Our Story

Tales from the countryside

When I was just a teenager, I remember my first taste of authentic olive oil. 

My father was born in Tehran, but moved to Milan when he was 7, and my mother is 5th generation Italian, so my Italian blood is from my mom’s side, but my culture is from my dad’s. Growing up, we’d had store-bought olive oil, and it was fine. Nothing special. I had nothing to compare it with.

But one day, my dad brought home a bottle of olive oil from a restaurant called Torre Di Mangia. I didn’t think anything of it at first, but that night he made risotto. He poured the oil over top, and I remember thinking, “WOW! This is the best thing ever!”

From that moment on I was hooked.

Ever since, I’ve been obsessed with olive oil. When I was 14, I went to Milan for the first time and I remember being mesmerized by how much passion was put into every bite of every oil I tried. Olive oil went from just something you put on stuff to something more. 

As I got older, I got more discerning about what constituted “good” olive oil, and most of the stuff I found in grocery stores just wasn’t doing the trick. They were fine, but they weren’t Torre Di Mangia.

When I told this to my father, he said he had some connections in Italy and would try to get me a few bottles. Tasting it, I immediately knew it was what I was searching for. I could taste the depth of flavors, and the passion that it was created with. I also knew that I wanted to share the opportunity to taste real olive oil with others.

You see, if you’ve never had authentic olive oil from the Mediterranean, you don’t know what you’re missing. You’d think big label olive oil was good enough. You might even think of as just something to cook with.

But it’s more than that. Olive oil is life. It’s like the air we breathe. It’s like fresh air. It can be fresh and pure, or it can be stale and polluted. A lot of people don’t know the difference between the two. 

True virgin olive oil is so beneficial to us in so many ways, but it also gives us so much pleasure with the food we eat. Since I was a boy, I’ve always loved mozzarella pomodoro with summer-ripened tomatoes and the freshest basil you can get, topped with coarse sea salt and a little bit of prosciutto.

I’m extremely passionate about olive oil, and that’s why I created Lustful Olive—to bring a taste of Italy to America.

“And with the spring of a fruited olive, man is purified in extreme health.”

icon Virgil, Aeneid

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