The Twisted Olive — Restaurant in Green

TLDR: bland expensive food in a very nice restaurant. Spend your hard earned money elsewhere.

I will preface this review on the fact that the Twisted Olive is shooting to be a fine dining establishment. In saying this, I had made a reservation for my anniversary dinner approximately 1 1/2 months ago and we still had to wait for about 10 to 15 minutes for table. I think if you make a reservation at a fine dining establishment you should have at most a five-minute wait. When we get to our table it's in a dark poorly-lit corner with a sign above it that kept alternating between extremely bright and very dim the entire meal. The atmosphere of the restaurant itself is very beautiful, we like that. Our waitress was Kiersten K. My wife and I both feel that she definitely went above and beyond to make this night a special one. Between all of the appetizers and entrees we ordered, we had gotten the brussel sprouts, the calamari, the blackened salmon with the glaze, and the Delmonico steak. My wife really enjoyed the brussel sprouts but thinks Red Lobster had better brussel sprouts, they had more flavor. We both ate the calamari, which seemed undercooked and kind of bland. Out of all the places around here that we have tried the calamari, Burntwood Tavern in Belden Village by far has the best so far. My wife really loved her salmon and the glaze was amazing. I had ordered the 14 oz, $58, Delmonico steak. In my opinion for a fine dining establishment the steak was terrible. There was a fair amount of Gristle and a fair amount of fat around it and not in a good marbleized way. We ended up letting our waitress know and she was very understanding, the manager ended up comping the steak and I got the loaded Burger instead and that was phenomenal. Although I ordered it medium rare and it seemed between rare and tar tar. The manager came out a little bit later and she was nice to us but seemed to put the blame of us not understanding what exact cut of meat it was on our waitress which didn't seem right to us. Her description of the meat didn't have anything to do with the lack of flavor in the meat and the quality of the meat. I will say that the garlic red skin mashed potatoes that came with the steak and salmon were amazing. I had gotten mac and cheese with the steak, while it was good I'm not a huge fan of the breadcrumb topping that some mac and cheeses have, I like the creamier Mac and cheeses, and there's isn't that creamy plus it was on the blander side. For dessert we had gotten the flourless chocolate cake and the brulee cheesecake. The chocolate cake was very dense but good and the cheesecake was very light and Airy and very good. Nothing in particular really stood out to me or my wife that would make us return to this restaurant. I don't think anything really justified the price of the food considering everything was fairly Bland. In fact even if the bill was 1/3 the price that it actually was I don't think we would return based purely on the food that we had received. I still say one of the better higher class restaurants in the North Canton and green areas would be...

We went to have a lovely Valentines Day lunch at Twisted Olive today. We sat at the bar and were there for maybe 20 minutes tops. The entire bar was covered with dirty glassware and dishes. The bartender made zero effort to clear the dishes and simply kept moving them to the side. She asked us if we wanted to start off with a glass of water, then never returned. There were so many employees standing around doing nothing. There were other dirty dishes stacked underneath the bar as well. I got some sticky goo all over my arm when i sat it on top of the bar. Now I’m completely grossed out!! 🤢🤮 Why wouldn’t anyone clear off all of these dirty dishes. There were more dirty glasses behind the pillar in the photo that you can’t see. Twisted Olive, you used to be awesome. Now you’re a disgusting mess. I can’t even comment on the service, because there was none! They weren't even busy - this was just a complete lack of interest in doing their job. Utterly disappointing. We left and went to somewhere else and had a fabulous lunch! If the bar, in plain sight, is this disgusting, then how filthy is the kitchen? We will not go back to Twisted Olive. After seeing your response to this review, I'm even more repulsed! I was actually sitting at the other end of the bar for a while waiting for my husband to park the car. At that time, I counted eight dirty glasses in front of me when I sat down. I decided I didn't want to sit and look at dirty glasses, so my husband and I moved to the other end of the bar where, after maybe ten minutes, the bartender came by and asked if she could get us water. Then she simply disappeared.

There were already dishes and glasses all over the bar at this time. The bartender didn't even clear the dishes from the peoples seats we took at the other end of the bar. She simply moved them down the bar. I've never been to any restaurant before in my life where dirty dishes were left to accumulate on a bar. There was another couple sitting just in front of the pillar. They left after my husband and I had been sitting at the second seats for a while. That accounts for two of the plates/glasses in the photo - not the fifteen dirty glasses that were along the entire bar - and additional plates and a basket.

The fact that you would outright lie to cover up what is obviously lack of service, care, and concern for your customers and over your employees not doing their jobs is horrific! Gervasi is known for having top-notch service and atmosphere. This is your reputation at stake, Twisted Olive. You should be completely mortified, embarrassed...

This restaurant was fantastic! The aesthetics of the dining room were gorgeous, with high ceilings, dark woods, tons of natural light, all tastefully decorated. I started out with the chipotle potato soup and it was a good decision! Creamy and rich, with just a hint of zing. The croutons were clearly not out of a bag or they did a good job of fooling me! The highlight of the entire meal was the bread and butter. It is such a simple thing but a staple to master consistently and I have a feeling they do, though to be fair this was my first trip. Whipped chive butter (maybe leeks?... whatever aromatics they used to infuse the butter with, it was beautiful) accompanied the pillowy soft and zesty rolls. They were warm and not as filling as a yeast roll from a steak house, and would have went great with a salad!

The scallops... oh dear Lord the scallops!! It is very hard to execute scallops properly, yet very easy at the same time. All one needs is to lend some attention towards the delicate mollusks and they most certainly did that at The Twisted Olive!! Not overcooked in the slightest, with a perfectly seasoned sear, I highly recommend them. Being from the shores of North Carolina, I've eaten many scallops in my life and these were as good as any along the coast! While the red pepper jelly was a little too sweet and too abundant for me, it went well with the scallops and it's sauce. The only negative thing were the green beans, which were a little bland, though they too were cooked perfectly. Perhaps a peppery smokiness on them would have complimented the sauce of the scallops well? Just a thought, but that still didn't keep me from cleaning my plate!

If you have a long layover at the Akron-Canton airport, and want a delicious meal away from the absurdity of that shopping mall with planes, I encourage you to check the wonderful servers, greeters, and chefs at my new favorite Canton...