“The olive tree is like Delacroix”

Olive oil tasting with chef Aristotelis Megoulas at the B&E Goulandris Foundation

Wednesday 30/10, 13/11, 18/12/2024, 29/01, 19/02, 19/03, 23/04/2025 | 19.00-21.00

What do you really know about Greek olive oil and its different varieties?

Drawing inspiration from Vincent van Gogh’s painting “Olive Picking”, on display at the first floor of the B&E Goulandris Foundation’s permanent Collection, on October 30 chef Aristotelis Megoulas will launch a very special olive oil tasting event where he will be providing his unique input once a month at the Foundation’s Café-Restaurant.

“The olive trees are very characteristic, and I’m struggling to capture that. It’s silver, sometimes more blue, sometimes greenish, bronzed, whitening on ground that is yellow, pink, purplish or orangish to dull red ochre. But very difficult, very difficult. But that suits me and attracts me to work fully in gold or silver”, Van Gogh wrote to his brother in April 1889, concluding “But the olive tree is something else, it is, if you want to compare it to something, like Delacroix”.

Starting from the French olive groves that inspired Van Gogh, we move to the magical world of the Greek olive oil, guided by Aristotelis Megoulas. The distinguished chef will show us how to identify high-quality olive oil based on its characteristics, introducing us to one of the key ingredients of Greek gastronomy.

How does an olive turn into olive oil? How does this process fuel creativity, customs and traditions all over Greece, what is the role of olive oil today and how will it change in the future?

Discover all the different ways that you can use olive oil, some of which you might not even have imagined. Try award-winning olive oil varieties from various parts of Greece, along with fresh sourdough bread baked in a wood-fired oven from the AKRA restaurant as well as freshly-baked, gluten-free loafs of bread from the Asterisque bakery and meet different Greek olive oil producers.

Aristotelis Megoulas

Aristotelis Megoulas, who is in the list of the 100 most influential chefs of the decade, was born in Paris, grew up in Piraeus and studied in Bologna, the culinary capital of Italy. He is currently based at his favourite Pomo d’Oro Corfu award-winning restaurant in his hometown, Corfu. With his special cooking and his unexpected combinations of ingredients, his ambition is to create beautiful memories around a table full of delicacies, wine and love.