New Jersey Woman Goes To Olive Garden And Asks For Grated Cheese. She’s Shocked When She Learns It Isn’t Parmesan

A New Jersey woman bought a block of Parmesan cheese to add to her own pasta at home. When she grated the cheese, she realized there’s something different about what she gets at Olive Garden.

TikToker Summer Pepitone (@cannagurl) films a bowl of pasta she made and topped with grated parmesan.

“For the longest time I thought Olive Garden was using Parmesan cheese, and I would always ask for so much,” she says in the clip with nearly 4,000 views. “Until I started grating my own parmesan.”

She points out that the grated Parmesan doesn’t look like the Olive Garden cheese.

“So if this isn’t Olive Garden cheese, what is Olive Garden cheese?” she asks.

What Cheese Does Olive Garden Grate Onto Pasta?

Commenters on Pepitone’s video suggest that Olive Garden uses Romano, another type of Italian cheese.

According to Daily Meal, the cheeses may appear similar but have different tastes. Romano is made from sheep’s milk and tends to have a sharper taste than Parmesan, made from cow’s milk. Plus, Parmesan is aged for longer, which can give it a more crumbly texture compared to Romano.

While Olive Garden hasn’t directly confirmed what kind of cheese comes around in the grater, workers exposed on Reddit that the cheese may not be parmesan like many customers assumed.

“When I trained NRO it was drilled in our heads that isn’t Parmesan and to correct people if they say it at the table,” one commenter on the r/olivegarden subreddit said.

Do Customers Care That It’s Not Parmesan?

In another post on the r/olivegarden subreddit, a worker curtly wrote, “We don’t have Parmesan. It’s Romano.” Customers reacted to the revelation in the comments of the post, sharing mixed opinions on the grated cheese.

“In all the 30+ years I’ve been dining at Olive Garden, not one food-server has ever pointed out or corrected me about the true IDENTITY of the cheese,” one remarked.

A second suggested, “Parmesan is crap usually…Romano is sheeps milk and very tangy and salty. It’s good on some thing like Chicken Parm.”

Some customers said they don’t opt for grated cheese on their pasta due to the difference in taste between Parmesan and Romano.

“I thought it tasted bad last time. I told my husband when we go to Carabbas I love the cheese on my soup but at Olive Garden it ruins my soup,” a customer wrote.. They remarked, “I guess I don’t like Romano.”

However, others said they prefer Romano over Parmesan.

“One time someone said they didn’t want parm on their dish and i was like ‘that’s fine but fun fact, it’s actually romano cheese!’ and somehow that was better and the person got cheese,” a server shared.

BroBible reached out to Pepitone via TikTok direct message and comment and to Olive Garden via email for further comment. We will update the story when they reply.