Olive Garden

One of my favourite restaurants. If you like Italy this is your place. Not only do they sell Italian products (that are all delicious) their restaurant is cozy, always warm and kid friendly (they give little ones paper and crayons).
Their service is excellent and their food is wonderful. Not only do they do a perfect calzone their tiramisu is superb and their coffee is spot on. In actual fact I struggle to find a fault with it. Even the prices are perfect.

Very good food, very well priced and a really nice atmosphere for a local restaurant. Recommended!

Love the deli with it’s great launch menu, bread, cheeses and salamis. The restaurant is with some excellent pasta dishes and consistent pizzas, maybe the dough is not freshly made as they always look and taste the same. Only criticism is the service fee added to your bill in the restaurant.

Good value pizzas but the main meals can be a bit expensive for what they are.

This very popular Italian restaurant used to be the coffee house that we frequented when Friends made such things popular all those years ago. The change is more than welcome as Olive Garden stands out as a top quality local Italian.
I strongly advise booking in advance. It’s a small restaurant, however does manage to squeeze a lot of people in. The menu is classically Italian and there’s plenty of wines and beers on offer. Oh, and soft drinks too.
I’ve only eaten here once and went for a Pizza. It was very tasty and rather large! I’d suggest sharing if you’re considering taking the Pizza route to a satisfied tummy.
The service was brilliant with friendly staff and from ordering to eating was very quick (can someone correct the grammer there please? It looks awful, but I’m not sure why).
I strongly suggest you swing by the Olive Garden next time you’re in Raynes Park.

Not to be confused with the American chain of restaurants! Olive Garden in Raynes park is the opposite end of the spectrum. It is a small, privately owned business that is one of a couple of hidden gems in Raynes Park.
It is part restaurant and part deli. There is a reasonably comprehensive menu but it’s the pizza’s that I keep going back for. Thin, crispy bases, with flavour. A good herby tomato sauce and a selection of good quality toppings (most likely from their own deli). My favourite is the Porcini e Prosciutto but there are many worth trying.
They don’t deliver but you can pick up. But good luck if you try calling after 8pm at the weekend. The phone seems permanently engaged!

I absolutely adore this fantastic Italian restaurant and deli! My fiancé and I have been here twice; the first time was on a quiet weeknight and we loved it so much that we decided to visit again on a weekend when his parents were visiting us in London from Canada.
ROOM:
On our second visit, we didn’t make a reservation and it was very packed but the very friendly waitress led us through to another section of the restaurant and seated us. From the front section of the restaurant, (which looks absolutely tiny) you’d never guess that the entire place completely opens up behind the deli next door and has lots more seating back there but it does! Unfortunately, having no reservation, we were seated at the very back of the restaurant which also seemed to double as a storage area so I spent the entire meal facing an enormous pile of cardboard boxes. However, the place is very clean and tidy, (this includes the toilets) and is very nicely decorated with interesting artwork and olive vines hung on the ceiling and nicely furnished with wooden chairs and tables. During the day when the restaurant is closed, the next door deli is open and sells everything you need to make an authentic Italian meal at home as well as a huge selection of panettone.
SERVICE:
The service was fast and friendly, even on our second visit where the staff were very busy due to the volume of customers. Several members of staff served our table. You get the feeling it’s a family run place (and it probably is!)
FOOD:
The food is absolutely delicious! I love seafood and fish so I ordered the seafood risotto which included some of the freshest mussels I’ve ever tasted and well as some absolutely gorgeous crab meat and calamari. My other half ordered a pizza which turned out to be massive and SO delicious! The quality continued with the dessert too. I go absolutely nuts over tiramisu and the one served at Olive Garden has to be one of the best tiramisus I’ve ever eaten. You get a very generous helping and it’s presented so beautifully on the plate that you could easily mistake it for a wall hanging or something. The wine was top quality too. My only problem with the menu is that there’s quite a limited selection of meals to choose from. This, combined with the unfortunate location of our table in the storage area are the only reasons that Olive Garden haven’t received a full 5 stars from me.
PRICE:
Olive Garden is very reasonably priced indeed. You get a lot of top quality food for your money. Service charge is included in the bill. They accept all major credit and debit cards.

We ate here in July 2009 on our two-​day visit to collect our daughter from Halls after her first year at University.
The food is superb. The staff are wonderful. We will be there again this weekend as we move our daughter into a house for years 2 and 3.
Enjoy!

This is my favourite restaurant in Raynes Park. The food is always great, and the waitresses are friendly and efficient. When my mum comes to visit, we almost always end up here.
I also love the fact that it’s right across the road from the station and offers pizza and pasta takeaways for those evenings when I just can’t face cooking my own dinner.

As previous reviewers have mentioned this is a great addition to Raynes Park. Its really lifted the High Street to a new level and with Starbucks moving into the area the place has a good modern feel to it. Previously you were looking at Greggs or a greasy spoon for something to eat. now having an Italian deli ajoined to a restaurant has really opened things up. There is so much more choice now in Raynes Park. In the past 5 years the area has really grown and people no longer need to head all the way into Wimbledon for a bite to eat or a coffee.
The food on offer is excellent and the coffee is superb, although with Starbucks there you are spoilt for choice now. The people are very friendly and realise the importance of customer service.

Wonderful place that really stands out in Raynes Park. Although, I guess with a starbucks now RP is coming up in the world and this is the sort of place will be the norm.
Well, if two places rolled into one is the norm. Olive Garden is a lovely little café type place but rather pricey with full on large meals. It stand out on the street because it is one of thos independent we all should love.
I have had pasta there once and cake and coffee twice and the service is always first rate. I would recommend as the nicest café in Raynes Park by a country mile.

Had a great risotto and veal and spaghetti here but the pizzas are pretty average and relatively expensive.
Staff are friendly and very child-​friendly but probably wouldn’t eat here very often if there was more choice in Raynes Park…

The Garden Café was a welcome addition to Raynes Park when it opened early in 2007. Brightly coloured with a distinct Mediterranean-​rustic feel to it, their saving grace was a wonderful lady who works in there. Nothing is ever too much trouble for her!
They are now part of the Olive Garden restaurant (next door) and have been refitted to fit in better with the interior of the restaurant area, which opens up at night to accommodate more diners within the Garden Café itself.
The deli has also undergone a revamp, offering lots of cheeses, hams etc. as well as a good range of Italian foods, such as seasonal panettone (delicious Italian cake/​sweet bread) and other goodies. We find this deli quite pricey but as it has no real competition locally, we can see why. You can also buy Strega and Limoncella there, two gorgeous Italian liquers.