This locally-owned chain of three pizza-and-pasta cafes has one thing going for it: when it needs bread for anything, it bakes it. Near as I can tell, they use the same dough for everything, but fresh-baked bread is better than any other kind. This enhances all the pasta entrees, because they come with a small, sauceless cheese pizza right out of the oven. It's everything in the pizza entrees, of course. And they even turn the bread into a few appetizers.
Rusty Autry opened the first Olive Branch on the West Bank in 1997, adding a second location on that side of the river a few years later. After Katrina, he took over the former Sun Ray Grill in the American Can apartment building.
The American Can location is very cool, with the big spaces for which old warehouses are celebrated. The West Bank restaurants are more utilitarian, especially the one in Algiers. Service at all of the Olive Branch's branches is something less than immediately attentive, but the attitude is good once they get around to you.
One word: pizza.
| Attitude | 1 |
|---|---|
| Environment | 1 |
| Hipness | 1 |
| Local Color | 1 |
| Service | 0 |
| Value | 1 |
| Wine | 0 |
