Great Location, Competent Food, Poor Service
Restaurant: Olive, Goa
Reviewer: Aalok Wadhwa | 30th December 2018 | Reviewer Rating (Out of 5) 3.38

 The review was done after paying for the meal.

The Olive brand stands for well-made food with great interiors and professional, responsive service. With that in mind, I chose Olive for a mega family meal when in Goa, booking a table well in advance. Does the Goa outpost of Olive Bar and Kitchen live up to the Olive brand? Not sure actually. Because great location, decent food that falls short of being great, and poor service even by Goa standards is what sums up the Olive Goa experience.

First to the location. It has a spectacular view, comparable to Thalassa and Antares. The interiors are predominantly outdoors, done in a distinctly Olive Mediterranean theme.  It is the kind of place that one can nurse a lot of drinks in, throughout the day…….if the service were to be better than my experience. But on the day I am here with the whole family, perhaps it is a bad day for the restaurant, but what one remembers most is unresponsive staff, missing orders, details not getting passed on to the kitchen, and other such mishaps.

 

Food here looks pretty but in terms of taste, ranges from good to average. From the small plates, beef carpaccio (Rs 550) is good, crab and avocado salad (Rs 600) average and underseasoned.

 

Tiger prawn bisque (Rs 450) is competent, salmon tataki (Rs 650) is a trifle imbalanced with too much sesame.

    

Olive’s signature Caesar’s salad chicken (Rs 500) is well, regular Caesar’s salad. Red snapper crudo (Rs 450) is pleasant.

  

Seared rare beef (Rs 500) is good while sumac spiced chicken tenders (Rs 450) is forgettable

  

Sriracha spiced crab cake (Rs 550) is average while sizzling prawn Goa chorizo pilpil (Rs 500) is nice.

 

In the mains, duck breast crispy leg confit (Rs 950) doesn’t taste like it has been cooked “cooked slowly over a long period of time” as is my understanding of the word confit, since the dish is dry. Poached snapper (Rs 800) is unimpressive.

  

Brick roast chicken (Rs 700) is good with crispy skin, slow braised spiced lamb (Rs 900) is benign.

  

Pan seared fillet of salmon (Rs 950) is cooked well and asparagus and ricotta ravioli (Rs 600) is ok.

 

We end the meal with a pleasant vanilla bean ice cream (Rs 150).

While the food is competent, the reason for you to come to Olive is its location. The food is decent but not memorable. Hopefully you will get better service than I got.

 

Ratings (Out of 5)  

Food: 3.5 | Ambience: 5.0 | Service: 2.0 | Value: 3.0 | Overall: 3.5

Meal for two: Rs 2000 | Alcohol: Yes | Credit Card: Yes | Wheel chair friendly: No

Address: Unit 1, Vagator Helipad, Big Vagator, Vagator, Goa

Tel: +91 7888037772

 

About the Author
Aalok Wadhwa Aalok Wadhwa
Restaurant Information
Olive, Goa Olive, Goa
Unit 1, Vagator Helipad, Big Vagator, Vagator, Goa
Telephone: +91 7888037772 view on a map
Opening Hours:
Average Price: Rs. 2000 - 2500