What is the difference between restoring and recovering?

Restoring involves copying backup files from secondary storage (backup media) to disk. This can be done to replace damaged files or to copy/move a database to a new location.

Recovery is the process of applying redo logs to the database to roll it forward. One can roll-forward until a specific point-in-time (before the disaster occurred), or roll-forward until the last transaction recorded in the log files.

SQL> connect SYS as SYSDBA
SQL> RECOVER DATABASE UNTIL TIME '2001-03-06:16:00:00' USING BACKUP CONTROLFILE;

RMAN> run {
  set until time to_date('04-Aug-2004 00:00:00', 'DD-MON-YYYY HH24:MI:SS');
  restore database;
  recover database;
}