The secret to perfect tomato soup is hiding in the olive bar

The olive bar, for all its ubiquity, often goes unnoticed. Understandably, perhaps. Since its American debut in the late 80s, the olive bar has had its moments — flourishing in the decades before the pandemic, when self-serve stations were a novelty, then faltering as buffets and communal food became suspicious — but today, it occupies a quiet, almost unremarkable space in most grocery stores. It sits among the sterile light and low hum of self-checkout lines, its offerings tucked behind plastic lids that do little to inspire imagination. For many, it's little more than a stop for "girl dinner" or the finishing touch on a charcuterie board.

But look closely, and you'll see that the olive bar is a shortcut to something far more transformative than a quick, raw snack. These humble tubs of brine and spice are a passport to global flavors, ready to turn even the most ordinary meal into something that feels a little like a vacation. 

After all, in the mid-90s, Supermarket News declared that the olive bar  “was not just olives anymore.” Paul Margarites, senior vice president of merchandising at Waldbaum’s — a since-shuttered division of A&P — explained that the concept had expanded into what he called a “condiment bar.” Artichoke hearts, mushroom caps, pimentos and roasted peppers mingled with olives from around the world, creating a colorful, briny spectacle. It wasn’t just about convenience anymore, Margarites said; it was about elevating the grocery experience.

“These condiment bars are an attempt to put a European flair into the deli department and romance into the store,” he noted. But romance alone wasn’t enough. At the time, olive bars weren’t yet a guaranteed moneymaker (Supermarket News noted in 1996 they were only just starting to prove profitable for many grocers) meaning every square foot of marinated mushrooms and oil-slicked artichokes had to justify its existence. That delicate balance — between indulgence and necessity, between Mediterranean fantasy and the gritty realities of retail economics — is what gives the olive bar part of its charm.

Easy to miss, sure, but if you know where to look, you might just find a little piece of the world tucked between the tubs. Ingredients like sun-dried tomatoes, for example, carry with them both a sense of nostalgia and an unexpected depth that can transform even the most everyday dishes

A good one looks like a vintage red leather purse — weathered, but not quite uniformly, like a Birkin bag belonging to one of the Olsen Twins. Some parts gleam carmine, a reminder of summer’s first ripeness; other parts thin to ember-orange, where the flesh has given itself up to time. The edges curl toward deep purple, a gradient of both decay and flavor. Look closely and you’ll see vestigial seeds dotting the surface like radiant drops of citrine, lending the tomato an air of something treasured, preserved.

Taste-wise, it is to summer produce what caramel is to sugar, where time and heat condense its essence into a tart, molasses-like chew. And chew you must. Where the flesh of a fresh summer tomato gives way easily — its smooth, taut skin snapping like a helium balloon to release a flood of sun-warmed juice — a sun-dried tomato resists. It demands a pull, a gnaw, something that would feel almost primal, if not for the fact that sun-dried tomatoes first became truly ensconced in the American consciousness as the darlings of mid-'90s café culture, enthusiastically tucked into focaccias and tossed onto goat cheese salads with abandon. 

After their initial burst in popularity, sun-dried tomatoes lost their sheen as mass-market, commercially dehydrated iterations flooded supermarkets and chefs moved on to the next, best ingredient of the era (likely truffle oil, much to Anthony Bourdain’s well-documented chagrin). Yet when tucked into the contemporary olive bar’s curated mix of marinated odds and ends, they become an edible time capsule of peak summer, waiting to be put back to work.

Like anchovies or miso, sun-dried tomatoes work best when they aren’t the star, but the sly supporting player. The kind of ingredient that, when used judiciously, makes everything around it taste more like itself. This is certainly the case in my favorite application: tomato soup. A handful of sun-dried tomatoes, blended with roasted cherry tomatoes — their skins blistered in a sizzling layer of golden olive oil — lends this version the concentrated flavor of August, even now in mid-March. The sun-dried tomatoes caramelize, while the fresh cherries burst, rounding out the acidity with a backbone of umami.

I wish I could tell you this discovery was intentional, but like most of my best dinners, this soup emerged from a spontaneous fridge clean-out. I tossed in fresh produce that couldn’t wait another day, pantry staples like boxed stock and tomato paste and some other olive bar stalwarts: roasted red peppers with charred tips, fragrant marinated garlic the soft gold color of faded wedding bands and herbaceous cubes of feta brined just enough to evoke the Mediterranean sea breeze.

I know, it sounds like a chaotic clash of flavors. Each ingredient, at first glance, feels like it could overrun the soup — roasted red peppers too sweet, garlic too pungent, sun-dried tomatoes too intense. And yet, they work in a way that’s almost miraculous, each ingredient giving just enough to elevate the dish, but never stealing the show (especially once mellowed out by a final splash of rich heavy cream). 

To finish it off, I crown the soup with cubes of marinated feta from the olive bar, their briny sharpness cutting through the velvety sweetness of the roasted tomatoes. Paired with a handful of homemade sourdough croutons — just crisped enough to hold their own, but soft enough to soak up the broth—it’s the kind of soup that sits comfortably between winter and warm weather.

It felt like the kind of meal you’d get at a quaint, yet almost unremarkable European café — where you’d settle in at a chipped table with a postcard in hand, scribbling down just how distinctive it is. The kind of soup you try to recreate over the years, and each time, there’s a nagging feeling that something’s missing: Was it the produce grew out back? Was it the Continental air? In this case, I’m convinced it’s the magic of the olive bar.

The beauty of olive bar ingredients, though, is that they’re good for elevating so much more than soup. That same marinated feta adds a distinctive, creamy zip when crumbled over a baked potato in place of shredded cheddar. Artichoke hearts, with their buttery tang, can take a simple lentil stew from basic to ethereal, especially if you drizzle some marinade into the pot at the last moment to infuse everything with that bright, salty punch. Roasted red peppers, meanwhile, find their calling in a smoky, charred quesadilla, melted into gooey cheese with a dash of chipotle and a squeeze of lime. 

These unassuming, briny odds and ends don’t demand the spotlight. But give them the chance, and they’ll transform even the simplest meal into something extraordinary — just like the olive bar itself.