In London, One-Stop Shop for Light Bulbs, Olive Oil

Sometimes things are not exactly what they appear. Fortunately.

Just by turn­ing around the cor­ner, one can leave behind the fran­tic pace of cen­tral London and find the tran­quil­lity of a small vil­lage.

Clerkenwell, on the shad­ows of the impos­ing Smithfield’s mar­ket, where fresh meat is still traded every day at the heart of London’s finan­cial dis­trict, is one of those places.

Bricked Victorian houses and nar­row alleys spread around the small church square of Clerkenwell Green.

In one of them, at Compton Street, another unex­pected turn awaits.

The mod­est door of an elec­tri­cal sup­plies store leads you to a small haven for olive oil lovers.

At Embassy Electrical Supplies, sock­ets, cables and light bulbs mix with dif­fer­ent sizes of bot­tles of olive oil, pack­ages of black and green olives, olive leaves and an arrange of tra­di­tional Cypriot foods and herbs in a seem­ingly chaotic order that pro­duces a delight­ful com­bi­na­tion.

“Sorry mate, we don’t have any. We sell olive oil instead if you want some,” Mehmet Murat says with a big smile to a bike rider who’s stopped by to ask for some oil for his bicy­cle.

He is the owner of this eclec­tic shop and the pro­pri­etor of the olive trees fields in Cyprus and Turkey where Murat du Carta olive oil is pro­duced.

Murat speaks with a per­fect British accent. Born on the Mediterranean island, he moved with his par­ents from the Cypriot vil­lage of Louroujina to England when he was just five years old.

For decades, elec­tri­cal sup­plies were his main trade. And from the counter of his shop, he and his cat Carter — who qui­etly watches the entrance to the shop — have wit­nessed much of the city’s rapid trans­for­ma­tion.

When Murat opened Embassy Electrical Supplies in 1980, most of his cus­tomers came from nearby fac­to­ries and work­shops. This area — often over­looked by tourists — owes much of its urban land­scape to the indus­trial rev­o­lu­tion, when it became a hub for watch­mak­ers and jew­el­ers.

Throughout the years, Murat adapted his trade to the needs of the chang­ing face of the area and spe­cial­ized in tubes and lamps. Clerkenwell is now known for being London’s design and archi­tec­ture cen­ter and it is said to have the high­est den­sity of archi­tects in the world.

But arguably the biggest change for Embassy Electrical Supplies hap­pened in 2002 when Mehmet’s father, Murat Suleyman, passed away and he had to take over the olive trees in his home coun­try.

He then decided to bring over his oil to London and start sell­ing it at his shop in Clerkenwell. From then on, olive oil bot­tles started to pop up among Murat’s cables.

“I knew noth­ing about pro­duc­ing olive oil. I quickly learned,” he tells Olive Oil Times.

“It’s a lot of work involved and it’s a labor of love. I do love it, but I need a lot of help from imme­di­ate fam­ily,” he con­fesses.

Murat’s father, Suleyman, the village’s bar­ber, also traded mules across the island of Cyprus before the moved to Britain.

With the prof­its, he and his wife Hatice — both pic­tured on Murat du Carta’s labels — started buy­ing plots of land in Louroujina and planted their first olive trees back in the 50s.

“The olive oil we pro­duce is from the green olives turn­ing pur­ple around October November. It’s pro­duced from what we called the Cyprus olive oil tree,” Murat says.

“We would nor­mally take it to the press almost imme­di­ately, within hours. It is pressed for us in the South of the island,” he adds, con­stantly inter­rupted by the flow of cus­tomers com­ing in to buy a bot­tle, a light bulb, or both of them at a time.

Taking care of the olive groves from London is not an easy task, but a reward­ing one.

A few years ago, a review in New York Magazine described Murat’s oils as ​“England’s best.” After that, Murat du Carta has been the sub­ject of write-ups in news­pa­pers and Murat par­tic­i­pated on Gordon Ramsay’s Ultimate Cookery Course TV show in 2012.

Now, Murat -– with the help of his son in London and his rel­a­tives in Cyprus and Turkey — sells all of his oil pro­duc­tion of around 5 tons a year both through the inter­net and at the counter. ​“We’ve shipped oil to almost every coun­try in the world from this shop,” he says.

But, he points out, the direct con­tact and feed­back from his cus­tomers are what he enjoys the most.

Maybe that’s the rea­son why Embassy Electrics retains the feel of a local shop that seems long gone from many of the chain stores in Central London.

“I’m a few years past retire­ment age. I could retire and live out, but I enjoy what I do so much, I enjoy bring­ing over good pro­duce,” he says.

“There’s not a lot of profit in what we do nowa­days, but there is a lot of enjoy­ment,” he con­cludes.