La Terraza

La Terraza, situated at 40 Hersham Road in Walton on Thames, has been treating locals to quality Spanish and Mediterranean cuisine since 2005. The menu reads like a laden trestle table under the Spanish sun – packed with tapas options and paella, plus an incredible range of carefully selected Spanish wines. This family-owned operation also makes and bottles its own poncha, a liqueur distilled from sugar cane and lemon juice that is sure to break through any overcast day.

The landscape within London’s M25 rarely conjures up images of the Mediterranean, though many a Londoner has dreamed of flying south while driving in despair along a stretch of the infamous ring-road. Short of a plane ticket, your best option is to head to La Terraza in Walton on Thames, Surrey. Here, at 40 Hersham Road, you’ll find a family-owned Spanish tapas bar and restaurant that works like an oasis in the desert, bringing authentic Spanish and Mediterranean cuisines to locals since 2005. Beckoning a beam of the Spanish sunshine into people’s lives has been head chef and patriarch Antonio’s dream since 2005.

And La Terraza is going from strength to strength, still offering a cornucopia of Spanish and Mediterranean food and drink, from full a la carte service to small tapas and sumptuous paella. And it’s not simply a taste of Spain that La Terraza provide, there’s a decidedly homemade essence to their offering. This is best captured – and bottled – by the family’s home-brewed poncha, a drink that La Terraza describe as their lethal speciality. Poncha is a Madeiran liqueur distilled from sugar cane and fruit juices, from which the more well-known caipirinha derives and with which the Anglo-Indian punch is associated. But while we’re at 40 Hersham Road in Walton on Thames we want to think neither of Queen and Country nor the colonies. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the sunshine at La Terraza.