In the fast-moving world of chain restaurants, Olive Garden has long seemed like an anachronism.

The beige, eggplant and forest green Olive Garden logo, featuring a swirly cursive font and a stylized 3-D grapevine, screams early-’90s graphic design. Its menu is so focused on breadsticks and pasta — not even al dente pasta! — that it seems to have been written in a parallel universe where Robert Atkins never told America about the magic of ketosis. And the ersatz stone-and-terracotta architecture at most outposts looks positively medieval compared with the glassy-industrial styles favored by quick-service chains like Chipotle.

But all that may soon change. After Olive Garden’s parent company, Darden Restaurants, cut its profit outlook for the year last week, executives revealed that they are taking drastic measures to bring Olive Garden into the 21st century — and increase sales. Darden is the world’s biggest casual dining chain. Olive Garden’s 792 restaurants provide 45 percent of sales for Darden, which also owns Red Lobster and Capitol Grille.

“We’re making a transformation to the brand,” Olive Garden spokesman Justin Sikora told The Huffington Post by phone. “We’re moving away from some of the things we’ve done in the past — traditional Tuscan warmth — and embracing a more contemporary Italy.”

Sikora explained that the shift actually began in October, when Olive Garden launched a “Lighter Italian Fare” menu section of entrees with fewer than 575 calories and promoted it with an ad campaign emphasizing health rather than infinite breadsticks.

But just as the Italian Renaissance didn’t really get going until Petrarch came along, Olive Garden’s rebranding was moving slowly until the chain in January named a new CEO, Dave George, who previously headed Darden’s LongHorn Steakhouse chain.

Glimmers of George’s vision for the country’s largest Italian-themed chain started to emerge in early February, when Olive Garden revealed a new all-black uniform for its waitstaff. But the full extent of George’s plans started to become clear on Tuesday, when he unveiled major plans to Darden investors.

Olive Garden has revealed few details of the revamp, but it’s clear it will touch almost every aspect of the dining experience.

That faux-calligraphy logo, for starters, is history. Sikora said the redesign process has only begun, so there’s no telling what direction its replacement might take.

When it comes to architecture, Olive Garden is also abandoning the “Tuscan Farmhouse” template it adopted in 2000 in favor of a more modern, “less Old World” style. Sikora said that the company is delaying renovations of about 400 of its restaurants until after the company refines its new look.

“You’re not going to see stainless steel showing up tomorrow in a Tuscan farmhouse,” George assured investors.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, George said he wants to change the Olive Garden menu. Breadsticks, salad and fettuccine Alfredo are all safe. But they’ll be joined, according to Sikora, by additional small dishes on the “Lighter Italian Fare” menu and “more protein-forward items” — i.e. meaty entrees.

“Going forward, our grill items are going to take much more prominence in the menu,” Sikora said.

The bulk of sales at most restaurants come from regular visitors, so rebranding, which could alienate devout fans, is inherently risky. Shifting away from carbs didn’t save Italian chains Uno Chicago Grill or Spaghetti Warehouse from financial ruin.

But it’s clear from Darden’s awful sales numbers that the brand wasn’t connecting with customers. (Or at least not 60 percent of customers.) So there’s nowhere to go but up.

Also on HuffPost:

Loading Slideshow

• Hot Artichoke-Spinach Dip

  strongWhat Olive Garden Says:/strong A blend of artichokes, spinach and cream cheese. Served with Tuscan bread.

  strongWhat We Say/strong: Artichoke spinach dip is awesome, but it definitely isn’t an Italian creation. We get why Olive Garden wants it on the menu — who emdoesn’t/em like hot, creamy dips — but this is more of a a href=”http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/12/best-worst-spinach-dip-chain-restaurants_n_1663190.html”chain restaurant staple/a than something you’ll find across the pond.

• Chicken Gnocchi Soup

  strongWhat Olive Garden Says:/strong A creamy soup made with roasted chicken, traditional Italian dumplings and spinach.

  strongWhat We Say: /strong You can definitely find gnocchi in Italy, but it is usually a standalone dish with sauce and definitely isn’t something served in soup. Gnocchi is pretty rich on its own, so it hardly needs creamy broth and chicken to accompany it.

• Tour of Italy

  strongWhat Olive Garden Says: /strongHomemade lasagna, lightly breaded chicken parmigiana and creamy fettuccine alfredo.

  strongWhat We Say:/strong You’ll get blank stares if you say the word “fettucine alfredo” to Italian, despite the dish’s popularity, stateside. Likewise, chicken parmigiana is everywhere in the U.S. but not nearly as ubiquitous abroad.

  Flickr: a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/caseyflorig/4737219624/”Casey Florig/a

• Moscato Peach Chicken

  strongWhat Olive Garden Says:/strong Grilled chicken breasts with a moscato wine and peach glaze served with spinach, tomatoes and curly mafalda pasta in a creamy parmesan sauce with a touch of pancetta bacon.

  strongWhat We Say:/strong Moscato is an Italian sweet wine, so Olive Garden sort of gets some points there, but there’s just way too much going on here to think that this is actually based on an Italian dish.

• Chicken Shrimp Carbonara

  strongWhat Olive Garden Says:/strong Chicken and shrimp with bucatini pasta in a parmesan cream sauce with pancetta bacon and roasted red peppers, baked and topped with seasoned breadcrumbs.

  strongWhat We Say:/strong Carbonara is typically made with pancetta, egg, cheese and black pepper. While U.S. restaurants will sometimes use a cream sauce in place of raw egg for food safety reasons, we’re not sure where the red peppers come from. Italians probably wouldn’t put additional proteins in a carbonara.

• Grilled Pork Veneto

  strongWhat Olive Garden Says:/strong Tender boneless pork ribs topped with a sweet red wine glaze, served with tomato and mozzarella ravioli topped with roasted garlic tomato sauce and alfredo.

  strongWhat We Say:/strong We’re not sure why the northeast region of Veneto has been tacked onto this dish title. Grilled pork is hardly a standout of that region, nor is all the other dish accoutrements. But hey, sure, let’s just throw a random Italian region on a dish name. Why not?

1 March 2013

A backyard garden designed to
inspire

Darfield landscape designer Ross Baldwin is
hoping his exhibition garden will inspire visitors to the
Ellerslie International Flower Show to look at their
backyards in a new light.

His ‘Out the Back’ garden is
based on a typical Kiwi backyard and is designed to be both
appealing to the eye and functional – two things that Mr
Baldwin believes are critical to good garden design.

The
garden has been deliberately designed in such a way that
people could build it themselves if they wanted to, as money
and time allows. It features a deck with a pergola, a paved
area for entertaining, attractive planting, trees, lawn, a
vegetable garden and garden shed. There is also moving water
and a pond to add to the garden’s visual appeal and sense
of tranquillity.

Mr Baldwin, who has more than 40 years’
experience as a landscape designer, is hoping that people
will look at it in and say ‘I could do that’.

“So
many people have a backyard and don’t know how to develop
it to make it both functional and visually interesting,”
says Mr Baldwin. “You need it to not just look good, but
also function well to fit your lifestyle.”

For example,
he says it is important that lawns are flush with adjacent
surfaces so they are easy to mow and that trees and plants
are selected and positioned logically to provide shade in
the summer and sun in the winter.

“It usually does pay
to get advice from experienced people who’ve done it all
many times before,” says Mr Baldwin.

The key piece of
advice he likes to offer home gardeners is to plant species
that will last many years and perform on a seasonal
basis.

“Many people are scared of planting trees but
there is a great selection of deciduous ones that are easy
to manage and provide seasonal interest, shade in summer,
sun in winter, and attract birds. Home owners don’t have
to plant tussock grasses, cabbage trees, flaxes and hebes
ike they see endlessly on motorways and around most service
stations. Many of the Northern Hemisphere plants and trees
suit our environment well and really flourish here.”

Mr
Baldwin’s ‘Out the Back’ garden is one of dozens of
exhibition gardens that will be open to the public
throughout the course of the Ellerslie International Flower
Show next week.

Follow Ellerslie International Flower Show
on Facebook

Ellerslie International Flower Show will
be held in North Hagley Park from 6 – 10 March
2013.

Tickets for Ellerslie International Flower Show, at
a pre-gate price of $35 for Adult Anyday passes, are
available from the website www.ellerslieflowershow.co.nz, all open
Christchurch City Council Service Centres, Mitre 10 Mega
Stores in Christchurch, Ashburton and Timaru, Terra Viva,
EziBuy Christchurch and Nichols Garden
Centres.

ENDS

© Scoop Media

Noted New York interior designer Laura Bohn’s favorite go-to retailer might be a surprise to some.

“I absolutely love Ikea,” said Bohn, a keynote speaker at next weekend’s Blue Grass Trust for Historic Preservation’s Antiques and Garden Show at the Kentucky Horse Park.

For accessories for the kitchen and bath, metal shelving, hardware and the like, “you can’t get much better,” she said.

She’s been known to use purchases from the moderately priced Swedish retailer for high-end projects and to shop there for her own home.

It is Bohn’s willingness to buck convention when it interferes with style that has made the member of the Interior Design Hall of Fame an enduring figure in lofty Gotham design circles.

The website for Laura Bohn Design Associates explains her style as a well-edited approach that uses “unexpected hues and shapes together to give rooms depth and richness.” Bohn, who is also a fan of the retailer Restoration Hardware, said her style hasn’t shifted with interior trends over the years but has gotten bolder.

“When you get older, you’ve done the sheepish thing and now you are into being bold,” she said.

One of her favorite tricks is to paint a portion of one wall, say from the floor to 6 feet up, a bold color to tie furniture and accessories together. (Another version of the same idea is painting a rectangle on one wall.)

“It’s a quicky thing that sort of unifies the space,” she said.

Bohn said digital tools such as Pinterest, can serve as fabulous design inspirations. But, she said, do-it-yourself should go only so far.

For a homeowner to take on any kind of significant construction without professional help is a mistake, she said: “You are asking for trouble.”

When she is working on a project, Bohn said, the first thing she does is build trust with the homeowners and understand how they hope to use the space. She tries to bring out “what it is they want, your fantasy of how you want to live in your space,” she said. “Hopefully a designer will take you there and beyond.”

Bohn’s favorite kind of project is limitless, she said. But that doesn’t mean a limitless budget. She likes being able to start from scratch, going down to the studs, to reconfigure a space in a new way for a new purpose.

Her dream client is someone who is adventurous and willing to try new things.

And that, she said, “can happen on any kind of budget, a big budget or a small budget, if they are willing to try something they haven’t seen before, you can get good results with that.”

IF YOU GO

Blue Grass Trust for Historic Preservation’s Antiques and Garden Show

What: More than 80 exhibitors of antiques, gardens, designer vignettes, silver, jewelry, collectibles and fine home furnishings.

When: 10 a.m.-6 p.m. March 8, 9; 11 a.m.-5 p.m. March 10

Where: Kentucky Horse Park Alltech Arena, 4089 Iron Works Pkwy.

Admission: $10 daily, $15 three-day pass

Learn more: Bluegrasstrust.org

HIGHLIGHTS

There will be free lectures daily, but here are some other highlights. All require reservations; call (859) 253-0362 or go to Bluegrasstrust.org. A full schedule also is available online.

■ Gala Preview Party: 7 p.m. March 7. Catering by Donna, silent auction, exclusive shopping. $125, $95 for 35 and younger.

■ Luncheon Lecture: Christopher Hirsheimer and Melissa Hamilton. 11:30 a.m. March 8. $60.

■ Cocktails and Conversation: Laura Bohn with Dale Fisher. 4 p.m. March 8. $40.

■ Luncheon Lecture: Jon Carloftis. Noon March 9. $60.

■ Appraisal Fair. 10 a.m.-4 p.m. March 9. $20; includes daily show ticket.

Mary Meehan: (859) 231-3261. Twitter: @bgmoms. Blog: Bluegrassmoms.com.