Olive & Thyme

Very nice Mediterranean restaurant in Chorlton. Went there for a friend’s birthday. The place was packed and the staff were friendly. There is a glass screen at the back so you can look through into the kitchen. The meals were very nice and we would go back again if we are in the area

The first thing that struck me was how classy the place looked both from the outside and on the inside. I was hoping the food would be as good. I wasn’t disappointed. You get a complimentary Lavache bread, freshly baked with a ramakin of butter to dip in. That is almost worth the visit in itself! I went for Turkish style pizza as my meal which was delicious. Every bit as good as I’ve had anywhere, either at Efes in the City Centre or indeed Turkey itself. The service was first class — I enjoy being well looked after, it all adds to the culinary pleasure. Only one slight niggle, there could be more veggie options on the menu as I like to go veggie quite often, but on the whole, I’d recommend this place for a good meal out. Top notch house red too!

Me and my husband went for lunch on a saturday afternoon as we haven’t been before and heard good things about it. The restaurant was nearly empty — only two tables were taken but we didn’t mind because we wanted a quiet lunch. We were seated by the kitchen, which I really liked as we could watch the chefs cook (and they looked like they were enjoying themselves).
We ordered from the lunch menu, which we thought was a pretty good deal — any two courses for £9.90 and there was plenty to choose from. I ordered feta and spinach pastry rolls to start with — they were a bit bland but after addind a bit of salt actually really nice. For my main course I had a halloumi and falafel wrap which came with salad and chips and was tasty, but again underseasoned. My husband had calamari for starter and then lamb and beef burger for main and said that it was one of the best burgers he ever had — and he had a lot of them!
Overall a very good experience, nice staff, tasty food and generous portions. We’ll definitely go again.

We walked into Olive & Thyme on a Saturday night and asked for a table, outside if possible. We were told there would be a 10% extra charge for sitting outside.
What on earth?! I was on the verge of walking out when the waiter revealed that this was a joke! Ho ho ho, what japes. No harm no foul I guess, but I have no sense of humour when I’m hungry and also have an astounding ability to take *everyone* at face value no matter what they say to me.
Service followed in a similar vein all evening, walking a tightrope between irritating and endearing. If you ever feel like you have no mates, come here because they’re all your bezzers.
It’s a good job the food was good — really good, in fact. You know sometimes when you’re eating you get a perfect mouthful? A brilliant combination of flavours and textures all in one bite. This is what happened when I wrapped silky hummus and salty halloumi in a piece of garlic butter lathered lavash, with a black olive crammed in for good measure. Oh wow. This is possibly all I want to eat for the rest of my life.
I felt slightly uninspired by a lot of the main course options, but my choice of pide (Turkish pizza) with spicy sausage was a solid one. In a lot of ways, much better than regular pizza — the lavash base is so soft and wonderfully chewy at the same time.
Instead of desserts we opted for cocktails. My friend chose one from the menu with rosewater and cucumber and I let the chirpy waiter ‘put something together for me’. Lord knows what that was but it had strawberries in it and was very nice.
Altogether the bill came to around £60, making it a slightly pricier option but totally worth it. I imagine it’d be a great place for a party, or to take your family.

Panicos sister restaurant. I love this place and bring my Turkish extended family all the time! Top notch food, with proper Turkish service, friendly, funny and accommodating! The meat is tender and juicy and all the takeaway favorites can be had in a pretty restaurant style! Beats the opposite Turkish Delight hands down, because the people are nicer. You also manage to get a great balance between intimacy for couples whilst it being robust enough to have them sat near large families with kids. Amazing place, and great growth for a family business.

In short: Great food, terrible service…
Good variety of dishes served — Greek, Italian and Spanish being the main influences. Love the fact you can see the kitchen and the kitchen staff were impeccably dressed and all seemed very happy, laughing and smiling whilst working is always good to see.
Good portion sizes but the prices are quite expensive. There are a lot of restaurants around Chorlton, especially tapas places so I would worry that Oilive & Thyme are pricing themselves out a bit. However, based on the food I would return, it’s not really pricey by city centre standards.
So why the three star review? Long story, read on for more…
So I’ve been away for a while, it’s my first weekend home and my first task is taking my heavily pregnant best friend out for dinner… the criteria was simple — somewhere local, somewhere we haven’t been before and somewhere nice — hmmmm. After much debate, we decided on Olive & Thyme. My friend is one of those crazily fussy eaters (made worse by pregnancy) so a place that serves a lot of different types of food is a great place for us.
I was a little apprehensible when approaching, the restaurant looks pretty nondescript from the outside and when we opened the door, we saw that it was absolutely empty… on a Saturday night… not a good sign. But going anywhere else was going to be too much hassle so we bit the bullet and asked for a table of two. That’s where we hit our first problem, the restaurant, was empty as previously mentioned and yet he sat us (a heavily pregnant woman) on a tiny little table in the middle of the restaurant. It was tiny. And uncomfortable. Made more uncomfortable by the fact that he then sat a table of 8 loud party goers on a table five inches from ours as soon as we had ordered. We could not hear a word that each other were saying. We asked to move but were told that the other tables were booked. We decided to just get our meal over and get out of there.
Which was a huge shame because the food was wonderful, I had the grilled halloumi and the Mediterranean king prawns which were really good, the risotto was lovely and the portion sizes were plentiful. My friend had meatballs and the chicken shish kebab, both of which she ate all of and enjoyed (unheard of).
I would go back to give it another try, I’d love to give a better review so maybe you’ll see an update appearing here soon.