There's not even a little dish of them to nibble as we study the menu at this smart new eaterie on Division Street, Sheffield.

The man behind it is Jake Parrish who has turned the old Hush Bar into a trendy watering hole cum cocktail bar serving tapas and pizza during the day with an evening restaurant upstairs.

It's a bit quiet, just the chef having a cuppa and a solitary woman diner, and the waitress says we are the only ones booked so would we like to have our meal in the bar?

No, we're keen to see the restaurant so go upstairs which, when she turns up the lights, proves to be a pleasant L-shaped room with a wooden floor, glossy dark tables, leather chairs and a fetching glass cabinet housing different bottles.

It's nice and warm with low mood music although we reckon it could do with one striking painting to liven up the far wall.

Olive originally opened promising pies galore so Jake could have called it Pie!

The menu is now rather constrained in the pie department although there is a fish and a steak and Guinness one on the menu.

Our waitress brings breads and a saucer of olive oil and balsamic drawn as a smiley face so we start in good spirits.

I begin with a dish called garlic mushroom concerto (£5.25), a bowl of them in a punchy cream and parmesan sauce. It's nice but for the price I'd have wanted some posher varieties instead of the chunky al dente standard fungi I've got. The stalks would have been better off in a stock pot. It's a one note concerto.

For the same price my wife has a thin slice of grilled goats cheese on a slice of pear with a walnut salad.

Other starters were cream of vegetable soup, stuffed tomato and a prawn and grapefruit salad.

My wife is a sucker for fish pie.

Olive's doesn't sell itself short: "Our own take on a wonderful classic, making it even more wonderfullerererer (sic) . . ." says the menu.

The fish pie was filled to the brim with salmon, smoked haddock and king prawns (two, counted my wife) under a parmesany, mashed potato topping.

It was pleasant but difficult to see what was different about it or how it justified the stonking £13.95 charged.

I ordered the lamb kebabs by a process of elimination after the steak, sausages with bubble and squeak, dill crusted salmon, steak pie and spinach and butternut squash tart.

My dish was a titanic battle between two herbs, the mint on the soft to chewy kebabs, depending on which piece of meat you ate, and the oregano in the misnamed tomato coulis.

It was a draw,

If chefs want to be fancy when they write their menus they could at least get their terminology right.

A coulis is a thin, strained sauce; this was a chunky sauce of tinned tomatoes.

Despite coming with some cous cous £11.95 was far too expensive and you could have had better in a kebab house.

We finished with a tiramisu torte and chocolate orange bread and butter pudding (£3.50).

This is really pub food at ambitious city prices.


Olive, 73-75 Division Street, Sheffield. Tel: 0114 221 4004.
n Open daily noon-10pm. Tapas and pizza menu downstairs until 6pm. House wine £11.95. Credit cards. Street parking. Heated outside area. www.olivebarandrestaurant.co.uk

My star ratings (out of five):
Food 3
Atmosphere 4
Service 2
Value 3
Bistro category. Do not compare ratings between places of different style or price.