Olivetto — Restaurant in South Tyneside

We were really excited to try this place, being on our doorstep.

We were really disappointed. Staff are so inexperienced it is unbelievable. You arrive to a sign stating please wait to be seated. Staff standing around doing nothing or talking to each other not acknowledging customers who enter. We were then seated and waited 15 mins and I had to ask if I could order drinks. 15 mins later I asked for my drink again. Staff just don't know what they are meant to be doing /management issue not the staff themselves.

Food wise I just would never eat here again! Tasteless, bland, expensive (for what it is) and unoriginal. You honestly are better off going to sambucas. You get better quality and much better service. I ordered a antipasta starter and rib eye steak main (these were enough to stop me ordering desert) ordered blue and arrived blue, however, it was full of fat and battered thin, probably the thinnest steak I've ever had, for £30 I'd much rather miller and Carter for the price. Diane sauce tasted like cheese and powder it was awful!

My wife ordered bruschetta starter and pollo fungi e crema. The bruschetta was tasteless and tomatoes were soaking through more a splat than mush. The chicken was actually very tasty however out of the 4 things tasted the only thing that had flavour.

As for the atmosphere, not much to it really they play music but staff dont interact, nobody checks on you, nobody knows what they are doing. The toilets are new but the paint jobs and tiles etc all bodged.

Overall don't waste your money and it's such a shame as would be nice to...

Booked here for my mother-in-law’s birthday. She wanted to try a new restaurant. Barring a couple of things, we weren’t disappointed. It’s a nice brightly lit place with plenty of room and pleasant decor. The staff were great - very attentive and understanding of questions and requests. We were never left waiting for very long before a member of staff was asking if we needed anything. The starters and mains were all delicious - my wife and I shared a garlic bread and I can recommend the salmon main meal, which arrived with a fair sized portion of salmon. When it came to the desserts and coffees, I had my only negatives - I ordered a tiramisu and an Irish coffee. I love strong coffee, but the coffee in the glass was so strong it was almost a paste. It overpowered everything else in there, so if there was a whiskey, I couldn’t taste it. The tiramisu by contrast, hardly had any coffee taste to it at all and seemed to be 90% cream and quite sickly by the time I had finished it. I didn’t want to say anything about this and perhaps spoil the mood of the celebration. It was the only negatives in a lovely experience. We would definitely return and try other dishes on the menu. Thanks for a...

Visited tonight for my birthday meal, waste of time and money. Thought it had potential with the interior but it’s all fur coat and no knickers. Where do I start… potato skins were a miniature portion (shouldn’t be using the plural of ‘skins’ as the quantity is from a single potato). Asked for BBQ sauce with them, received garlic, was sat next to the kitchen, could hear every word the chef, moaned about upon the waiter returning them. Asked for a pizza without pesto and if I could possibly have it on the side - heard everything the chefs said to the waiter about this too. Received my pizza with pesto on as well as on the side? (Defeats the point??) Partner finished his bland meatballs by the time anyone even asked us how the food was, and I only then could explain how I couldn’t eat the pizza as it was caked in pesto which I didn’t like. Whilst waiting, we heard the rude chef moaning his head off about no more orders as it was 8pm and he has a ‘life outside of work’. I asked not to pay for the pizza but nothing else was compensated for the inconvenience. 7 pieces of potato skin for £5 at the Nook - hilarious. 1 star at best and that’s for the...