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Olive oil

The Market Gourmet Foods

Skip Costco—for your next dinner party for 10 or 200, hit the Market Gourmet Foods. It’s the retail outlet for the Whitefish Group, a brand-management company that imports dry foods and beverages and distributes them to restaurants and grocery stores around the city. (Whitefish introduced Seattle’s Best Coffee to Canada in the early ’90s, and also designed and built Yaletown’s George Ultra Lounge.) Sparkling water, olive oils, pasta, herbal teas, even gourmet cake mixes are available in singles, case lots, or entire palettes.

Ugo & Joe’s Italian Supermarket

Stocking more than 200 European cheeses, 50 different types of olives and antipastos in the olive bar, prepared foods (excellent cabbage rolls), and a vast array of specialty imports and standards like three-litre tins of olive oil (at least one brand will be on sale), and breads from Calabria bakery. 

Mediterranean Specialty Foods

Meet Jack, scholar of olives, olive oil, and cheese. In fact Jack Elmasu’s expertise covers all manner of Mediterranean staples. Ask him to recommend oil and he’ll sell you one from his rugged homeland of Palestine—“The best olives come from rolling hills, not the plains” he assures. Aisles of shelving groan with bottled marinated vegetables, proper Greek orzo, tinned tomatoes, and vine leaves. For cheeses, think traditional rangy sheep’s feta made in a barrel, kefalotiri (for addictive fried-cheese saganaki), and haloumi.

Tosi & Company

Ring the bell to get buzzed into the past. The last hold-out in what used to be Little Italy in Chinatown, this 101-year-old shop has been passed down from father Peter to son Angelo (who started working here at five years old). Peter Tosi’s original layout hasn’t changed: the 6,000 square foot shop still carries an unparalleled selection of parmesan, olive oil, rice, anchovies and olives, and pasta. Try the super-flavourful canned tomatoes, brought in directly from Naples; they’re so sweet, you won’t be able to get enough.