Ollie Irene

To preface my review of Ollie Irene, this place deserves every star. The food, the drinks, the level of knowledge in the staff, attentiveness, all 5 stars.
A few things to note:
– the cocktail menu is superb
– you’ll receive a hard food menu to select from, but there’s a full chalkboard of specials as well
– your server is capable of elaborating on the entire chalkboard menu
I stopped into Ollie Irene on my 3^rd and final night of business in B-​ham, a Thursday. I wrapped up my work day and tried to get in there when they opened at 4pm for an early dinner. Upon arriving promptly at 4, I was the only patron, so hit the bar as I usually do when flying solo. I quickly learned that the kitchen served only apps from 4:00 — 5:30pm, with the full menu then beginning.
I could see that my bartender had set up quite the array of items with which to produce finely crafted cocktails. I like Bulliet rye, so I started with a Race Car, which was delicious, and later Ollie’s Old Fashioned, which is their take on the classic and includes a touch of maple syrup. Mmmm. I mean, I could just keep drinking that all night. Dangerously good. There’s no doubt about it, this bartender is a Master Craftsman! If you don’t like Bourbon, that’s OK, these drinks are so smooth you might just wind up a convert. And if you just have to have a beer, PBR tall boys can’t be beat at $ 3 :)
There are a number of things on the pub plates menu that looked so, so good, but I wanted to keep it reasonable, so I decided to go with the boudin balls while on the countdown to 5:30. This boudin was fantastic. Not that you find boudin everywhere, but many restaurants that do serve it have a tendency to over-​fry it, so you end up with more crispy fried batter than you do boudin. Not at Ollie Irene — they were nice and tender, great flavor, done perfectly on the inside and outside. Bonus — Ollie Irene makes their own pickles, which is an entirely separate pub plate. But with the boudin balls, you get a small sampling of the pickles and this might sound ridiculous, but they’re great pickles! Totally worth trying, in my opinion.
For dinner, I learned that my Master Craftsman of a bartender was also level: expert at drilling down into the chalkboard dinner specials. But after he had gone through his entire schpiel, I simply decided on the Pub Breakfast… for dinner. Poached farm egg, garlic cream, house made croutons, crispy ham, pub fries and a salad? Yeah, I’m simple, and it was totally good. The egg, and garlic cream and ham are served together in a soufflé dish. With the salad came two little tomatoes that the bartender made a point of… pointing out. And now I get why, they are the most delicious tomatoes I’ve ever had. I know, sounds weird, we’re just talking about little tomatoes. But wow did they pop with flavor!
And finally, Sticky Toffee Pudding for desert. I don’t normally order desert when eating alone, but I couldn’t help it. This stuff was delectable. I wanted to take tiny little bites so I could savor it for awhile.
Once again, I cannot remember my bartender’s name even though I told myself this time I wasn’t going to forget. Unfortunately, it’s not on my receipt either (just says server: Ollie I). Regardless, Ollie Irene management — don’t let that guy go because whatever you pay him, he’s worth more. Very knowledgeable, provides great recommendations, makes great drinks, and keeps the pace up.
This is one of the best restaurant experiences I’ve had in a while, and that’ due to the food, drinks and the staff. Highly recommend.

What I said before but it just keeps getting better… From beverages to specials. This place better stick around, Chris.

I have to say that Ollie Irene is an awesome place and the décor is super cool and interesting almost reminds me of a few places in Brooklyn. We rolled into Ollie Irene on a Saturday night with some friends and a baby. The staff was super friendly and accommodating, they let us their secondary bar as our table because it was somewhat secluded and close to the door in case the baby started to fuss, which did happen. Their cocktail program is very nice and well thought out. I would say that you just have to dive in and try a few before settling in with a favorite which is what I did, they have a legit Pimms cup. For food we went with a bunch of things and everything was great, the only dish that I thought fell a little flat were the boudin balls, they were a play on arancini and I thought that it was good but wasn’t great. For entrees since there were 4 of us we went all out and got the steak special that night, the short ribs, and the catfish and then all shared. Everything was fantastic and I wish that I had more of everything. Dessert rolled around and once they told me they were doing their take on banana pudding I was sold and it was spectacular. I really enjoyed our dinner at Ollie Irene and I look forward to going back again soon in the future.

BLUF: Original items and exciting specials. Good service, standard cocktails. **Farm to table!
Party of 4, started off with cocktails. Honestly I didn’t care for any of them; too much ice and they got watered down quickly. The second ones we got were much better. I wish I remembered which we got though so this part of the review is not helpful besides — «beware of the watered down cocktails». A good cocktail should hurt a little (IMO).
We got a mushroom/​egg salad and chicken liver patee to start. Both were out of this world good. I am not a salad guy but this one had a lot of flavor. The liver patee was unbelievable. Very very good. Then for a meal we split a pastrami over sweet potato purée and house mustard. The mustard was awesome with a lot of bite and went great with the pastrami. I would have liked a hardier serving of sweet potato because it pared well with the pastrami.
For dessert we got the banana pudding sundae thing. It was amazing and is a must get.
Place is great. It is popular, hip and has an interesting menu.

What a gem of a place… Delicious food using the freshest ingredients… Thoughtful flavors true to each dish… Warm and friendly service! Definitely look forward to coming here again.

Hello world. Please meet my food baby, Ollie. I was so so full after eating at Ollie Irene. I’m glad someone recommended it otherwise I would have never seen it — located near the Rite Aid and Westerns in Mountain Brook Village.
I tried the secret burger with truffle butter and it was so flavorful. I didn’t know it would come with pub fries so I made the mistake of ordering the pub fries appetizer — I was full before my meal even came! The burger is nothing too special, topped with caramelized onions and your choice of either truffle butter or blue cheese. I especially liked the lightly toasted sweet burger buns.
For dessert I split a scoop of the Mexican Hot Chocolate ice cream that created this slow burning sensation in the back of my throat. The only way to relieve it was to keep shoveling more ice cream into my mouth… And thus my food baby came to be.

This is my favorite place to eat in Birmingham. I’ve had numerous things off of their menu as well as their specials board. The Seafood Stew is a must try! They always seem to have a decent beer list that pairs well with their menu.
If I had one complaint, and it’s a minor one, the acoustics in the restaurant are horrible. When there are more than several tables seated, it seems like everyone is trying to shout over one another.

This place is really good! Its tucked into Mountain Brook Village and got great local unique food. Be prepared to wait because its fairly small but the atmosphere and food is worth the wait. The wine selection is great and they have a great little bar!

Small menu which is good (easier to make a decision). Everything seemed to be really good! Drinks were great too! It’s a little misleading at the front since it is in a shopping plaza right next to a drugstore, but wow this was quite the treat.

Wonderful food! So well prepared and fresh! Always a new menu item! Great desserts! Great entrees! Great everything! Delightful service. Weird location though:/
I recommend! I have been several times. The quail is amazing!!!

Two for two! Wish I could thank the nice person sitting next to me on my last trip back from BHM. Last night I ate at Dram and tonight at Ollie Irene. Both highly recommended by my co-​passenger. Sometimes you just can’t beat personal recommendations.
The food was described to me as eclectic. I would agree as I perused the small printed menu and the significant set of blackboard specials. The offerings were all over the map. My business associate and I both picked items off the blackboard. I had the Gulf shrimp and chorizo, and he had the pork and beans. The pork and beans was a creation of pulled pork pressed into a tight cube then pan seared to a crisp outer crust and served with white beans. The shrimp and chorizo was served over polenta with sliced olives. Both were incredible.
Service was great and the atmosphere was laid back and comfortable.

My last review for Birmingham and my last dinner in Birmingham. And thinking back over the nearly 100 reviews I wrote for the Iron City, likely the best meal I had my whole time there.
Starting with a nice welcome from the hostess as she brought me to a table. A nice greeting from the busboy who filled my water glass and cleared the extra place setting. And then an enthusiastic and detailed review of the day’s specials from the waiter who was quite simply outstanding. My expectations were already high, now they’re extremely high!
For starters, I chose the boudin balls. Great choice — balls of I think barbecue meat in a breadcrumb and then rolled and cooked, served on top of a stone ground mustard and with a small stack of fresh pickle slices. Totally delish, appetite whetting and palette cleansing. But only three!
For my main, I chose one of the day’s specials. A piece of crispy flounder topped with shrimp bernaise, asparagus and fingerling potatoes. OMG, heavenly. Just amazing texture and flavor that makes me thankful for my wonderful taste buds. So yummy.
As much as I really wanted to try their dessert special (something to do with crushed up whopper candies in a toffee pie), I was too full to have anything more.
Best meal in Birmingham? Great service, great taste, great meal. Yeah, I think so!

Good food, nice experience, but the Truffle Butter Burger was outstanding, one of my top 3 in Birmingham.
Not on the menu, but it has to the their most popular dish, order it and you’ll know why.

This place is amazing! Everything is great about this place. This small restaurant shows how Southern Cuisine is done. Everything from the pub fries (best fries/​wedges i’ve ever had) to the catfish. I’m roadtrppin’ down to NoLA and decided to go on Unilocal to check out some local spots… And it did not disappoint. A bit of a wait, but the quality of food was ridiculous. If u r ever in birmingham… Get it in at mountain brook!

A nice neighborhood restaurant that doesn’t live up to some of the kudos found here on Unilocal.I left wanting to know what all the rapture was about.
First, a tip. OI does not take reservations. So if you want a table, plan to wait. We were fully aware of this and arrived a half-​hour before our friends to secure a table and ordered cocktails at the crowded bar. We saw acquaintances and had some nice conversations to while away the time, so it wasn’t a real problem. Scanning the place, it was a nice mix of folks. Families, couples on dates, you name it.
Our waitress was very able, but the place had a feel of being a bit understaffed for a Saturday, given the length of time between being seated and giving our orders. Also, partly because it is the kind of place where half the neighborhood strolls in for dinner, it was rather loud, so it loses points for that. The sheer volume of OI makes it hard to have a conversation across the table. I mean, jeez, if it were any louder, I would have needed an ear horn. In short, it’s not the kind of quiet, out-​of-​the-​way place where you break the news to someone that the divorce won’t be going through after all.
Further, and I know I’m being completely subjective here, but there’s a bit of twee preciousness abut the place, as if they were trying maybe a little too hard to achieve a down home kind of feel, without actually pulling it off. I mean, writing the menu in cramped cursive on a chalkboard at one end of a dimly-​lit restaurant is one thing, but when 95% of the diners can’t see it, what exactly is the point? It’s almost as if the management was saying, «See? See? We’re so intent on being nonchalant that we can’t be bothered to put everything on a menu you can actually read.» On that note, the waitress performed an impressive memory act by rattling off the menu items to us, but the place was so noisy that her effort was wasted because we couldn’t hear half of what she said. Color me annoyed.
On to the food. It is a limited wine list, but a good one. My duck was competent but bland. My wife had the hamburger which she described as «Good, but not awe-​inspiring.» Yet the cost of the food was on par with Highlands without the same level of skill in the kitchen. Same was true of my martini, the appetizer, the dessert, and the coffee. Okay, but not outstanding. But if I’m paying north of $ 100 for dinner for two, I would want better than okay.
In short, OI is a second-​tier restaurant in Birmingham. It has work to do before it lands in the first echelon of places around town.

Ollie Irene is officially in my «must eat again again SOON» category. The husband and I put off our anniversary dinner due to the snowpocalypse of 2014, so by the time the weekend rolled around we were more than ready to have a great dining experience and that’s certainly what we found at this restaurant.
Since they don’t take reservations and it was around 7 pm on a Friday night, I was nervous about our chances of getting a table within a few hours and I was a hungry woman on a culinary mission. Luckily for us, we only waited a few minutes for a seat. Although on a mission, once I looked at the menu I was stumped — everything sounded amazing. Thankfully, our server had great suggestions.
I started with the «pickled rickey» cocktail, which is unlike any drink I’ve ever tasted. I’m not much of a gin person, and the pickled grape brine worried me, but this suggested libation was the best I’ve had in quite awhile.
We were having trouble deciding between the pub fries and the boudin balls for an appetizer but our server let us in on a little secret — if you get the off the menu burger, it comes with those delicious hunks of potato fried in duck fat. The boudin balls were lightly fried and full of flavor, but the star of the show was my burger. Perfect amount of meat cooked to medium, topped with a slab of truffle butter, and served on a house made bun, combined with those amazing pub fries is absolute heaven in your mouth.
But wait! It gets better! Again, our server recommended the sticky toffee pudding and it was the perfect ending to a spectacular meal. Not too big for two to share also. While a little pricey, this is a dining experience I would gladly pay for over and over again.

It seems everyone and his/​her cousin (s) decided they needed to get out Friday for dinner after Snowmageddon ’14. Granted 6:30 is almost as bad as trying to get a table at 7 – 7:30 but we stopped by or called the following before ending up at Ollie Irene.
FonFon — 1.5 hour wait
Dram — 1.5+ hour wait
Food Bar — 1 hour?
The hostess at Ollie Irene said 45 minutes and at that point we were beat down and hungry. So we waited, mostly outside because there is so little space inside not dedicated to seating and the bar was packed. Luckily Friday was a reasonable 55 degrees for the most part.
After the bar cleared out briefly, we found a spot and grabbed some drinks. They were slammed so it took about 10 minutes to even order a drink. Whatever, make that a double IPA for $ 6 please.
We were seated 46 minutes after discussing with the hostesss. That is great on her part as I figured no way we were sitting down inside of an hour or more.
Started with the special foie gras with sticky rice and carmelized oranges. Maybe the best I have had in ages. We could have eaten 3 orders between the four of us had we more bread. Actually, they are a little skimpy on bread and you have to ask for it — just charge for it and give me enough!
My burger was awesome as usual and cooked perfectly medium rare plus as ordered. The bleu topping was also great and I love the pub fries (crunchy exterior and soft interior). My wife has the duck paparadelle and it was amazingly rich and delicious.
I really like Ollie Irene but it’s a little spendy for a regular night out. They really should offer some better wine specials also (ie like FonFon). But it was delicious and we got out for under $ 100 with tip and 4 drinks.

This lovely restaurant is easy to miss if you’re swinging by Rite-​Aid without looking around. My friends encouraged me to join their dinner as they insist Ollie Irene was their favorite restaurant.
Get your wallets ready because you’ll be spending some money on delicious food. The cheeseburger is not on the menu but I was told this what you should get here. You can’t substitute the pub fries but these fries actually come out looking like diced potatoes. They’re cooked wonderfully with a crusty, crunchy outer layer, and a hot soft core.
The roasted cauliflower appetizer is probably the best steamed cauliflower I’ve had since my mom cooked it for me a year ago. It’s seasoned with red onions, golden raisons, peppadews, cilantro, lime zest, and coriander butter. It almost feels delightful splurging your taste buds on an appetizer that isn’t more than 2000 calories.

This has quickly become one of my favorite restaurants in town. As I write this, I can’t think of a more comfortable environment, better servers, and higher quality/​creative food than at Ollie Irene.
I went today because I heard about a special they were running on wings. They most definitely lived up to the hype. It was one pound of wings (8 to 15, depending on the size) for a measly $ 8. they were golden crusted in a sweet, yet spicy sauce. They will honestly go down as some of the best wings I’ve ever had.
The bartender actually came by twice to check on our drinks! This is high class dining, without the snooty attutude and uptight feeling.

A somewhat fancy and pricey restaurant in a strip mall? That’s something that I rarely see in the Bay Area. Most of the time restaurants that are in strip malls are terrible chains, Asian restaurants, or hole in the wall ma and pop diners. To begin, my group ordered almost every dish in the menu since there was a bunch of us.
Something I’ve noticed, the entire menu was CARB-​TASTIC. Either it came with bread on the side so that you can dip it with the sauce (the mussels, for example) or the core ingredient of the dish was toasted bread, breadcrumbs, or pub fries.
Personally, the dishes I tried here were very bland and seemed to miss some type of ingredient. The only thing that stood out were the mussels. Everything else I was unimpressed with.
What did stand out, however, was the exceptional service. Our waiter was personable and very attentive. Also, they have an excellent drink menu.
I recommend this place if you are craving a refreshing alcoholic beverage and maybe a small bite to eat. I wouldn’t go here for dinner.