The Kitchen — Restaurant in Wichita

Just wanted to share a hidden gem we discovered while planning a celebration for our WSU student — The Kitchen on Oliver.

We were looking for a place that could host a small graduation party with good food, a relaxed atmosphere, and some flexibility around dietary needs. This place checked every box.

The food was honestly fantastic. We had a variety of dishes — vegan, vegetarian, and some comfort classics — and everything was full of flavor and clearly made with care. One of the highlights was their award-winning bowls (definitely recommend trying those).

The private room was perfect — big windows overlooking a pond and fountain made it feel really special without being over-the-top. It was peaceful, private, and just the right size for a family gathering.

The owner, Natasha Gandhi-Rue, is actually a fellow WSU parent, and it shows in how thoughtful and accommodating the whole experience was. They were great with food sensitivities, worked with our schedule, and made sure everything ran smoothly.

If you’re a Shocker parent looking for a great spot to celebrate your student, I can’t recommend The Kitchen on Oliver enough. It was such a positive, personal experience — we’ll...

Unfortunately I got to-go here and regretted it because I saw how cute the interior and patio were. Yet I hope me getting to-go affected my food because I was disappointed.

My wife got the chicken parmesan pasta which was good. I got the Steak Diane and boozy onion rings, and for those I was hoping for more. The steak was smaller than expected given the price point, albeit cooked very well. The fries and asparagus were fine, in fact I really appreciated the asparagus. I just wish I got more asparagus and fewer fries. I was excited for the "Boozy Onion Rings", yet they were the lowest point in my opinion. I've had many an onion rings, and these were too salted to highlight how they were good otherwise. The breading was done well, and the onions themselves were enough to balance the batter which is a rare sight. But I'm sorry, these were so ungodly salty and that's coming from a salt fiend such as myself. Please, please, reduce the salt on these.

Overall: too costly for what this was for me, and fundamentals were missed which made me very disappointed. Service and interior are fantastic, just please work...

Family of four trying to dine out for a birthday dinner. Sign said “Seat yourself” which we did, then we were told due to short staff we couldn’t sit where we seated ourselves. Then the real reason for why the bad review. They had live entertainment going on and it was so freaking loud in there you could not hear yourself think. To be clear, the entertainment wasn’t the issue, it was the volume of it in a restaurant. The musicians were literally outside on the patio and it was shooting right into the restaurant like a concert. My son, who we were there to celebrate his birthday told us he’d rather go to McDonalds than stay there due to the noise. That was from a kid, and as his father I could not agree more. The noise was absolutely absurd for a restaurant. This was in a Wednesday at 7:00 PM. I have a video with sound from the parking lot at least 100 feet from the restaurant that shows how loud it was but it will not let me post it here

We really have been wanting to try this place as we live nearby, but it was a very unpleasant...