March 15, 2012
Ook dit café doen mijn vriend en ik regelmatig aan voor een paar uur ongeremd te genieten van het bier aanbod. Mooie kaart. De hap erbij smaakt ook prima.

March 6, 2012
Quite surprised when we visited here, from the outside it didn’t suggest that we were going into a church. impressive interior. Busy with few seats left but we managed to find a couple of stools. Beer choice was ok, seemed to be mostly Belgian. Service was fine, precise and professional but not necessarily friendly or knowledgeable. Certainly worth a visit but a million miles behind Café Derat.

January 3, 2012
Sister café/restaurant to the Olivier in Leiden, this one is in a former "schuilkerk", a hidden church. Food and beer list are more or less the same, good food and a decent but not adventurous beerlist. Not cheap and very noisy even without any music, due to the acoustics of the place.

October 15, 2011
Good beer selection; good, reasonably priced food; can be exceptionally busy and noisy. From the outside Café Olivier looks like a house but it’s actually a hidden church. Reputedly there are several tunnels leading into it from various places around the city so that, in less tolerant times, the (Catholic) congregation could enter without attracting undue attention. Apart from the bar protruding into the nave and taking up space that could be better used to provide more tables, it still looks like a church on the inside with a soaring ceiling, the reredos at one end and the organ and choir stalls at the other. We went in on a Monday evening and it was packed to bursting. We wouldn’t have stayed except for the fact that we were meeting our new Dutch friends there for dinner. They’d managed to find a high top table around which we could stand, buffeted by waiters and people elbowing their way to the bar, while we waited for a table to be ready and perused the daunting beer list. Dirk, who clearly knows a thing or two about good service, was getting visibly agitated when a table became free but was left for maybe twenty minutes before it was cleared for us. Fortunately the food made up for it – it was delicious. I had a cheese stuffed meatball with tomato sauce and salad, washed down with Duchess de Bourgogne, which turned out to be an excellent beer and food pairing. Oh, and we got free chips and bread with dips to make up for the poor service. (Visited 26 September 2011).

October 14, 2011
De accoustiek van dit biercafe/restaurant is verschrikkelijk. Het bevindt zich in een oude kerk en het galmt heel erg. Geen muziek maar de pratende mensen maken dat het moeilijk is elkaar te verstaan. Het ziet er wel gaaf uit natuurlijk! Eten is ok (ook voor vegetariërs) Bier wat weinig keus.

September 28, 2011
Beer bar in a converted church. Beer menu is exclusively Belgian, quite extensive but with few surprises. Not bad and worth a look if passing.

November 1, 2010
Nice location and architecture, but it’s not cozy. Very noisy, expensive (even the ordinary beers) and waiters don’t know much about the beers. Nice menu though, with a small story about the beers... When I go there I can’t escape the feeling that most people just order a Kwak to feign sophisticated taste, while they just care about the fancy glass.

September 9, 2010
Beautiful location/interior, but loud and ’noisy’. Only the ’well-known’ beers are available, so don’t expect a big surprise. The beer-menu is nice when this is your first beer-dinner experience. For me, however quiet dull. Staff friendly but not service minded. Prices don’t match the quality, a bit too high. But again: Beautiful interior.

May 23, 2010
The idea to put a restaurant in an old church is pretty cool, but it gets a bit to airy to create a nice atmosphere. They have some food cooked with beer, but it’s not really out of the ordinary tastewise. Selection isn’t too impressive for someone into beer but you can at least find a good beer to go with the food. Prices are a tad high.

July 2, 2007
They really invested a lot in presentation. Everything and I mean everything looks like it is put there with a reason. It looks, how we dutch people say ’made’. The location itself is quite nice. The church suits the purpose for a cafe very well. The food is okay, the beers are quite common, but good. Only their prices... way too high. All beers are at least an euro too expensive. But my guess is they can do this. It’s a beercafe for onetime-beerdrinkers or starters. They don’t know (yet) it’s too expensive.