Olivia Torget — Restaurant in Stavanger

We went there on a Wednesday in May and I tried to book a table online in advance, but I was informed that there were no tables available. We went there anyway and was delighted to hear that they did have a table for us – in fact, they had lots of available tables. The place is brand new, but I was surprised how cozy the place is. This branch has been decorated with inspiration from Portofino apparently and the interior includes big posters with scenes from Italy, fire places, olive trees etc. The place is quite big and there are tables on two floors and many of the tables do have a great view of the harbor of Stavanger.

We were greeted with a smile and got a window table. The menu is in Italian, Norwegian and English and included starters, pizza, pasta and a lot of primi piatti (a lighter meal I guess you can call it). The wine selection is not bad, and they have focused on wines that are easy to like – both for the pallet and the wallet. As they were out of buffalo mozzarella we took it up a notch and ordered burrata (a very soft buffalo mozzarella cheese from Puglia) and polenta chips. As main dishes we chose risotto and a pizza. Our waiter took our orders with a smile and it didn’t take long before we got the polenta chips. We were hungry, but I think they would have taste delicious even if that was not the case. They were served warm and fresh and with a good aioli. We didn’t get the burrata but eventually the waitress came to check if we had gotten both starters. I guess the kitchen made a mistake, but the waitress fixed this and we soon got this (with apologies from the waitress). The burrata is always a treat – it can be eaten just with a light sprinkle of salt, pepper and olive oil. It also came with some bread, a salad that was a but uninspired but with good cherry tomatoes.

The main meals were served shortly thereafter. The pizza was a burrata pizza modified with some spicy Italian sausage. The pizza was great, and it was lovely with the combination of the mild burrata and the spicy sausage. The crust and pizza base were also to my liking. I love my risotto and I had to try to when they had a combination of lemon and asparagus. I’m not a big fan of asparagus but in this dish, it worked together with the lemon. If I was to be picky I can say that I would have wanted it to be a bit more creamy and rich, but it was a tasty risotto indeed. We got the check and it was about 600 kroner (without drinks).

Conclusion: it is hard not to like Olivia. The place has a great location, the menu includes stuff that people know and love (pizza, pasta, lasagna etc). The people working in the restaurant was very polite and had a great service attitude – I would probably say that this is due to good management in the restaurant so well done! I’m sure that Olivia will be a very popular restaurant in Stavanger in the years to come. We will certainly be back to try out more...

Located on the corner of the main square in Old Stavanger.

First of all the food we tried the few times we were here was fantastic, my friend is Italian so knows how Italian food should taste and he said it was "Fantastico" He took many things from pizza, carpacccio and meat dishes, all were very well presented, tasty and prepared how he required. I took vegetarian pasta dishes and starters, these were yet again all very tasty, well presented and a good portion size.

Plenty of comfortable seats with an upper level. Interior deco has a relaxed feel with that touch of chic that you would expect from an Italian restaurant.

The thing that let us down was some of the service. The service problems we encountered were, incorrect billing after explaining a few times what was required, no cutlery given, asking numerous times for condiments, breads and Parmesa. language barrier was problematic so asking if the waiter was Italian, to which he said yes, my friend ordered in Italian and the "Italian" waiter could not understand??.....

Now, there is no denying that the food is good but if your looking for the full Italian experience then try somewhere else, if you want a nice Italian meal and don't mind the problems then here...

Slow service and quite rude “leder “.

It not the first but definitely the last time when our company had dinner at the restaurant. The booking was confirmed at 18:45 for 10 person. Some of us showed up later and 4 could not make it due to different reasons. Around 19.15 a waiter came to take our order. We thought our food and drinks were coming but after a while he came back and took out order saying that he just went through the menu. A little later another waiter asked if the rest of the group were coming, we said that we’re still waiting. Food and drinks were good but around 20:00 another “leder” came to us and in very impolite and unprofessional way told us that we are keeping our big table for 6 people not 10. She repeated that 4 times!!!when we asked what do you want us to do she was quite arrogant saying that they could have given our table to other guests. Even though there wasn’t any line and there were many table available. We said that we are still waiting. Even though the restaurant wasn’t fully booked we moved to another table without any assistance from the staff. That was a very...