Olivomare

Welcome to Olivo Restaurants & Shops - Where each restaurant has its own unique character and cuisine and our delicatessen and geltaria stock the very best quality Italian Sardianian Produce.

Olivo Restaurants and Shops - Sardinian Restaurants, Delicatessen and Geltaria in Belgravia, London

http://olivorestaurants.com

Olivomare - London Restaurant Reviews | Hardens

If anyone wants to see how London restaurants have evolved over the past two decades, they could do much worse than a brief walking tour of the various branches of the Olivo franchise.

The original restaurant near Victoria, offering Sardinian specialities, seemed almost exotic when it opened back in 1991.

Half a decade later, a heart-of-Belgravia pizzeria offshoot, Olivetto, followed - its minimalist interior shows how things had moved on.

And now there's Olivomare,- with its striking monochrome styling, an outstanding example of contemporary restaurant design.

It turns out however that this is more a very superior contemporary trattoria where the food all happens to be fishy rather than some would-be temple-of-gastronomy with a menu full of obscure and overpriced specialities.

Santini - London Restaurant Reviews | Hardens

The place is getting shabby, the paper place mats are discouraging, and the cover charge for one piece of bread is over the top.

I forget to mention the place card for the cookbook at £20 is a bit much.

Olivomare | Italian restaurant 'Olivomare' Review

Olivo restaurants offer Italian/ Sardinian dishes and are all located on the same street (Ebury street) or close by, walking distance from Victoria Station and each of them has a certain edge to it, one of them specialises in pizzas (Oliveto), one of them is a traditional Italian restaurant (Olivo), one of them specialises in meat dishes (Olivocarne, which I have also reviewed) and as the name Olivomare suggests this Olivo restaurant specialises in seafood.

I went to Olivomare on a very sunny day with my friends and had a lovely seafood Italian meal.

My friend Michelle went for the “Linguine al Granchio” which was linguine with fresh sautéed crab meat, garlic, chilli and parsley, my friend Ian ordered the “Cassola di Pesca” which was Sardinian stew of fresh fish and shellfish with tomato chilli and garlic, and even though I did not try either of these dishes, both looked wonderful.

My friend Toby ate the “Spaghetti all’astice” which is spaghetti with half a fresh lobster and tomato, chilli and garlic and here I do have to say that the spaghetti lobster in Scalini does look better as they have a better presentation of this dish and also serve you more lobster, but Toby seemed to enjoy it and he has never been to Scalini.

Overall a solid place to go for Italian seafood, which will be very tasty and great quality, but it does lack the extra special wow factor in terms of the ambience, like the kind created in a small cosy restaurant which is run by chatty Italians that are keen to speak to you with their cute accent.

Olivomare restaurant review 2012 May London | Italian Cuisine ...

The wine list is displayed on the restaurant web site and showed a little over 50 bottles, ranging in price from £19.50 to £98, with an average mark-up of around 2.6 times retail price, which appears quite kindly given the Belgravia location.

Vintage Tunina 2007 was quoted at a fair £61 on the web site (£33 retail, 1.8 times retail price) but on the real list was 2009 at £71.50 compared to an average retail price of £27, a very significant difference (2.6 times retail price).

Similarly, Franz Haas 2008 Pinot Nero was priced on the on-line list at £32 for an £18 wine, but instead the wine appeared in the restaurant wine list at £45.50 (to be precise it was the 2009 rather than 2008, but the retail price is the same).

This was a mark-up level of 2.5 instead of 1.8 times retail price, and a huge 42% difference between the price published on-line and what was offered in the restaurant.

We had to ask several times for water, a side dish only appeared after repeated requests, and topping up was sporadic at best.

Olivomare Restaurant / Pierluigi Piu | ArchDaily

Opposite of the partition is the main dining room with a bold accent wall of what appears to be a condensed school of fish, the pattern inspired by Escher.

Another section of the dining room is engulfed in a white, undulating wall, evoking the sandy surface of a windswept beach.

The most explicit among them undoubtedly is the wide wall that characterizes the main dining room, entirely covered by a large cladding featuring a pattern inspired by the works of the visionary artist Maurits Escher, in which each single portion of colour is laser cut out of a sheet of opaque laminated plastic and juxtaposed on the vertical surface exactly as if it was a huge jigsaw puzzle.

In the small dining room at the rear (flooded by natural daylight copiously dropping down through a wide skylight expressly open in its roof), the cladding of its only continuous wall – which also includes a large curve – is characterized by a wavy relief meant to evoke the sandy surface of the beach when moulded by the wind, while in the toilets lobby the intricate branches of a coral reef closes in around any visitor coming from the bright and open adjacent room.

Such decorative pattern is obtained by engraving a double layer (white and red) of thick opaque laminated plastic laid onto either walls and ceiling, and its entanglement, when combined with the hidden doors giving access to the toilets, adds a sense of momentary disorientation to its aesthetical surprise.

Olivomare, Belgravia

"One of the best new nights ever!

We had a great night. "

Which venue is this?

He objected to my photographing Simmons'"private property"...." Which venue is this?

Olivomare | Westminster, Strand, Victoria | Restaurant Reviews | Hot ...

Service lacking in poorly-run restaurant | London Evening Standard

He explained that the rare accolade was in part due to the staunch service given by older sibling restaurants, Olivo and Oliveto.

I rang to book a table for two for lunch last Wednesday and asked for 1.30pm.

Mauro Sanna, owner of the Olivo trio, apparently introduced bottarga (pressed and dried fish roe) to London.

In sincere tribute I order spaghetti with bottarga and before that bresaola of tuna with celeriac and sun-dried tomatoes.

Those, the Sardinian Vermentino Argiolas white wine (£19.75), the Sardinian dessert of sebada (olive-oil fried cheese pastry dribbled with honey) and the lemon cream with candied orange peel are the highlights of the lunch.

Olivomare | Restaurants in Belgravia, London

It’s a bold interior designer who decorates a Sardinian seafood restaurant in stark white with nary a drop of Mediterranean blue, but then Olivomare is a bold venture, serving modern fish dishes that are adventurous in their presentation but old-school in quality of produce and flavours ­­– a winning combination.

Spaghetti with half a lobster was equally well executed, the pasta perfectly al dente and continuing to soak up the rich tomato, garlic and lobster juices on the plate.

Handmade lorighittas pasta with vongole and grey mullet roe missed the mark, though – the roe added an unwelcome breadcrumb texture to the pasta, and an overpowering flavour that killed the delicacy of the shellfish (a meagre portion).

At the kinds of prices Olivomare charges to its clearly well-heeled clientele, a handful more clams would have gone a long way in tempting us to return.