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Olive Oil Pop-up at Seven Dials by Citizens of Soil

When you hear the word “subscription”, what comes to mind? Most likely streaming services such as Netflix or other digital platforms. But what about olive oil? That is precisely what Olive Oil Club offers: a different olive oil delivered to your door every month.

Yet there is more to it than a subscription alone. Throughout next month, Citizens of Soil will be opening the doors of their themed pop-up, The Olive Oil Bar, in the very heart of London on Monmouth Street, Seven Dials. The pop-up is a wonderful opportunity for olive oil enthusiasts and those who wish to better understand the culinary possibilities of this remarkable product. Throughout July, the bar will offer themed snacks and cocktails, alongside tastings, new olive oil presentations, masterclasses, and a Tomato Party featuring Isle of Wight tomatoes.

Sarah Vachon, founder of Citizens of Soil and an olive oil sommelier, welcomed the WordsOnBeauty team at The Olive Oil Bar, kindly sharing her olive oil wisdom over a tasting.

“I’m an olive oil sommelier and I realised there are lots of small independent producers that have the same problem: how to get to market. As there are set prices for olive oil, producers often don’t get rewarded from a price perspective. So I started going to incredible farmers who do regenerative farming and whose oil is exceptionally pure by lab analysis — stronger shelf life, more antioxidants. We made a range of olive oils from around the globe.”

The tasting was designed to help us understand the differences between various types of olive oil and how to use them in practice.

“Intense oil won’t go with cucumber and mint. A delicate oil won’t be able to hold its own with spices. You should always have two or three olive oils in your kitchen: one is your go-to oil for frying and baking, and one has a more delicate note. A lot of people tend to use olive oil only for special occasions, like a drizzle on a salad. It goes beyond that. We really want you to use it across everything. From a health perspective, you want to use it throughout your day as it’s full of anti-inflammatory antioxidants — and you want that low dose across your day, much as you would take ibuprofen. There is a compound in extra virgin olive oil called oleocanthal and it has the same pathway. There is so much research done around that and it’s quite powerful.

Extra virgin olive oil is like a fresh fruit juice — once you open it, it starts to degrade quite quickly. Even the best olive oils in the world can be stored unopened for 18 to 24 months. Once opened, finish it within three months — ideally within 45 days — as after that you lose the freshness, the aroma, the flavour, and the nutritional value.”

Sarah began by offering us a Greek oil, one of the more delicate varieties. To fully open up the flavour profile, she advised us to hold the glass in our hands, cover the top, and swirl it gently.

“If you have oil at home, you want to warm it up. You can put it into a wine glass, as you really want to smell olive oil. Here you should pick up grass, tomato, and herbs. Then take a sip as you would in a tea tasting — just a splash across your palate — and you’ll get a bit of bitterness and a peppery finish at the back of the throat. You should feel a slight tingling sensation there. An oil like this goes really well with sweet things. I like it on salads, over ice cream, or on a cucumber salad.”

Then we moved into something a bit more intense — an oil from Spain. In this one we picked up sharper grass, even more tomato on the palate, sharper bitterness, and a sharper pepper coming through.

“People who eat a lot of sugar often don’t enjoy bitter flavours or an oil with a stronger palate. So it’s always about navigating — what do you want to cook? Are you cooking with stronger flavours?”

Next came a Tuscan oil — a blend of four different varieties from Tuscany. Aromatic and herbaceous on the nose, with artichoke, it felt much sharper, really opening up the taste buds.

“Bitterness is actually a very positive flavour as it opens up your palate. That is why in Italy and Spain we have an Aperol Spritz to start a meal — many things in a starter course are those that open your palate.

This oil is beautiful on a steak. The producer loves it on a red prawn. There is also a recipe in our book for a tomato soup. (WoB: Sarah’s cookbook Drizzle features recipes from Sunday Times Bestseller Anna Jones, Ottolenghi recipe writer Christina Sotiropoulos, and olive oil producers across the Mediterranean.)

We designed our bottles similarly to wine bottles on purpose, as our first producer is a winemaker. We were inspired by the fact that they are in the winemaking region of Crete.

What people expect from wine that will last one evening, you can spend the same money and get a lovely bottle of olive oil that will last a month — with all the health benefits that come with it.

When I trained as a sommelier, just as with wine, there are all those different cultivars and varieties that speak to different things. Even the same variety, harvested early or late in the season, will taste different. Whether there was plenty of rain or a dry spell — all of those things have an influence, as does the terroir.”

Thanks to Sarah Vachon, we now have a far better understanding of the world of olive oils — and we encourage you to discover it for yourself.