Olivomare

Press Reviews (5)

• Giles Coren (4th December 2007)
  5.67/10
  
  The refusal to give the critic a copy of the menu undermines his view of this pricey Belgravia Italian. The food, though, is generally praised. He makes a point that the restaurant didn’t seem very full – oddly, as he also notes that there’s hardly anyone in Belgravia on a Saturday lunchtime (when he visited),
• Fay Maschler (23rd July 2007)
  
  In a rare cross-reference to another critic, Mrs M picks up on Adrian Gill’s recent 5-star award to this Belgravia newcomer. Needless to say, her experience turns out to be very up-and-down. It turns out that she went on a Wednesday, which is chef’s day off. As she notes, however, “in a well-run restaurant it wouldn’t make a difference”.
• Andrew Staffell (9th July 2007)
  4/6 stars
  
  There’s the odd quibble about the food, but Time Out seems – rather surprisingly, given its socio-eonomic leanings – to have had a pretty spendid time dining in the company of the “bankers of Belgravia”. This latest addition to the Olivo empire may serve “peasant food”, but “serve it in the right setting and in they'll flock”. The cooking shows “triumphant simplicity”, which is ‘matched, in a sense, by the décor”
• AA Gill (9th July 2007)
  5/5 stars
  
  Mr Gill visits “the best new dining room I’ve seen for years” (which would be the same one, presumably, as Time Out found “a little contrived and, in truth, rather out of date”). It helps, perhaps, that the staff “are all charm and sultry pulchritude”. (“I’ve always thought that equal-opportunities legislation should make an exception for waiters and allow restaurants to employ them by prettiness – it’s such an important part of the ambience”.) The menu is fish and essentially Sardinian, a cuisine which “often has a mordant edge to it, a taste of regret and resentment, of loss and vendetta”. Fortunately, it’s mainly done here “with panache”. And Tiramisu is awarded “best ever in London” status.
• Marina O’Loughlin (4th June 2007)
  3/5 stars
  
  Not-reviewing restaurants seems to be all the rage, and the critic kicks off her review of this “rather lovely” Italian seafood newcomer in Belgravia with an account of her failure to book a table at Rhodes W1.