Cretan olive oil vs rapeseed oil — which to choose?

Our verdict

Cretan to finish raw; rapeseed to roast at high heat.

At a glance

When to choose Cretan Extra Virgin Olive Oil PDO

Choose Cretan olive oil when the oil is meant to be tasted, not cooked away. Sitia PDO, certified since 1994, is pressed from Koroneiki — a small, polyphenol-heavy olive — and it shows: fresh grass, green almond, a green-tomato edge and that peppery throat-catch that signals high oleocanthal. That bitterness and pepper are the flavor you're paying for, and gentle heat is fine while a screaming pan or a deep-fryer is not. Use it raw and late: poured over a Greek salad, dragged through with bread, finished over grilled fish, dolloped onto a bowl of lentils or white beans, or stirred into a dip right before serving. A 500ml bottle runs about $15 to $22, which is fair for a single-origin PDO oil you use by the spoonful, not the cupful. The catch is treating it like a cooking fat — heat strips the volatile aromatics and you've poured premium money down a hot pan. Buy a decent bottle, keep it cool and dark, finish it within a few months of opening, and let a cheaper oil do the frying. If your job is crisping roast potatoes or roasting a tray of vegetables at high heat, this is the wrong bottle — reach for the rapeseed.

When to choose Cold-Pressed Rapeseed Oil

Reach for cold-pressed British rapeseed oil when heat is the job. Pressed from rapeseed grown on single estates in the Yorkshire Wolds and the Cotswolds, it carries a grassy, nutty flavour mild enough to disappear into a dish — and crucially a smoke point near 230 degrees Celsius, well above olive oil. That's why it crisps roast potatoes harder, browns roasting vegetables without going acrid, and handles a shallow fry where olive oil would smoke and turn bitter. It's also the home-grown drizzle that quietly beats imported olive oil at the everyday end of the kitchen, and at about £4.50 to £5 for 500ml it's cheap enough to use freely. Pour it into the roasting tin, toss the potatoes, get them properly hot. Use it as your default frying and roasting oil and keep the good olive oil for the plate. The catch is expecting it to taste like olive oil — it doesn't, and that's fine, because its mild nuttiness is exactly what you want when you don't want the oil to shout. If you want a peppery, grassy finishing pour that's the star of a salad or a slice of bread, this is the wrong oil — that's the Cretan's job.

Frequently asked questions

Can I roast potatoes in Cretan olive oil?

You can, but you're wasting it. Olive oil's lower smoke point means high-heat roasting strips the grassy, peppery aromatics you paid for, and it can turn slightly bitter. Rapeseed oil's ~446°F (230°C) smoke point crisps potatoes harder and costs a fraction. Save the Cretan for the finishing drizzle.

Is British rapeseed oil healthier than olive oil?

It's a different fat, not a magic one. Rapeseed is lower in saturated fat and higher in omega-3 than olive oil, while a good extra-virgin olive oil brings polyphenols like oleocanthal. Both are sound. Choose by job — roasting versus finishing — not by health halo.

Why is the Cretan oil so much more expensive?

It's a single-origin PDO extra-virgin pressed from a low-yield, high-polyphenol olive, sold to be tasted raw. British rapeseed is a high-yield commodity crop pressed for everyday cooking. You're paying for finishing-oil flavor in one and high-heat workhorse performance in the other.

Do I really need both?

If you cook regularly, yes. They solve different problems: one finishes a plate raw, the other does the hot, messy work of roasting and frying. Buying only the olive oil means you cook away your best oil; buying only the rapeseed means your salads go flat.