The Olive Tree Berkhamsted — Restaurant in Dacorum

I have just come back from having lunch at the Olive Tree and feel very let down by my experience there. Upon entering the restaurant I was greeted with a face of thunder and a extremely unwelcoming attitude by the waitress (who I later found out was apparently the manager). Anyway that didn't bother me at all. We ordered our food and were very disappointed when it arrived. My family and I have been going to the Olive Tree regularly on and off since it opened and have been disappointed a couple of times recently.

We are all vegetarian and ordered the Meze for two (which i have had in the past). When it arrived I was quite taken aback regarding how little was on the plate for £19.95! It really was quite shocking, there wasn't even two of everything. We decided we would mention it to the waiter who said he would get his manager (who happened to be the unwelcoming waitress that (didn't) greeted me.

The reason for this review (because I certainly wouldn't of written this if it hadn't been for her attitude) is the way she responded to our feedback. She harshly put us in our place defending herself by saying that if you add up all the things on the plate separately it comes to £35! Which is rubbish anyway. And, at no point did she offer us an apology or anything of the sort. I asked her if we could have some tzatziki on the house and she said she can speak to the manager (thought she was the manager) and then we never saw her again! I couldn't believe how rude and ignorant she was. I told her I wouldn't be coming back and she literally sniggered at me and walked off. I feel that its a real shame to have to write this as I do go there regularly but I feel so let down that I felt obliged to write this review and I definitely won't be returning there in a hurry when there are so many more cafes in Berko that offer great service...

AVOID IF YOU HAVE ALLERGIES. We had a very bad experience here today. As a Coeliac, unable to eat gluten, I asked if I could have the GF chicken, GF salad and GF chips without the gluten wrap and was told ‘no’. When I asked why they said ‘it depends if they’re busy’ (I looked around and saw only five other tables). When I queried this I was told ‘they couldn’t deconstruct the dish’. So I asked does it come into the restaurant pre-assembled? They said ‘no it’s all fresh and put together by the chef’. So I asked why they simply couldn’t assemble it without the wrap? The answer was ‘because they weren’t allowed’. So we got to our feet to leave only for an apparently more senior young woman to arrive to speak to us, who at least was not impolite and wearing a dirty apron like the first waitress and we had the same mad conversation again. I told her I felt that what they were saying was nonsensical. She asked ‘if I wanted her to ask again if they could serve me’. I said no as they’d refused me twice and I had lost all trust as I’ve never heard so much nonsense in my life. I’ve worked in Greece and have always been catered for in a helpful and friendly fashion - but apparently this isn’t possible in Berkhamsted. I felt discriminated against and angry by how they’d treated me and their weird reasoning. I only hope that they and nobody they love is unfortunate enough to have an allergy and be treated this way. They should be ashamed. We then went a few doors down to Pizza Express and were greeted by a charming man whose first question was ‘any allergies?’ who explained the huge variety of GF menu options and brought us a delicious meal...

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR ALLERGY SUFFERERS.

The food was lovely and high quality, the atmosphere and look of the place clearly had some thought put into it. Generally, seems like a lovely restaurant. If you don't have an allergy and enjoy greek food, I would probably recommend you stop here for a bite!

I must admit, the server who took our order asked about allergies, and told me which dishes to avoid as a result - this was much appreciated. I was of course given the spiel about cross-contamination and the fact that there's always a chance of an allergen being in a dish it shouldn't be in. Fair enough, same for a lot of places. However, I need a fair amount of nuts in something to give me any kind of reaction (whole nuts kind of amounts of allergen). After walking down the high street a few minutes after leaving the restaurant, I started to feel my throat swell up. The subsequent course of this reaction has been distressing and, I believe, could have been avoided with more careful handling in the kitchen as my dish was not meant to deliberately contain nuts.

The industry standard for this kind of thing is to prepare food in a clean and separate work statio, wash hands, fresh pair of gloves and then start work on the food. I understand some ingredients may be prepped beforehand, but care needs to be taken with this or the next time someone has a reaction as a result of your food, it could be a much worse outcome.

Essentially, good food and nice restaurant, clearly not enough care or attention paid...