I think it says a lot about you, that you are running this bar successfully, but you have also allowed this phenomenon to grow, and you enjoy the enjoyment people get out of it.
Yes, that’s how it has to be. In fact, we shared the recipe early on, so people could make it too. And now, we’re building a bakery that will open next year.
Nearby?
Yes, right behind the church. We’re doing it to be able to work better in the kitchen. We’ll bring the cheesecakes here – the bakery won’t be a point of sale.
Cecilia Alvarez-Hevia Arias
Any other changes? Selling it in other places?
No, we want it to remain our cheesecake. We don’t want to grow in a massive, unstructured way. The cheesecake is good when it’s made and sold immediately, within 36 hours. That’s the good cheesecake. If you start freezing it, vacuum packing it, and finding ways to make it last 15 days…you start to lose the flavour. Maybe we’d make money for a few years, but the product would eventually die. The reality is we have a great product that we sell here, and people keep coming to try.
Totally. Any other message for the people out there making and eating the cheesecake?
We don’t burn the cheesecake here. That gives it bitterness. But, of course, everyone can do whatever they would like.
Cecilia Alvarez-Hevia Arias
You’re so diplomatic. Do you still eat burnt Basque cheesecake?
That’s something I learned from Paul Bocuse. He said that twice a year, you need to sit in your restaurant and be a client and a critic of your own food. He’s right, you can taste and try and, of course, continue on the process. Every year we get a little better.
And do you make it at home?
[laughing] No, at this point I don’t.