Flavors from Arca Cypriot Cuisine with modern versions accompanied by a series of cocktails with olive oil. Cypriot olive oil was the star of the Sunday lunch, held as part of the Arca (meaning wild) Cyprus Cuisine project organised by the award-winning Cypriot restaurant “To Patriko” in Tercefano on Sunday 10 March.
The brothers Stavros, Evanthia and chef Kyriakos prepared an exclusive menu for this day where I and Dimitris Taliotis both as olive oil sommeliers, undertook to introduce the people that attend this event to the world, the taste and aromas of a special product of our land, with the participation of five Cypriot olive oil producers. There, we had the opportunity to get to know and taste olive oil from Colive, Aparthenasa, Philippos Farm, Atsas, and Theodore’s Orchard. We explained some of the characteristics of the olive oils, people tasted them accompanied by freshly baked bread with trahanas, served with the traditional flugo (fresh cheese), with lapsana (cyprus herb) and on its own to understand its flavor.
Olive oil was also an ingredient in the restaurant’s signature cocktails, which had a strong Cypriot character. We drank Kythrea whiskey with sumada, tonic and olive oil, aoratos gin with orange liqueur, honey, thyme and olive oil and a third cocktail called “Olive Tsakisti” with Cypriot vodka, mosfilo, halloumi and tsakisti olives. The taste was exactly what you imagine, cool with the taste of vodka.
The menu had as its main denominator the wild, the “arka” in Cypriot dialect, Cypriot cuisine with ingredients and raw materials taken from nature divided into five parts. First comes the zarzavatika, followed by seafood, continued with cold cuts, followed by meat and concluded the menu with desserts.
Along with all this, the protagonist is an excellent material, olive oil with the signature of our local producers.
