Eight of Mexico City’s most prestigious restaurants will create delicious dishes featuring Spanish extra virgin olive oil as the star in this month’s festival, which is part of the promotional campaign for olive oil from Spain in 2012.
Chefs from the chosen restaurants will design a unique menu with olive oil as the main ingredient, with the menus said to include such delicacies as snook infused in olive oil and scrambled eggs served with olive oil bathed potatoes, in addition to traditional Mediterranean recipes. The highlight of the 2012 program for culinary enthusiasts will be the participation of Chef Daniel Oyadia, who is the face of the campaign, and one of the most important influences on the Mexican culinary scene at the moment.
Chef Oyadia is seen to be among the most successful Mexican chefs of his generation, with two restaurants in Mexico City, a catering service, his own brands of wine and tequila, a supermarket salad line and a curio market to his name, all at only 29 years of age. Chef Oyadia will be developing delicious dishes featuring olive oil at his restaurants Xanto and Paxia, as well as offering cooking workshops focusing on the product throughout the event.
In addition to culinary promotion through restaurants, there will be a heavy emphasis on publicizing the health advantages of olive oil, as well as making the general public aware of its versatility in the kitchen. Olive oil tasting opportunities will also be provided until December 9 in major supermarkets throughout Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey, giving consumers a chance to try a range of olive oils from around Spain.
Mexico is an important export destination for Spanish olive oil and seen to have great potential as an emerging market, with 80 percent of its olive oil imported from Spain. It is hoped that increased education and promotion will result in a higher demand for the Spanish product.
The campaign is sponsored by the ICEX (The Spanish Institute for Foreign Trade), the Interprofesional del Aceite de Oliva Español and ASOLIVA (The Spanish Association of Industry and Commercial Exportation of Olive Oil).