In a nutshell:

NJOYed a super lunch in this cool bistro with excellent interiors that kept us engaged till the end of 3 hours that we spent here, good but not great service & some very good food.

Address & other details: Olive Bistro

Meal for 2: Rs. 1500 onwards

Cuisine type : Vegetarian & Nonvegetarian

Disclaimer: All restaurants / eateries reviewed by YUMMRAJ were visited by YUMMRAJ himself & he has paid for the full Bill & tips also. http://www.yummraj.com does not have even one featured / sponsored reviews. YUMMRAJ believes in going to a restaurant in anonymity, as a normal guest, experience everyWe & thing & give a honest account of the same to you.

I rate all the food items & then give a final overall rating which is a simple average of the individual item ratings. What the ratings stand for: 5 = Excellent, 4 = Very Good, 3 = Good, 2 = Fair, 1 = Disaster.

Short Description – in case u r in a hurry:

The other evening after we dined at Panchavati Gaurav, we were strolling around in Cyber Hub & were pleasantly surprised to see Olive Bistro open. Surprised coz Olive group usually launches its restaurants with a big bang & here there was almost no noise. We walked up & took a look – Yes the bistro was open & almost full. The Manager told us that alcohol license was pending & they were waiting to do a full blown launch post that.

The bistro has two seating areas. An outdoor area that is excellent, with potted plants, flowers etc, a tube well with water flowing from it, carefully chosen antiques sprewn all over. At one corner of the open are is the open air pizza station.

Inside seating area was marvellous as well. The floor had some amazing retro printed tiles. We spent a lot of time looking at each one of them & talking about it. The furniture was unique & retr as well. They were not uniform.

A bust form with a map on it stood in one corner.

A tubewell was constantly pouring water into a bathtub.

Some seats looked like traditional wooden storage chests.

The menu card was quite cool – a wooden frame with a handle holding the paper together. Had a nice writeup by the owners of the restaurant on the front page.

There were quite a lot of items on the menu card had ’J’ written on it – meaning Jain vegetarian options available. Overal the mix of Vgetarian & non vegetarian options were quite balanced.

The service boys were very polite and tried to provide great service with their warmth. They actually took care. However, they lacked detailed product knowledge. Every now & then reply to my question wud b ‘I’ll have to ask the ‘safe’’ (chef)!!!!! The staff here is way better than the ones at sodabottleopenerwala but inferior to the ones at the old Olive restaurants.

Food was very nice. Loved most of it. Directionally, the menu was a bit uncommon, had plenty of good options & offered quite a lot of common European & Amercan café food that is otherwise not easily available in Delhi.

Detailed Description – In case u have the Time to NJOY reading:

For drink we ordered Olive Mary – fresh tomato juice with green chilly. My take – Bloody good Bloody Mary (virgin). Perfect mix of sour, chilly hotness, salt & flavor of celery. We really liked drinking this & also munching on the celery with every sip. The chilly played an important role in the overall taste. Takes a lot to get a non alcoholic Mary so good. Rate it 4.5/5.

We also tried Milano smooch – fresh orange chunks muddled with mint leaves, green chillies & lime juice on a soda base. It had a good balance of sour, sweet, hint of salt & a chilly aftertaste. The drink was pretty potent & refreshing at the same time. It was just perfect, just awesome. Must say that muddled orange & chillies did not make their presence felt in a big way – effect was very very mild. Good as it is & rate it 4.5/5

We started our lunch with Chaudiere – the French precursor to the modern chowder – We chose roast pepper & shrimps. It was also available in smoked potato & corn & smoked chicken options. The chowder was thick, uniform to taste but not of Industrial type. It had baked jalapenos in it that made a massive difference to the whole taste & flavors. Shrimps were excellent – soft & very tasty. They lend their flavor to Chauderie. Loved it a lot & rate it 4.25/5.

After the Chauderie, we ordered ‘Carnivore on a thin crust’ Pizza – It had a Mixed meat topping, including smoked chicken, roast tenderloin, lamb crumble, Goan sausages. I wud say it was the best pizza I have had in a while in gurgaon. Pizza hut lovers, beware – If pizza base has to b like a thick bread as served in Pizza hut, u might hate the pizza at Olive bistro. Those loving thin crust wud only b able to appreciate this.

The base was thinner than a tandoori roti, almost like a phulka but very very crispy like nobody’s business. Flavours were bursting out in every bite. Bites with Goan sausages were heavenly. The bites were Juicy, tasty, flavorful & crispy at the same time. Rate it no less than 4.75/5

After the pizza we moved on to Roast beef & pepper sandwich. It was a very good Tenderloin sandwich. Infact, excellent. As good as it can get in Delhi. Great inhouse baked bread & grilled meat filling. This was Stuff that I have had in good cafes in the US. It was surely not a gourmet dish but was simple, regular, tasty comfort food. I rate it 4.25/5. The beef sandwich at Pintxo is way better.

For main course we ordered Twice cooked pork belly served with pork & brown rice hash, sauteed green beans, carrot & honey mustard glaze. This dish had several aspects to it.

The Pork pieces were good. They were soft but not ultra soft, melt in the mouth. The flavor of good pork meat was also missing. If the pork belly (different preparation) at the erstwhile ai was 4.75/5, this is not more than 3/5.

The rice served at the base stood out & was very good. It had intense flavors & taste. Loved the texture of traditional rice. Rate it 4/5,

The sauce of the dish was ok ok. Not an inch above average. Rate it 2/5.

Overall rating for this dish averages out to 3/5.

For dessert we ordered Insanity cake slice. The menu card describes it as ‘The Bistro’s heartiest offering with multiple layers of dark chocolate mousse, orange flavored white chocolate mousse & red currant mousse layered between two varieties of moist genoise & coco sponge, finished with farm fresh vanilla cream & caramelized apricots’.

What we did not realize was that the actual size of this dessert was as big as its super big description. So when we ordered this, our waiting boy gave us surprised looks. We asked him. He mumbled. We did not get it & we ordered.

When the dessert arrived we were shocked at the size – Needed at least 4 people to finish that.

Dug into it. It was lovely. The orange part was the one which I liked the best. The other two were very good as well.

After eating half we realized we were not enjoying it any more – too much at the same time. The guy packed the balance for us.

We left that in the car & drove all across town. When we opened the box to eat it 8 hours later, it tasted way way better – U know why? Coz the mousse had softened due to it being out of refrigeration. What an idea sirji. Next time I buy that dessert agan, I will ensure it gets enough thaw time.
Rate the dessert 4/5.

Overall rating of food at Olive Bistro averages out to 4.2/5. I will surely revisit to explore more.