Brasserie Rivoli — Restaurant in Oslo

Was excited to try this place as the menu looked promising, and the restaurant had very positive reviews. Unfortunately, the food was not for me. For lunch, we ordered the Champignon Forestiers (mushrooms on brioche bread, with truffle shavings and poached egg), the Sandwich Au Boeuf (grilled sourdough with braised beef loin), and Sweatshirt (Trout).

First impressions for all three dishes - I did not expect such large amounts of greens.

For the Sweatshirt / Trout dish, the zucchini and salad tasted as though it was mildy coated with wasabi, which was not indicated anywhere on the menu, and therefore an unpleasant surprise and assault to my taste buds. The Trout was cooked fine, nicely salted with a nice crisp skin. The sauce was decent as well, buttery with hints of chives. Overall acceptable, but nothing to write home about.

For the Champignon Forestiers, I was hoping for the taste of the mushrooms to come through. However, it didn't leave any impression, and the brioche had less butter content than I would have preferred. There is no distinct flavour to this dish, I found it rather unbalanced and overall quite forgettable.

And the worst of the lot, was the Sandwich Au Boeuf. First off, when the menu said salad, I expected the salad to be on the side, and not literally on the main dish. That aside, the beef was extremely dry and bland, I can't believe this is loin (sorry to say but the beef was so dry that it tasted like leftovers). Personally, I felt that putting the salad on top of the beef made the dish very cold and difficult to eat. Doing that also steals away the attention of the star ingredient, which should be the braised beef loin. The pickled tomatoes and onions were uninspiring and the restaurant could have done better with the seasoning of the pickle solution. We took less than three bites and returned the dish unfinished.

Perhaps I came on a bad day, but this place does poorly in reflecting French food. The menu looked inspiring, and I was genuinely so excited to dine here. To my dismay, the food was overall very unappetizing (it did not help that some of the food was served lukewarm, possibly because of the salad), disappointing, and left much to be desired. Perhaps the dinner menu is better? Food aside, ambiance was very nice and this place is a stones throw away from the Munch museum. Service was professional, albeit curious as to why the waitress would seat two diner groups closely together despite the whole restaurant being empty. It is a small matter, but attention to detail would help with the overall dining experience. Most people would like to have some sort of privacy for their conversations when dining, and it would be more appropriate to leave some spacing in between...

Before being seated, they asked us if we have read the menu or not. It is the first time in my life that I got asked this when I entered a restaurant. Honestly we were not sure why they asked the question and how we should interpret it. Besides, this restaurant had a strong opinion on how we should NOT share our food; we just wanted to taste different dishes without wasting food. The presentation of the food was great. The food tasted OK, not at the level of its price IMO. For example, the chicken leg was not cooked evenly. We did like their sauce, not too salty to overwhelm the taste of the main ingredients but enough to provide additional layers of flavor. Overall the experience was not great because we did not feel welcomed, and the food was OK but a bit...

The starters were excellent, we really enjoyed the oysters, langoustine and scallops. The mains however were a pity. I ordered the fish of the day which was a cod on a risotto base but it was way too salty for my taste. Regretfully, I sent it back because I couldn’t stomach it but I have to commend the customer service. They immediately offered to remake or change the dish for me and I wasn’t charged for it. They suggested that the sauce for the turbot dish I got as a replacement to be on the side instead of directly on the fish and I really appreciated that foresight because the new sauce was still a tad salty for my taste. I enjoyed the replacement dish on its own. Despite the slight mishap we still enjoyed our experience at...