The Non-Italian Olive Garden Dish That Has Customers Divided

Italian cuisine is the name of the game at Olive Garden, although it doesn't exactly take your palate on a trip to the Old Country. Traditional Italian restaurants won't always smother your dish with cheese, for example. Still, some consider it a close approximation to the delicacies served overseas. One menu item not typically associated with Italy has sparked fierce debate among customers.

When it comes to Olive Garden's 6-ounce sirloin, people have widely varying opinions on the quality, especially the internet's infantry of speculators: Redditors. There are multiple subreddits dedicated to arguing about the condition of the restaurant's beef and the cooks' ability to prepare it properly. In one such subreddit, the original poster raved about how they loved the sirloin and pasta dish, only to be met with a comment from someone claiming to work there who said, "Trippin bro our steaks are hockey pucks." A separate poster had a slightly more favorable assessment, saying, "The sirloin cuts are hit or miss, but the seasoning is where the magic is."

Another subreddit features someone asking whether they should have sent their steak back because it was (very) undercooked, accompanied by a picture of the bloody beef in question. Opinions were divided, but in the end the argument boiled down to two queries: How rare is too rare for steak, and can Olive Garden — an Italian restaurant — be trusted to consistently cook decent sirloins?

In the subreddit r/steak, a curious Olive Garden patron posted an image of an extremely undercooked sirloin they received and questioned whether they should have sent it back instead of just digging in. Plenty of people indicated they would have no problem enjoying the steak in the picture. A person claiming to be a former employee said, "When I worked at Olive Garden, I got the steak rare and it was always good, they actually have a decent meat hook up."

Not everyone shared that faith in the restaurant, however, with one person writing, "I like rare steak, but from Olive Garden I'd probably send it back." Others fixated on how undercooked the sirloin was. Comments included: "A skilled vet could probably get it to moo again." Another read, "It's so rare, Indiana Jones wants to put it in a museum."

Olive Garden's Steak Gorgonzola Alfredo received less favorable remarks in another subreddit. Some said it was good before it left the menu in 2000, but when it returned in 2024, the dish wasn't the same. One person who wasn't a fan wrote, "I tried it. I thought wow this is what 3D printed cow taste like."

Overall, the quality of Olive Garden's steak seems erratic. If you don't want to gamble on dinner, a good rule of thumb is to order Italian fare from Italian restaurants and steaks from steakhouses, which specialize in cooking beef. There are better menu options at Olive Garden if you're not feeling pasta that won't disappoint.