PanDomè: like the bakery in your town, but in Madrid
In the number 6 of Martin de Vargas street, near that hustle and bustle of motors that is Madrid's Glorieta de Embajadores, PanDome It has been opening its doors daily for a few weeks now, encouraging neighbors and passers-by to enter with an appetizing counter based on loaves, bars and seductive pastries, and with an even more attractive attitude today: that of make a community, taking care not only of what is offered but also of those who consume it. Who would have thought that at this point you would be excited to go buy bread?
Because that is precisely what it feels like to cross its threshold, even before, when already at home you think that today you are going to give yourself a quality breakfast, that the sauce of your food is going to deserve a bread that is up to it, that, since we are here, you take a pizza base and some fresh pasta for another day and, since you're not in a hurry, if Domenico is at the bakery you might as well have a chat with him.
The appetizing counter based on loaves, bars and seductive pastries
“I would like people to find a nearby place here, as if it were a bakery in a town, the bakery of my town or of the people's town because all Madrilenians have a town”, explains Domenico Rosso, one of the creators of PanDomè, to Traveler.es.
That 'I'll pay you tomorrow because I've left my wallet' that before mistrust was the norm was heard more or the little ones in the house running errands because we already know each other and nobody is going to cheat on them. "What defines making a neighborhood, basically."
Domenico does not refer to himself as a baker. He says it would be excessive, that he's only been at it for three years, that he is more of a bread philosopher, and that the baker and head of the bakery is Javi, With whom he began the PanDomè adventure in 2019, when they opened their first store in the Tirso de Molina market, in Puerta del Ángel.
“Artisan product, of the day, handmade, with love”, Domenico sums up what one can buy at PanDomè.
At PanDomè they have between 15 and 20 varieties of bread, and they are always thinking of increasing
Then it goes into detail and begins to enumerate. Village bread, peasant bread, Galician bread, rye bread, rye with nuts, multiseeds, French-style loaf, wheat, corn and turmeric bread; whole wheat bread, spelled… “We have between 15 or 20 varieties of bread (…) There are quite a few, but we are restless asses and we always like to innovate. We would like, for example, to make candeal bread”.
Domenico agrees in tastes with his clientele: the village bread, his favorite, is the one that sells the most. “It is a basic white bread, which is good for toast, to accompany with meat, oil or to eat alone because of how rich it is”.
He also recognizes that eating good bread has a lot to do with what each person prefers, although he lists three elements that are common to quality. “It has to be made with good flour, if it is without additives and ecological, better; has to have a fermentation process of at least three or four hours until, ideally, it would be about 12 cold. This makes the bread come out with much more flavor, the gluten develops better and, in the end, the bread has more flavor and is also well digested. This also has to do with the sourdough: a bread has to have a very good sourdough, it is fundamental”.
This croissant has already become part of some routes in the capital
At this point sweep home. Or for the workshop. “The most important thing, which is not said, is that the bread is not made by the flour, it is made by the baker. A good baker is what makes the difference. There are many people who do it improvised or are not professional and it does not give you an excellent bread, despite having good flours, a fermentation process and also an excellent sourdough. This is where craftsmanship, experience and knowledge come in”.
Putting all this together love arose with the residents of Puerta del Ángel and now they hope that it will also do so with those of Ambassadors.
“The market [for Tirso de Molina] has become very small for us. The product on the market is very good, but here, by having a larger site, it allows us to have a larger workshop with better quality machines. The oven is twice the size of the oven we have, in terms of capacity and structure, and of course it is technically a much better oven than the other”, Domenico explains.
In Embajadores they have started off on the right foot. Their fame preceded them. yours or that of that croissant that has already become part of some routes in the capital. And of course, here comes the question. Who do you love more: the croissant or the palm tree? Because, although she arrives with less fanfare, she also has her followers and, of course, the debate is on the street.
The palm tree also has its legion of fans
“The palm tree has a different puff pastry, it has a little more butter and it has a thin and crispy puff pastry”, Domenico tells.
“And the croissant has a fair dose of butter And, regarding the classic Spanish croissant, we add less sugar and we do it more in the French style. It also differs from the Parisian croissant because we add a little less butter. French has a lot of butter. Ours we believe It is more balanced in flavor. And then we add a touch of honey that, for example, the palm tree does not have”.
The croissant and the palm tree were preceded by their fame, yes, a tug-of-war that we wouldn't mind if it lasted over time so that we would have to keep trying one and the other indefinitely until we managed to decide (if that's possible), but they have not arrived at Martín de Vargas alone.
Pain au chocolat, chocolate croissant, long chocolate (as if it were a Neapolitan, but it has a little bit of bitter cocoa in strips on the outside), hazelnut praline or pastry cream cruffing, which would be a mixture of croissant and muffing. “It's shaped like a muffing, but it's made with croissant dough. Putting it in the oven gives it a different flavor or texture than a normal croissant.”
It will be difficult to choose
They also brought under their arms the panettone. Already known among the Italian public, its success is due "to our sourdough, because We use a special sourdough for panettone, and the long fermentations. It is a process that lasts almost three days. The price? 24 euros for about 700 or 800 grams of pleasure.
We will still have to wait, instead, to buy there its already mythical pizzas. At the moment, it is possible to whet your appetite with your base to go. It is made with a mixture of flours with water, salt and bread mother dough. “It turns out a very tasty base. customer can choose buy only the base of the pizza or the pizza kit, which would be made up of the base, mozzarella and tomato”.
What we will find in Martín de Vargas will be his fresh pasta, those typical northern Italian papardelle made with flour, semolina and egg. In addition, they up the ante and incorporate Gelato Lab's artisanal ice cream. "It has one of the best ice creams I've eaten in Madrid," says Domenico.
Homesickness sharpens ingenuity and, on occasions, like this one, brings good things. Very good. And it is that PanDomè is born from a longing for the food of rural Italy in which Domenico was born. In the 14 years that he has been in Madrid, one day he saw himself taking the subway to buy bread, good bread. “I thought there should be a good bakery on every corner. However, in Madrid it is not like that; and you go to Paris and there you do have that quality because there is a different culture”.
Those responsible for our life becoming a little tastier
We season this nostalgia with the desire to recover a more manual job than the one we used to do in front of a computer, and the result is that PanDomè customers' lives just got a little tastier. Was this the butterfly effect?
“Owning a company is generating value, that it is a fair value, that it is something you like and that it is something good for society; but it has to be something appreciated and valued by the citizens. The fact that people give you their salary to buy a loaf of bread, for me it has a very important value because it means that it gives you confidence, that values your product and, for me, the customer is important in the entire business vision and my company idea”.
A company that does not stop and that thinks in the long term (surprises will come, Domenico hopes), always with his motto in mind: Tradition, rhythm and revolution. Tradition, for the roots and values; rhythm, for the times of the city, but also of bread, which tends to put people who lack humility in their place by forcing them to respect their times; and revolution because "The things we do, we do them our way."