Don't Expect Shredded Parmesan At Olive Garden – Here's What You're Getting Instead

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Don't Expect Shredded Parmesan At Olive Garden – Here's What You're Getting Instead By Dennis Lee Dec. 8, 2025 6:00 pm EST

Whenever you order a soup, salad, or pasta at Olive Garden, you can pretty much guarantee that your server is going to offer to grate cheese onto your food using that coveted viral Olive Garden cheese grater . While it's easy to assume that the hard cheese in it is classic parmesan, the truth is that it's something else — though it's purportedly not too different.

Multiple sources have suggested that the restaurant actually uses Romano. This is a similar hard cheese used for grating that shares many basic characteristics with parmesan. It's salty, tangy, and has plenty of umami notes, but it tends to be more pungent and sharper