Everyone who waits comes from the same place: social media. Last Tuesday, in front of the local The Concha business located in Madrid Anton Martin Market, the queue accumulates several minutes of waiting. The reason, potato omelettes and cheesecakes. But they are not just any cakes and tortillas: all of them arrive seasoned with the sweet and resounding taste of virality.
Ester Muñoz, owner and executive chef, discovered the power of social media not long ago. For a few years, his was not the biggest or most popular job. What’s more, they had been there since 2014 and, although things weren’t bad for them, no one paid them special attention when visiting the market. Everything changed a few weeks ago: a client came up with the idea of recommending La Caracola cakes in a video he posted on TikTok, which already has more than 118.6 thousand views. After this video more than a dozen of influencers They have gained thousands of likes by teaching their experience in the local. Without anyone being able to anticipate itthe magic of the algorithm catapulted the business. Since then, Muñoz has happily been unable to cope.
Hundreds of young people from Madrid want to try the only products it sells: cheesecakes and tortillas. People are willing to do almost anything to try a slice, regardless of the waiting time or how cold it is in the middle of the late winter that the city is experiencing these days. In La caracola they only sell two products: potato omelette and cheesecakes. But that was not always the case: Muñoz was dedicated to cartography in the public works sector, however, in 2008, with the real estate crisis, the cuts reached his company and he decided to try his luck in the world of cooking.
He started with the basic degree in cooking and discovered a passion for gastronomy; At the age of 40, she enrolled in Kitchen Management studies. Convinced of the change in direction that she had just given to her career, she bought a small store in Antón Martín, an old offal, and reformed it to sell take-out food. “Everyone associates the world of takeout with fried chicken and pizza, but I wanted to offer something different. I wanted to sell healthy, homemade food”, explains Muñoz.
Back then, he was selling his now well-known omelettes and oven-baked cheesecakes. “I do all the assembly of the tortilla in the oven, from the poaching of the potatoes. It’s lighter because I use less oil,” he explains. The cook believes that it is precisely the use of the oven that gives her preparations the distinctive point that has already conquered so many palates. Since September of last year, Muñoz and her husband decided to change the concept of her restaurant a bit and focus on selling only tortillas and cakes. They made the change in January, a moment that coincided with their viral explosion: “Before, the age of the people who came to the premises was much older. Now the public is between 20 and 30 years old”.
Artisanal cakes and tortillas
All the cakes start from the base of the “mother cake”, as Muñoz calls it, a cheese cake that was created for his father and which is what he has been selling all these years. Now, he has added other flavors like pistachio, which has become the jewel in the restaurant’s crown. “People usually come for the pairing: first the tortilla and then a piece of cheesecake,” says Muñoz.
The base of everything is eggs: their cheesecake is made with free-range eggs from Galicia and a mixture of cheeses. It does not have a biscuit base and the toppings they go above The price of a piece of cake is between five and six euros. For its part, the normal tortilla has extra virgin olive oil, sweet poached onion and free-range eggs. You can also order chorizo, gorgonzola dolce cheese or truffle. An omelette costs 11 euros, weighs 850 grams and is enough for 5 servings, according to the establishment.
All the food is made on the premises in an artisanal way, so not only have they had to hire more staff, but they have also opened a second location in the Antón Martín market and they plan to expand the business to a third in the heart of the neighborhood of crooked. “This is a very small space, and the facilities are not prepared to receive so many people. We can bother the locals next door and the neighbors with the queues”, confesses Muñoz.
Almost every day he has to expand the workshop. “Every day we make more cheesecakes and each time, at the end of the day, we fall short,” says Muñoz, who now produces comfortably more than a hundred cheesecakes a day. After an hour, people keep coming and joining the queue: most of the reviews on Google and TripAdvisor are good, but there are also those who are disappointed after waiting for more than an hour. The other premises of the plant are almost empty. “We have seen it on TikTok and we have not been able to resist,” explains Diego Noques, 27, from the queue.
Noques asks for three cakes to share with two friends: one pistachio, one classic and one lotus. With the first bite of cheesecake he smiles: “It tastes like the one I used to make with my grandmother. It’s very homemade, I love it.” Regarding the taste, the young man is right to say that “it is very sweet”, and regarding the size, he describes that “the portion is in accordance with the price”. Tested by El Comidista, we can assure you that the creaminess of the cake forces you to eat it with a spoon (or risk staining the outfit of the day in the attempt). Although the first time many people only go through social networks, most return for the taste. Confirmed: La Caracola cheesecakes not only have likesbut they are very good.
Faith of errors: In the initial version of this article it was said that the tortilla weighs 1.6 kilos and makes 9 servings.
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