Soralina Ltd

We are a London-based, family-run business founded by Sylvia and I and greatly assisted by our family. Our business is built around bringing a carefully selected range of artisan produce from the Abruzzo region of central Italy.

You hear so much about the health giving properties of the Mediterranean diet nowadays but for our family that’s just good food. Home cooked meals made from scratch from fresh fruit and vegetables and meat – always on the bone, not a shred wasted, nose to tail before it was trendy.

When Sylvia’s family arrived from Cyprus in the late 60’s, Camden Town was about the only place they could find their beloved pomegranates, artichoke and all-important olive oil that was used for all their cooking, baking and even as a hair product! With her family line stretching through Crete and Northern Italy the family’s olive oil allegiance was rather complex. Sylvia grew up to travel extensively in Italy and worked in the travel industry during the early days of chartered European holidays.

I was brought up in East Africa where food was vibrant, colourful and an important shared experience. My mother cooked the authentic Kashmiri dishes she herself grew up eating as well as the Persian cuisine of my father’s family. As a couple, and later with our two daughters, food was central to family life and celebration. Christmas, Easter, Eids, birthdays and everything in between were a reason to enjoy flavoursome food. Everyday cooking with ghee and frying in vegetable oil I knew from my childhood gave way to a more Mediterranean style, with more salad and a lot of olive oil. Our family share a love of spice and chilli.

We continued to enjoy travelling and Sylvia and I developed a real affection for Sicily and Tuscany. However, it was Loreto Aprutino that we finally fell in love with and we eventually fulfilled a dream of buying a run-down farmhouse nestled in a beautiful but forgotten olive grove.

The community welcomed us with open arms and it was an invitation to visit the Di Simone frantoio that sparked the notion of bringing the wonderful oil produced there to the UK. Signor Alfonso was cautious. The oil would only ever be produced in small batches and no compromise would be made on quality. Assured that we shared the same beliefs, early in 2013 agreement was reached and in June 2013 Soralina, a blending of the names of our daughters, Soraya and Pavlina, was launched.