Branching

The boutique Stuarto’s Olive Oil Company enhances its brand with popular cooking class series

By Vickie Mitchell

Photos by Britney Howard / Mahan Multimedia

Photos Howard / Mahan Multimedia Photos a Monday night in early January, the back room of Stuarto’s Olive Oil Company in Chevy Chase bustles as 22 students troop in for the store’s frst cooking class of 2023.

Wine and water glasses are flled as couples and groups sit at tables set for four and six. It’s a homey hubbub, as regulars reunite and newcomers get acquainted, sort of a cross between a dinner party and a class reunion.

Chef Richard Lawrence leads these popular $56 per-person classes, which sell out each month and are designed to send students straight into Stuarto’s adjacent retail store, where extra virgin olive oils, balsamic vinegars, salts, sugars, spice mixes, and other ingredients used in the night’s recipes are sold.

Te cooking classes aren’t new to Stuarto’s, but they became larger and more popular afer owner Stuart Utgaard in 2021 moved his Chevy Chase store to new quarters, around the corner from its spot on Euclid Avenue to the old Fred Moore Music building on South Ashland. Te move ultimately allowed Stuarto’s to have a dedicated space for classes of up to 24 students.

Adding Lawrence as chef completed the picture; he comes to Lexington one week of each month, teaching classes Monday through Tursday nights, staying with Utgaard and his wife, Kellie, who manages the Chevy Chase store.

Lawrence, a caterer from the Bowling Green area, is a customer and daily user