Enrique Martín, from Lanzarote, had a work accident 12 years ago that plunged him into a deep depression. One day he remembered his first moment of happiness, when he was 5 years old and made cakes with his mother. That set in motion a lever that motivated him to train in pastry, first as a hobby, and finally with the opening of one of the most successful chocolate shops on the island.
In an interview on the radio program Más de Uno Gourmet, from Radio Lanzarote, Martín narrates his evolution and how he discovered the many types of chocolate that exist.
- How did you come up with the idea of making chocolates on an island where the temperature does not drop below 20 degrees?
It's a wonderful madness. We have been working on the project for four years. It all started because I had a work accident 12 years ago and I thought my life was over and that I would have no hope for the future.
- What did you do before?
I worked in customer service at a sports venue in Arrecife. I had the accident and spent a whole year in rehabilitation.
Then I discovered that there was a little five-year-old boy inside me, who had had his first moment of happiness at that age, making pastries at home with his mother.
- You are very brave in sharing the mental health problem you had and how pastry helped you get out of it...
Pastry took me out of depression. I found that little engine that turns you on in the morning, that tells you to get up and start doing things, which transforms a hard moment in our life into a wonderful moment, like the one I am immersed in now.
- What was the first thing you baked?
First I made a sponge cake, one of the simplest there is, the one everyone knows. With a glass of yogurt, and using that same glass for a portion of oil, two of sugar, three of flour, with two eggs per yogurt and a pinch of yeast.
I did it, I liked the activity and I started to investigate the different elaborations that can be done in pastry.
- How did you train?
After a year of training on my own, I was lucky enough to have Ludovic Lamontagne, a well-known pastry chef based in Lanzarote, take me on as an assistant at the late age of 36 and I spent 20 months working with him.
Thus, I trained in the most creative pastry we have had throughout history, French pastry, as well as some dishes of Spanish and Italian pastry.
- Is that where your passion for chocolate arises?
When I started working with Ludovic I fell in love with chocolate, not the one they sell in supermarkets, but the real one. We have all been told that there are three chocolates: dark, white and milk, the last two inventions of the Nestlé company, but in reality it is not so.
Since the 80s there has been a boom of technical chocolates, which are made from cocoa butter with freeze-dried ingredients or dry ingredients. There are also the grand cru chocolates, which, like wine, harvest specific regions, with soul, with specific characteristics.
- How did you decide to open the chocolate shop?
At no time did I think about opening a business, I wanted to acquire knowledge because I liked it, I considered it a hobby.
But in January 2019 I started tempering. First I gave boxes of chocolates to family and friends, but in the third week of January I received my first order and at the end of February I received a call to pair wine with chocolates for an event of the Regulatory Council.
Initially it was going to be done en petit comité in a winery, but finally it was celebrated with a lot of visibility in the Castle of San José. So I had to become self-employed, register with Social Security, look for a workshop... and from there Bombonería La Corona was born.
- Where is it and what are its hours?
The chocolate shop is in Marina Lanzarote and is open from Monday to Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.
