overcooked side though.
The homemade gnocchi was pan-​crispy and seasoned in butter and basil sauce. I was really surprised when I saw the gnocchi because I was expecting little gnocchi balls that I’m used to eating. But no, they came in mini rectangular slices. And to my delight, delicious!
Yeah, the prices are a bit steep but the portions are huge. I’m not sure about their other entrees but it could definitely serve as 2 meals… or 3… I would definitely recommend ordering an entrée and an appetizer and sharing with a friend.

I’ve never had a bad experience with this place… I’ve only been at their bar, not the restaurant so I can’t speak for them.
The bartenders are very friendly and VERY knowledgeable about their beers! It’s lovely going to a place every once in a while and having the bartender remember you and knowing what you order. These guys are great!
Their happy hour isn’t bad, their food is also pretty damn good. I can’t steer away from the spinach dip, it’s delicious! They also started beer and burger night… it’s $ 8 for a beer and a burger. not too shabby! Their finger food is great for a casual night out in University City especially if you don’t like underage drinkers and obnoxiously loud music playing.
A very nice escape in the middle of U. City! It’s cozy and always playing good music, not that top 40’s nonsense!

This is another place that work colleagues like to visit on occasion. If you’re expensing the meal, it’s perfectly fine for lunch. I’ve had some good food here, especially the gnocchi. They were definitely not the little dough bombs you find at many Italian red sauce places, but had a light and airy texture that really hit the spot.
The other thing I’ve eaten here was a soup and salad combo. I think I had a corn chowder, which was pretty good, but it’s difficult to screw up soup.
The real reason I like to come here is for the happy hour. Decent beers at good prices, and the bartender is usually pretty funny. The clientel can get a little over the top with the better-​than-​everyone attitude, but I have gotten good at ignoring them.

I checked this place out for Friday night drinks. It was a pretty roomy place, although they had a hard time accomodating our group of 4 at the bar and ended up seating us at a table at the end of the bar. I knock off a star as I was set up next to the door and had to deal with people constantly bringing the cold air in with them.
I did like the beers on draft as they had a pretty good selection. We did move over to a larger dining area once we had more folks show up. There, the service was pretty good in bringing us our drinks in a timely manner

Whoa, what the hell happened to this place? I remember going a couple years ago and the food was good but overpriced. Now the food is overpriced and as mediocre as anything you’d find in a Friday’s or Ruby Tuesdays. Maybe worse. If I remember correctly, the incarnation from my visit a few years ago was a vaguely French menu. The menu of today seems to be a crudely printed and confusing bar menu. It’s hard to tell what this place is supposed to be. We were seated in a undecorated room on the second floor where the service was excruciatingly slow. The food was nothing special, but definitely overpriced for what it was.
The bar scene might still be alright downstairs, but I’m not risking a return visit to find out. There’s plenty of other restaurants (White Dog, New Deck, Bubble House, Mad 4 Mex) that will offer a better experience for a cheaper price. Well, White Dog probably won’t be cheaper.

If you remember The Palladium on PENN’s campus, you remember LT’s being a 4-​star bar. I spent many happy hours and nights at this place with good friends and having many laughs. Today, after a five year absence, is now an adequate bar for an older crowd. Gone are the days when you would have your ten best friends fill up the whole bar try to see how many Lagers you could put down before happy hour ended.
I still go back every now and then, not for the service (adequate), but for the memories (priceless).

Yup, SUCKS. Well, perhaps everything except the décor, which is nice and, when I’m in there, I feel classy and sophisticated and yuppie-​fied and all that Great Gatsby crap.
The food was forgettable. Not to mention the bread was hard and, with a table of 6, the waiter brought only one basket and we had to prod him for another. As for the entrees, I got something creamy, vegetarian, and had pasta. It was good but, yes, really forgettable (so much that I forgot what it was called).
Now, the real deal of the night was the service, which was terrible. It was obvious that, for such a seemingly fancy pants establishment, the service was somewhat unprofessional and sloppy. The waiter, multiple times, would reach over me to get plates, such that I had to contort myself out of the way. I’m not an extreme advocate for personal space, but I don’t want to be smelling armpits in front of me while I’m eating. When it came to split the bill, my friends and I had split the bill according to what we shared and ate (yes, we are one of *those* groups), but we calculated everything and wrote down the names with the respective charges neatly on a slip of paper for our waiter. However, our waiter was not pleased at all and threw a mini hissy fit.
Uh. Really. Really?

uhm, what?
what happened to the beautiful food of the dave h pictures on the Unilocal page?
i’ve been here a few times. i remember the fries being decent, the burger being not-​so-​good. the place is ridiculously large, and always empty.
but my last visit was probably the worst. it was one of those cold nights in philly, and they sat us by the floor to ceiling windows. and guess what? it was cold right there.
i went on a date (and that’s another one for the books… who had already eaten before, and also gotten sick from drinking the night before, so he didn’t really want to drink either… ugh). in any case, i ordered the spinach salad.
if i wanted a bed of spinach covered in ranch-​esque dressing with chevre still in half block form… i could have eaten this at home and not paid $ 10 for it.
service was just blah. the whole experience was blah. at not blah prices.

While the breakfast is certainly of high quality, it’s nothing unusual.
Dinner — expensive, and not really worth it, but here’s a secret — stop by the bar, the same food, but cheaper. Odd, yes, I know.
The duck is my friend’s favorite, I prefer the steak & greens.

What happened to La Terrasse? Used to have a small, high-​end menu. Now it’s crappy, premasticated drool and yet overpriced. Huge pointless menu, and mediocre service.
The bar isn’t bad but do not eat the food.

La Terrasse Bar Review (only for the bar and on Wednesday’s during the Burger and Beer special… because that’s really all I ever went or ate there)
As a student, I couldn’t really afford the restaurant, but I liked to come by on Wednesdays for the Burger and Beer special. It’s the LT (La Terrasse) Burger and a draft beer of your choice for $ 8. How can a deal like that be beat? It’s also for the entire night, 6 PM-​11PM. The LT bar is basically a long corridor which features a nice long, wooden bar table with comfy stools and a couple of tables placed in the front and back of the corridor. My favorite spot is either the table in the front of the bar at the window or the corner spot at the opposite end of the bar. A good place for conversation with friends on Wednesday’s or for watching Philly teams (they have a decently sized flat-​screen). It’s also a popular place with the Penn Law students and professors.
True, the bar can be way too crowded these nights and service damn slow (because it’s so crowded), but you’re getting an amazing bargain. I can’t really complain much. In general, the beer prices are reasonable, about $ 5-​$ 6 a pint, and they have a good selection of drafts. The LT burger is great, but it should be renamed the Cholesterol Burger, if you get it loaded. When I say loaded, I mean chock full of artery clogging ingredients – Gorgonzola, fried egg, bacon, mushrooms, and caramelized onions – and a nice, fresh hamburger. It’s fantastically salty and delicious. You can trick yourself into saying you ate something healthy by getting the salad on the side or you can just admit defeat and get the fries, which are well-​seasoned and tasty.
As a side note, I’ll never forget the Penn professor who told us about LT’s during Freshmen orientation and that when we were a little older… we should go to the LT’s Bar and drink Wild Turkey. Seriously, what was he thinking?

We were entertaining a visiting friend and since no one had ever been to La Terrasse, I made reservations to go. This place has been on Sansom, near the edge of Penn’s campus since the sixties. We arrived Thursday evening just as they opened. Staff were bustling about, straightening up. (A half-​hour later, the place was packed.) The atmosphere is cheery and the interior clean, well-​lit, and attractive, from the white tablecloths to the metal chairs. La Terrasse has three floors, including terrace seating (where we sat, which also happened to be the intersection of the kitchen and bar*) and two banquet rooms on the top floor.
Bread is baked in-​house and served with whipped butter. There were different kinds of bread (rolls and slight cuts) but I liked the dark bread. While munching on the bread basket, we checked out the menu. It was an easy read; to the point, quick to scan, and not too intimidating (though slightly pricey).
La Terrasse offers wine flights, including white and red varietals. I sampled the white wine flight ($ 7):
— Cypress Chardonnay (California) — this chardonnay was supposed to be rich in flavor but I found it weak
— Kim Crawford Sauvignon (New Zealand) — smelled of longan, and the passion fruit and citrus flavors were vicious tasting
— Maison Nicolas Rose (Coteaux du Languedoc) — fruity smell, dry, smooth and delicious — easily my favorite
I had the Long Island duck breast ($ 26), whose meat was lean, tender, and well-​seasoned. On the side were vanilla-​scented sweet potatoes quenelles, and a star anise sauce. I tried the fish (but don’t remember many details), which was good. For dessert, we shared a poached forelle pear ($ 8) with a light filo dough crust and a cordamom crème anglaise. Not terribly sweet and not huge — my type of dessert.
Service was outstanding (our servers were Liz, Alex, and Megan) and they passed the water test wlth flying colors. Apparently their bar is not a popular spot, but I’ve never sat there and can’t comment. However, this isn’t a bad spot for decent eats!