Please note, Terazza on the Thames is now closed. Food and drink editors.
It shouldn’t be possible to cover something in pulled pork, pepperoni, salami and smoked mozzarella and have the outcome be a dish you want to quietly tip into the plant pot beside you, but somehow Columbia Restaurant managed just that with the pizzette from its summer menu. The menu has been named Terrazza on the Thames and takes inspiration from the cuisine of Venice, but it was hard to draw comparisons.
A ‘zuper salad’ was as disappointing as that pizzette, thanks to a bunch of flavourless vegetables cut into bite-sized cubes, thus stripped of any character the poor things may have had. By the time four mini ice creams arrived for dessert, half-melted, slumped over and looking terribly sorry for themselves, I couldn’t help but feel the same.
It’s a shame, because the location of this place is lovely, with a view across the river towards the skyscrapers of Canary Wharf. Presumably the waterside location explains the choice of Venice as the menu’s theme but, crucially, they seem to have forgotten to bring into the kitchen the passion and love Italians put into their cooking. With this in mind, you’d be better off saving your money and putting it into an Italian holiday fund instead.