Chef and restaurateur Nino Zoccali of Pendolino, is taking his business across Australia with the launch of an online olive store.

Famous for his dedication to Australian olive oil producers, Zoccali has launched the online store to give customers across the country a chance to purchase the oils, even if they can’t make it to his Sydney-based restaurant.

“We already have quite a bit of traffic that goes to our website- for us it was a great business opportunity,” said Zoccali.

“The olive oils are something that has grown with the business. We have a list of oils in the back of the menu- like a wine list- which people can buy- we sell quite a bit of oil at the restaurant.”

The restaurant sells around 80 Australian and imported oils, many of them from northern NSW in the L’Olioteca, meaning olive oil library or store. “Some really fall into the Grand Cru category, and some are from Tasmania which you won’t see anywhere else on the mainland.”

Zoccali’s pride and joy is the dispensary, reminiscent of the days in Australia when you could only buy olive oil in a pharmacy. His L’Olioteca brand of olive oil is sold in medicine bottles that customers exchange when they return for a refill.

Zoccali said the online offering will be smaller than what is available in store, but he hopes to grow the variety as the business grows.

“We just want to start of small and see where we can go.”

Zoccali said guests to the restaurants were given a small degustation of oils with their meals to sample and that the blood orange extra virgin olive oil had proved the most popular with customers so far much to his surprise.

“The oils produced by crushing olives with citrus fruits have proved amazingly popular, particularly the blood orange oil, I can’t believe because it’s a very interesting flavour.”

Visit http://www.pendolino.com.au/OliveOilStore.htm to view the full range of products