This list is work in progress, and will grow and evolve over the coming months and years, so check in again soon for updates. What follows are personal suggestions for some places to get great olive oil in America, and some brands from various parts of the world to watch for.
I also have a separate list of supermarket oils, which provides a range of authentic oils available at major supermarkets, big box stores and wholesalers. Here again, this is by no means a complete list, and I'll be adding more as I try them.
(For more on how this list came about, see here. Some of the companies below have supported aspects of Truth in Olive Oil’s work – details here.)
Notes:
- Stars indicate reader assessments, not (necessarily) my own views.
- VF – olive oils at these locations are supplied by Veronica Foods, a pioneering importer run by Veronica and Mike Bradley, whose work is described in detail in my book Extra Virginity. These stores sell a range of olive oils in stainless steel fusti, encourage customers to sample before buying, and frequently offer solid information on their oils.
- We Olive – a rapidly-growing franchise in California, offering the cream of the crop of California-made olive oils, which encourage customers to taste before they buy, and have knowledgeable sales people to guide their purchases.
- Oil & Vinegar – another fast-growing franchise, this one nation-wide, also on the taste before you buy model. The clear glass “amphorae” that Oil & Vinegar uses to store their oil are UV filtered, and the oils I've tasted to date have been quite good.
- Williams Sonoma, Dean & Deluca, Sur la Table – these stores offer a small but carefully-curated selections of oils in bottles, mostly from Italy and Spain. As with every chain, the quality of an oil at a given location depends not only on the oils they buy, but how they are displayed, how rapidly inventory turns over, etc.
Click on each store/producer listed below to open its individual page.
Submitted by Ron Lister on
Please hurry with this page--before I waste any more money!