The Wild Olive — Restaurant in England

Went for lunch on Tuesday with 3 colleagues from work. Strange experience. Arrived 11.50, waited 10 mins for some service, the waitress took the drinks order, I asked for bottled water, a glass of water arrived, no bottle! I expect to see the bottle brought to the table so that I know what I’m drinking. The couple who arrived after us had their drinks order and meal order taken before us! (Strange) We all ordered panninies, and 2 of us ordered a bowl of potato wedges to accompany the meal at £2 each. The order eventually arrived at 12.45 after the couple had received their meal, the 2 panninies that didn’t come with the wedges were accompanied by a nice salad. The other 2 panninies arrived with no salad and the wedges on the plate. I would have expected them all to have arrived with salad and 2 bowls of wedges to accompany them. The pannini I had was swimming in garlic butter and the wedges were greasy and soggy. When paying the bill I spoke to the waitress about the long time it took for the meal to arrive and she said ‘can you not see we have a table of six that have booked for lunch and they have priority!!’ I therefore decided not to take it any further with the waitress and make my first ever posting on one of...

First impressions were poor. Female staff member on the phone as we approached her. No eye contact, no smile to greet us, finished the call & walked away without asking if we needed help & had a conversation with another staff member, completely ignored us. After few minutes a male staff member took us to our table but walked off without asking if we wanted drinks. Then another young male staff member came and took our order. The lady who ignored us brought us our starter, I had to ask her back over for plates as she didn’t bring any. She had started clearing tables. .The starter was wrong, we asked for garlic bread pizza style with cheese & they brought us a full size cheese & tomato pizza instead. My Wolive pizza had excessive chilli jam on it, making it almost inedible & incredibly sweet, very little meat on it.. The ragu was bland, no depth of flavour which was a surprise as it was described as 8 hour cooked. Nobody asked if we wanted more drinks. A second female staff member took the dessert order - a total of four separate staff waited on the table. It’s a real shame as it’s an inviting looking restaurant, but the food and service was...

We were visiting Whitehaven and our hosts brought us here for an evening meal. As soon as we walked through the door the aroma told me it was going to be good.

Our group mostly went for pizzas, which were unmistakably from a pizza oven, had great toppings and were a generous size. If you've gone enthusiastically into starters you will be really struggling to finish one of these.

We also had the sea bass on linguine, a bit pricier than the pizzas but well worth it. The creamy leek and chorizo linguine packed enough flavour and size to be a meal in its own right. Sat atop it however was a really generous sea bass fillet with excellent crispy skin.

Fortunately for us, we came with folks who knew the portion size! We may have looked tight with the bread sharer for two between four, but if you want some desert after those mains, then it's the best way to go.

We opted to share two sticky toffee puds between four, it would have just been gluttonous to have one each. The cake was very light and the sauce the perfect thickness. Great finish

The place itself was smart and the staff friendly, will...