Olives — Restaurant in New Karnak

We stayed at the Hilton in Luxor for six nights Jan 30 to Feb 5, 2025, and we ate at Olives every night.  I had done a fair amount of research on the restaurants available in Luxor before the trip, and I wasn’t really looking forward to the food experience at all (Cairo has MUCH better dining options).  Many of the Luxor restaurants have dubious reviews and many of the photos were not to my liking.  With the Luxor Hilton out of town slightly (near Karnak Temple) it looked we were going have to make do with the restaurants in the Hilton (especially with the long sightseeing days we planned).  On arrival I looked at the menus and scoped the locations of Olives and Silk Road, and decided to give Olives a try on the first night, as mentioned above we ended up eating there every night.  First and foremost, this is not a fine dining restaurant, rather it is a nice restaurant with good basic fare, also, the location is amazing as it is literally a-stones-throw from the Nile (claim your table by 5:30pm order drinks and watch the sun go down over the Nile – perfect!).  We tried many dishes on the menu during the course of our visit, but did not order any seafood (it is just a little too far from the sea and remote for us).  The chicken souvlaki was absolutely excellent, while the filet steak, beef kabobs, lamb chops were good choices.  I did order the Chicken Parmesan one night and it was just barely OK (not the traditional breaded cutlet, more like a chicken filet in soggy batter with melted mozzarella), I needed to ask for some extra tomato sauce to make it passable.  All of the sides were very good: fries, roast potatoes, white rice, Egyptian Salad, grilled veg, and sautéed vegetables (not on the Menu, but we asked for it with every meal to round things out, as we were a little shy with raw salads at first).  We found to service to be pretty good overall, and we were part of the Family by the last night.  Moemen and Mohammed did a fine job taking...

I would recommend eating elsewhere. The positive reviews were not real people who ate at this establishment.

The bread was stale. The falafel and hawawshi were fried a bit too long, but not bad. The shawarma was also not terrible. The pizza is an affront to the entire country of Italy. The ice cream tastes incredibly fake. The brownies were dry.

The atmosphere is very good: it is right on the Nile and there might be a live band playing Egyptian music. Stray cats might also brush your legs when eating, which might be a positive or negative thing depending on personal opinion.

Overall, I wouldn’t recommend eating at this location. It’s not worth your time or money...

The setting is beautiful but the food is just bad. Not even average but bad. My daughter’s chicken nuggets were actually raw - luckily I noticed the pink colour after one bite. None of the dishes were as per the menu (missing bread or salad or sides). Chicken shish was beyond dry and totally unseasoned without the advertised bread or sides. We sent it back as was told it was dry because it was chicken breast and there was nothing they could do. On a second attempt it was much better and seasoned, with the sides advertised and not as dry. Such a shame as we would have had had lunch here every day while staying at the Hilton as it was so convenient but instead we...