Skip to content
Link copied to clipboard

First look: Olive on 3rd

The eclectic BYOB opens softly this weekend in Society Hill.

Sunday will mark the soft opening of Olive on 3rd, Christine Fischer's cozy BYOB in the former Ava at Third and Gaskill Streets -- between South Street and Lombard Streets (518 S. Third St., 267-519-9498).

First day -- Father's Day! -- will feature a prix-fixe menu and comp dessert as Fischer eases the staff into the fray.

Fischer, paired in the kitchen with Gildardo Zavala Cortes, has been in catering and restaurants since 1995. She briefly owned the BYOs ChriStevens and Astral Plane Millenium.

She describes the cooking style as a little bit of everything -- hence the name. When planning the restaurant, she said, "I thought of 'Olive' instantly because olives are incorporated into every nationality and culture. And that is about who we are."

Olives are found in many but not all dishes. There's a signature olive bread. The olive salad  ($7, appetizer) includes chopped olives and sun-dried tomatoes, crumbled feta with romaine lettuce in a honey dressing. The white fish empanadas ($8, app) are stuffed with snapper, tomatoes, green olives, green onions, garlic, and thyme. They show up in one pasta (a ziti-with-red-sauce dish called pasta olive, $9), the monkfish occobuco (a stew, $18), and the sauteed roasted pepper chicken ($11).

Entree prices range from $8 for spaghetti and meatballs to $21 for a 9-ounce New York strip steak, served with a baked potato. Here's the menu.

Hours: 1-7 p.m. Sundays, 4-9 p.m. Mondays-Wednesdays, and 4-11 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays.