The Stuffed Olive — Restaurant in England

Went there for my birthday, with my girlfriend tonight.

It came as a recommendation from her boss, with "seriously the best steak he's ever had" - That's a lot to live up to!!!

I was sceptical, Never trust over-enthusiastic reviews, but he wasn't wrong!

It was exceptional, as was her stuffed chicken. Me and my Girlfriend ARE that sickening couple that feed each other a forkful over the table.

They had ran out of the dessert she ordered, so she ordered the same as I did, and it was amazing.

Food exceptional, very well presented. Food very good and fresh, desserts delivered with fruitgarnishes that were seasonal and tasty.

The female owner perhaps a little too 'rushy' initially when taking the order and could have given us a little more time with the wine list and menus, Etc.

However the food was served in a very timely manner, with consideration to my lovely girlfriend going to the ladies, and me going out for a smoke between courses.

The decor is quite generic and commercial, enough to believe this might have been a franchise, however the atmosphere was nice. Although perhaps we should have booked an hour later, we had an early meal.

When the coffee arrived, It was just me that ordered in a party of two, there was a sugarbowl delivered to the table with about 30 sachets, which was a little impersonal for a single coffee.

I did feed back to the female owner these tiny little considerations, and she perhaps could be a little more concerned with her customers, she's very 'business -minded' in appearance, however we did leave a generous tip, were very pleased with the meal and would go back...

We had been here 4 years ago for my wife's 40th birthday so 4 years later thought we would revisit. It was a totally different experience, the blonde waitress who served us was very hospitable but when we placed our order she said the Christmas menu had only been launched that day so she was unsure of what was on offer. My wife and I ordered starters and asked for our children's mains to be served at the same time. Sadly this did not happen and their food was not served until at least an hour after we ordered. Whilst we were waiting for our food, a man appeared very casually dressed who appeared to be with a party of 4 ladies, turns out he was either a waiter or the owner of the business. He did not seem interested in our table despite the fact we were obviously not happy about the service. He seemed to be interested iby the staffn the air conditioning, it was really cold, but he never asked us whether we were happy or not with the temperature. After over an hour of waiting for our mains, I had to complain to the man/waiter as my kids were hungry and not happy at not receiving their food. Once I had complained, we were inundated with staff asking us whether everything was ok, absolute overkill. On the plus side, the food we received was very nice, but sadly the evening was overshadowed by the long wait for food and lack of attention by the staff. If I was offered a free meal in return for our poor experience I would return, if not I would not be returning or recommend this...

We went as a party of 10 for lunch and the food wasn't great, no one had finished their mains. It was disappointing there wasn't any salad or sauces (BBQ sauce doesn't work with a Mediterranean dish) with the meat platter.

The tagine was too sweet and bland. The potato was still hard and undercooked, the rice portion was tiny (see pictures) compared to the main. The food lacked flavour. We asked for chilli sauce and it had no heat - more of a tomato salsa 😭. The Lentils in the Bolognese was still hard and undercooked.

The best dish was the free crispy bread and olive hummus (see pictures) that came out whilst we were waiting.

Everyone in the party travelled for more than two hours only to leave hungry 😔.

I love independent restaurants and wish the food was better.

The Stuffed Olive 🫒 is a lovely restaurant with lots of thought put into the decor, lighting and ambience. There's a private dining room upstairs.

The service was attentive and friendly staff. Lots of parking nearby and loads of independent shops on the busy...