OLIO E PIÙ — Restaurant in New York

Came here with my Unc and her wife after being denied at Via Carota. Which is fine. Busy place I get it. Taylor Swift was there the other night so their price went up but I think it got to their head as they were kind of rude. Don't fly too close to the sun. Careful, Icarus.

Anyways, my roommate (former USC basketball megastar) had been wanting to try Olio for sometime, so I suggested we make the short walk and see if we could get in.

I was worried about not having a res at 7:30pm on a Wednesday on the first real nice day of the year, but the hostess met my inquiry with a smile and said "it will be about 30 minute wait but I have 3 seats at the bar and you can have a drink while you wait!" Perfect.

We sat at the bar and wondered what "Olio e Piu" directly translates to. Turns out it's "Oil and More." Olio e Piu is a 100x better name. Nice.

I ordered an Old Fashion, and it was a bit sweeter than I would have liked but not sweet enough to not finish.

While sitting at the bar, we watched the chefs cook the pasta. I had no idea how much butter was used in that process. Literally sticks of butter. I mean I don't care at all it's just not something that ever really crossed my mind, simply an observation. See attached picture.

After about 20 minutes, the hostess again met us with a beaming smile and told us our table was ready. We got seated in a prime location on the covered patio. It was fantastic.

My Unc tipped the hostess $10 cash at that point for being so good to us. I realized this is something I need to do more. Shoutout to the old heads.

The ambience was perfect. It felt as though you were in an authentic Italian garden where you can talk about seemingly nothing for hours and hours. Also, there were string lights and lord knows I'm a SUCKER for some string lights.

Our waiter, Gustavo, was AWESOME. We can be a lot as we like to joke around and have some fun, but he rolled with all the punches like a prime Floyd Mayweather. Great waiter, better guy!

For food, we ordered the caesar salad, salmon tartare, Short Rib, Fusilli, and a margherita pizza. Everything was fantastic.

For dessert, we ordered the Olive Oil Cake (obviously) and it lived up to the hype.

Even putting my feelings and biases aside, I found Olio to be superior to Via Carota. If you sleep on a win you'll wake up with a loss!

Shoutout to Olio I will...

What an Italian gem in Greenwich! This places deserves a chef's kiss, MUAH! It has indoor and outdoor seating with beautiful decor and ambiance. Online reservations made it easy to save a table without needing to wait. We have to give out the biggest shoutout to our incredible waiter, Jhon R! Not only was he attentive and took good care of us, he was entertaining and carried great conversations with us. We bonded over the love of traveling and bourbon!

Now, into the food: Pinamenta: pineapple mocktail that was sweet and delicious! Frutti de Bosco: strawberry mocktail, in which it was requested to be made sweeter with more grenadine. Also good but we preferred the pinamenta. Complimentary bread with pickled onions snd olives in olive oil: yummy crusty bread and the pickled onions were definitely my favorite in this. Fusilli E Manzo: really yummy! The fusilli doesn't look like the typical corkscrew pasta, so you can tell it was handmade. The texture of the pasta had some bite to it and carried the sauce with it very well. Spaghetti Chitarra Alla Carbonara: a fan favorite and it definitely speaks for itself. May be the best carbonara I've ever had! Rich, but not too rich. So flavorful and well-balanced. Again, great pasta texture and bite! Campagnola Pizza: made in a wood brick oven and you can smell it. The crust is thinner and cut into large slices. Very delicious! We liked spicy food so we asked for extra spice on the side and Jhon brought red chili pepper flakes as well as a separate bowl of chili oil. I'm glad these are their spices of choice, versus having some brand name bottle of hot sauce that could potentially change the flavors of the food too much.

We sat down at 9pm and easily spent 2 hours there dining. We had such a great time and a great meal. It's bookmarked for us to come back in the future! Thanks again!

Tourist tip: it's an 8 min walk away from the FRIENDS apartment building, where the exterior was filmed for the FRIENDS tv show. You can go take a picture...

DO NOT ignore the 1-2 star reviews. They are very accurate. If I could give negative stars, I would. Someone said “the food was mediocre and the service was non-existent”. This was our exact experience too! We made a reservation, arrived on time, and were immediately seated outside. It was a beautiful evening so we loved that. There are way too many fake plants surrounding the tables though so we were fighting with foliage the whole time. A couple was seated next to us about 5 minutes into our visit and they were immediately approached by a waiter and were given water and bread (we still had not be acknowledged or approached by anyone at this point). After sitting for 20 min without so much as a glance in our direction (mind you, 2 tables were seated after us and had already been helped), we saw the hostess walk out to “observe” the outdoor seating, she looked at us and immediately walked away - 30 seconds later, a waiter comes to offer us water and states this wasn’t his area but he was “splitting” it with another waiter. We never saw this man again until we flagged him down to ask for the check. If we weren’t starving and could’ve found a reservation at a different restaurant, we would’ve just left. The food was “okay”, we ordered the carbonara. I get this place wants to emulate a true Italian eatery but all they’ve done is pack as many 2 person tables they can onto the sidewalk and along the street and throw some fake plants to separate 2 tables. I’m honestly SHOCKED at the amount of positive reviews this place has. I’ll never return and I’ll never recommend it to anyone. It was a waste of time, money, and effort. The cost of the dishes coupled with the mediocrity and terrible service make this place an absolute dumpster fire. Do not...