Hungry Olive - Ruislip — Restaurant in London

Booked this restaurant due to wanting to try somewhere new & the very good reviews it has online.

The restaurant looks beautiful but that’s where the compliments end!

We were there for 2 hours and only had 2 drinks each. We were never asked if we wanted more drinks & had to wave down staff to ask for them. When we did order them we waited 30 minutes then had to complain to get them made. I wouldn’t have minded if the restaurant was busy but it wasn’t, the staff were just completely incompetent.

The food was not as described and was just completely lacking flavour & any type of seasoning. I had the scallop started. It was unseasoned and if it hadn’t been for the meagre 3 capers in the purée, I might as well have eaten a jar of baby food! My husband had the lamb starter. While the lamb was tender, again there no flavour at all. It didn’t have any garlic, herbs even basic salt & pepper added.

My main was meant to be spicy seafood spaghetti. It said it had chilli in it. There was absolutely no chilli in my pasta whatsoever. There was no garlic nothing. Also meant to have squid in, didn’t have any! My kids could’ve made something better at home! The seafood pasta in Zaza is delicious, I could lick the plate clean it’s so good but this is a joke.

My husband’s main was luke warm, as were his sides. He had been at work for 12 hours and was hungry and tired and as we had waited almost an hour for the meal to come out he decided not to ask for another to be made. He had the black & blue chicken.

By the time we left the restaurant my husband had a stomach ache. As soon as we got home he had diarrhoea and has continued to be ill throughout the night.

Absolute joke of a restaurant! There are so many great restaurants in Ruislip, Zaza, Annabella’s, Kho Kho, Reis. All serve fantastic food & drinks. Unfortunately, this isn’t one of them!

Such a shame as so much potential. Is in a great position & is beautifully decorated but not one member of staff was in any hurry to do anything, all just stood around like they hadn’t got a care in the world & the chef seems to be on loan from McDonald’s!

Don’t visit this restaurant, you...

Visited Hungry Olive last night, kept us hungry till 10.20pm for meal ordered at 8.40pm. We were sat at the top floor which was awkward as we can hear music & singing downstairs but cannot see. We had to ask twice for our drinks which was only water & a bottle of Prosecco. No server would come up unless they were serving or need to take an order. I had to go down and ask where is our food at 9.50pm. It was only 4 mains! One turned up 9.50 but the rest came at 10.15 then last at 10.20pm…absolutely shocking! We ate our meals at different time like Wagamamas but waga’s would have delivered food quick. We weren’t happy with the service or the meal itself. My asparagus in my sea bass was so over cooked and mash was cold. Spinach in my friend’s dish had so much salt. Non of the dish was top. Told the manager, young lady who I believe do not have a good managerial experience to run a restaurant. After telling her directly we are waiting for our food so long and being charged in the bill for items we did not eat she still wanted justification why we didn’t like the food & we should have return it if we didn’t enjoy it! After waiting nearly 2 hours for a meal to come out then return it and I should walk all the way down to tell someone as no server was upstairs take our meals back. I was shocking from the manager! She did discounted the food bill on our request (not by hers as we were given a full bill) because by that time we were really upset! Still did not remove the food we were not served. We had request again to alter the bill. We really wanted deserts but it was 11 by then and we said nah! We may have to wait till midnight! Honestly was most disappointing experience ever from food, food timing & customer service. It was a birthday & Xmas gathering, really regretted booking this place to try something new...

Sadly this was not a great experience. Style over Substance…

Decor is great and booth seats are comfortable. Same cannot be said for the separate chairs that cut across your lower back and are just waiting to give you back ache. Mercifully the restaurant was empty enough to swap for the few chairs that weren’t designed for interrogation.

Cocktails were ok (at least mine was - Old Fashioned) but took forever to arrive.

Food was ranging between poor and good. Harissa prawns were tasty and zingy but really needed something for the sauce (bread??) which was requested but arrived after the dish was finished.

Clam soup - I am waiting to see if this makes me pay for it - 7 clams and only 6 were open. Anyone who eats molluscs knows that good fresh clams open when cooked.

I did raise this with staff but the chef said ‘they are fresh dunno why they don’t open’…. I do : these clams were either frozen or ‘fresh’ but dead - and a dead clam is not a good thing for gastrointestinal happiness. Wish me luck.

Monkfish spaghetti was nice, bit overcooked, though why they had to serve with Lobster pickers I do not know.

Cod loin was great, lamb rack (is 2 a rack?) was ‘ok’.

Puddings were ok. Poached pear was hilarious (see photo) but didn’t taste of much tbh, rest were ok but not great.

Had to walk up to the bar to get the bill, they were far too busy talking to each other to notice customers sitting for 10 minutes with empty plates. Requested bill was split, they brought over saying ‘split as requested’ and can you guess??? Yup - No it wasn’t.

all in all - a victory of style of substance I’m afraid. Yeah it was a Monday night and that’s probably when the head chef is off … but you’d hope the second chef would...