Timeless Pastry: La Mallorquina

There’s nothing secret about La Mallorquina. It’s stood in the Puerta del Sol – the dead center of the city and Madrid’s busiest confluence of streets – since the late 1800’s. It isn’t fancy and you’d be forgiven for mistaking it for a 1950’s time warp, but damn do they have good chocolate croissants.

Any day of the week there’s a crowd waiting to order at the glass counters: mature women buying for their afternoon merienda, tourists following their nose or their guidebooks, and madrileños of all stripes stopping in for a sweet snack. And since they’re accustomed to the influx, the shop assistants are rather efficient at getting you out the door with your hands full of pastry.

Then as the seasons change, La Mallorquina offers traditional treats the way they’ve done for years without seeming to change at all: there are festive Roscón de Reyes cakes filled with cream, sweet French toast torrijas dripping with sugar syrup, the curiously-named “saints’ bones” made with marzipan…

Though the pastry shop’s wares seem to disappear in the blink of an eye, La Mallorquina is one Madrid institution destined to withstand the test of time.

La Mallorquina
Puerta del Sol, 8
Metro: Sol
Madrid, Spain

Tagged as: classic, food, pastry