The new law on how oil is presented on restaurant and bar tables is going through after all; not everybody is happy, to put it politely.

Whether you’re having breakfast in a bar and need some olive oil on your toast, or are on the point of enjoying a salad and want to add oil to dress it at a restaurant, you’re going to reach for the oil in the condiment set… but that is going to change. Eating establishments will only be able to use the original, brand containers.

Up-market restaurants will be happy to provide individual small bottles, showing off expensive olive oil, but what of your local bars? Are they to provide litre bottles of olive oil for each table when they don’t have the sort of budget that a top-class restaurant has? Quite apart from the fact that in these difficult times, these bottles will mysteriously ‘disappear’ with depressing regularity, it is simply not practical. And let’s face it; which of the two kinds of establishments are in more abundance?

No, for the Spanish, breakfast, eating-out culture, it is an unmitigated disaster – and not the first to be bestowed upon us by unassailable bureaucrats.

Yes, if you’re ordering wine by the bottle, you want to see the bottle in it’s uncorked state at your table, prior to the waiter opening it for approval, but in the case of olive oil, you’re not asking for a product by name & vintage when it comes to dressing your salad or covering your toast. And let’s face it, if you can’t tell the difference between olive/sunflower oil or whether your olive oil has been through a chip fryer or not, then seeing a label on an unopened bottle of olive oil is wasted on you anyway.

The new law comes into effect on the 28th of February, as if struggling businesses needed this kind of ‘helping hand’ Brussels and Madrid…

(News: Spain)