<table border=0 cellpadding=2 cellspacing="0"><tr><td>
<pre>http://www.nytimes.com/library/dinin...olive-oil.html

The New Yok Times. May 17, 2000


Where Exotic Olive Oil Hangs From the Ceiling

Was it kismet that Olivier Baussan was given his first name, which means
olive tree in French? Mr. Baussan, a native of Provence, is a walking
encyclopedia of olive oils. His new shop, Oliviers & Company, near Track 17
in Grand Central Terminal, sells 25 extra virgin cold-pressed olive oils from
France, Spain, Italy, Israel and Greece, each labeled with the harvest date
and the type of olive used, and each in a simple, utilitarian container: $18
to $36 for a 16.8-ounce tin, $13 to $24 for an 8.4-ounce bottle.

As a young man, Mr. Baussan, now 47, sold herbal infusions and olive oils in
farmers' markets. He started L'Occitane, a company that specializes in
fragrance and body care products, but sold it in 1992 to concentrate on his
chain of 20 olive oil stores. This is his first in America; another is to
open this summer on Columbus Avenue near 69th Street.

A display of olive oils that looks like a chandelier, dominates the décor of
the tiny shop, which also sells vinegars in small flasks, olive oil soap,
olive pastes, salad bowls and all sorts of pottery, metal and glass bottles
and flasks for oil. Three bottles in a smart metal holder Mr. Baussan
designed are $52 empty, $78 filled with the oils of your choice. The shop
also sells his book, "Olive Oil: A Gourmet Guide" (Flammarion, $35), a
handsome and excellent resource with recipes by Jacques Chibois, the chef at
La Bastide St.-Antoine in Grasse, France.

Mr. Baussan said he hopes to offer oils from North Africa in the future. But
not from California. "The soul of my enterprise is Mediterranean," he said.
"I'm not doing the olive oils of the world."
</pre>
</td></tr></table>