OLIVIERA, NICE
23 July, 2007
Olive oil is like coffee, tea and flour, when you taste the best, nothing compares. In this country Elizabeth David
was the first to extol its virtues. She simply regarded it as essential to good eating. And it’s easy to understand
how this liquid sun was the basis for the fine unguents of ancient history. Used to salve wounds of war and assuage
angry gods, this most humble element has been the mainstay of trade across nations for centuries. And now from
Mediterranean subsistence to surfeit of luxury on our tables, we’ve become accustomed to buying the extra virgin
brands as a matter of course. But when you have tasted the pure, artisanal product, fresh from the press there
is no turning back.
And it’s rare to find it so perfectly informing French cooking than in Provence. In the most
unlikely corner of Vieux Nice at Oliviera, Nadim Beyrouti and his wife combine a passion for the oils of the region
with the simplest ingredients. This ardent desire to fuse the oils aromas and flavours with fresh garden products
results in matchless combinations. The restaurant is idealised French cooking that is hard to find.
Cooked on a tiny stove at the back of the shop where produce is piled in every corner, Beyrouti spins around the tables
entrancing his guests with the temptations of new flavours, each one a surprise, while his wife quietly labours
over the plates. The menu is a cornucopia of the kind of staples you’ll find in French Provincial Cooking,
simple and fresh. Peas, beans, aubergines and avocados enhanced by the magic of a different oil from the region.
From the Brebis de José to the Tartare Méditerranée each dish is brought to life with distinctive oils from
the intense yellow banana of the Bouteillan to the heavy grass of the Grossane. These dishes are worth travelling for.
And for me, escaping into the warren of the city’s old town as the hot afternoon sun beats down on the Cote d’Azur,
the one that stands out as the perfect early summer lunch is the Fleur de Legumes. These are courgette flowers plucked
before the vegetable is more than a milky green finger, stuffed with tiny cubes of vegetables mixed with lemon and
herbs. Eaten with bread and oil and washed down by a glass of Coteaux d’Aix, I can’t better the experience.
You won’t find any soaps or faience jugs here, only simple litre bottles of oil from the drum. Forget the wine, take this stuff
home and each time you open the bottle it will recall the pleasures of escape to sustain you throughout the winter
months. And if you run out order them online. http://www.oliviera.com/
TENDER WORDS
Tender (2009) tells the story of Nigel Slater's love affair with his garden in
Islington and the many seedlings he has raised in his box-hedged vegetable patches. It’s a magnificent volume, like a medieval knightly
treatise with pictures of his Eden, its produce and many of the recipes he has created from them.
23 May, 2010
FOOD FROM THE HEART
Cooking is a basic human instinct. We’ve been eating, chopping, shaping, flavouring, enticing ingredients into something delicious
since time began. But as the way many of us live has changed, the basic skills we require to cook, are no longer valued and it’s often easier to
let others take control of what we eat.
21 April, 2010
IN A RIGHT FISH STEW
This week we had sustainable fish stew. It’s a quick and easy way to feed a gang of hungries on a Friday night and
doesn’t need much else but some good bread and wine. Like all stews, you need balance, rich liquid and a range of potent flavours steaming
from your pot.
15 March, 2010