Buying good extra virgin olive oil always feels like a gamble.
There are countless varieties from multiple countries, and it's impossible to gauge what they taste like without committing to a bottle (which may be expensive—and not very good). Frankly, all we want is an all-purpose, fresh-flavored olive oil to use for salads, drizzling over cooked meats and vegetables, swirling into thick Greek yogurt for dips and swiping our bread. A good olive oil can be a sauce onto itself. We found exactly what we wanted in the stellar oil from Maalouf, a small producer in North Lebanon.