Lamucca: «There are waiters in Mallorca who have to sleep on the beach. There are no homes»

They have just taken an important step: open their first restaurant outside Madrid. The Lamucca group premieres summer with Lamucca del Mar, in the port of Molinar, in Palma (Mallorca). With this, there are already 16 premises that manage the brothers ofelia and Álex Marín del Coso (Lleida, 52 and 54 years, respectively), since they created the company in 2007. They operate under different brands: in addition to the new opening, they have eight establishments under the name of Lamucca, two as fish, two others as overseas Magadan This year they will open two spaces at the Hotel Thompson, in Madrid. «We had no business vision or experience in hospitality. All this growth has emerged naturally. No one in our family was dedicated to this. Our father is a doctor and it cost him to believe it. Now our parents are our clients. In honor of them we have opened overseas of the Coso, because they have left their life in Lleida to be close to us, and we wanted them to have a place where they take their wine and their oysters,” A kombucha – «The soda of the future,» they say – that they elaborate in the raw workshop. Without previous experience in the sector, they detected in Madrid a niche to cover: to offer “an international quality cuisine, where it could also spend the time having a cup in a cosmopolitan store, with a modern, industrial design”. She had just arrived from New York, where she had dedicated himself to theater; He lived in Barcelona, ​​had formed as a road engineer and worked as a real estate promoter. «We wanted to ride something together. We saw what happened in other cities in the world and brought to Madrid a trend. We wanted to democratize the restoration,» says Ofelia, which has a formation cycle in Le Cordon Bleu.Illuso brought a cook from New York to prepare pizzas and hamburgers. They did so well that they tried to replicate the model in New York and Los Angeles, although they had to fold candles. «To go out you have to go hand in hand with a good partner. We just opened in Mallorca and it is difficult for the team,» she continues. «It's a challenge,» he says.Ofelia and Alex Marín del Coso, at the Lamucca premises, in the Plaza del Carmen, in Madrid.Alvaro Garcíael Problem, generalized in the hospitality, is the lack of staff. “In Mallorca we notice more, because here [en Madrid] We rely from one restaurant to another, «she explains.» But it is an investment: you have to break eggs so that the tortilla sets, «replies the brother.» In Mallorca there are waiters living on the beach. There are no homes. ”They consider that the current moment of the hospitality is one of the most complicated, despite the fact that the strip in which they move, with an average ticket of about 35 euros, is the“ less bombarded ”. It is Álex who summarizes his career in the sector:“ We have lived different times. We opened a business format melon – industrial decoration and good food – that for five or six years was the model to follow. We are surviving, although the market is saturated, and then turns with Ten and Amazonian proposals [locales del Grupo Paraguas]. A similar model, but with higher prices. That begins to emulate. They leave us the free niche. And then that profile is saturated. In Madrid now the traditional returns, many stripes coexist, and ours is not so bombarded. We have entered the specialty and bread coffee, which have come to stay. ”The last year, the Lamucca group closed with a turnover of 30 million euros.“ This year we will exceed it, ”he says.“ But the business is no longer so profitable. Since the massive arrival of the caviar to the restaurants, everything has been triggered. The client is penalized when the staff is not right. And another scourge that is spoken of little are the work casualties. «» And you can not impact these increases in the letter. That is why profitability has suffered. We look a lot at the benefit, ”says Ofelia, who deals with day to day and kitchen. In spite of everything, he says they would do it again.» We like to get into trouble. We started the business with some savings we had, that there were not many either. We had to finance ourselves. ”And if they want to be remembered for something, it is because“ we do kombuchas, bread and pay the invoices. ”It is something that Alex, who carries the accounts, feels especially proud:“ I want to be honorable in the payments to the suppliers. ”Although they do not follow a defined strategy, they look city. And we are worried about making a good kitchen, with trends, but with classics. From the croquettes with the family recipe to rice, but also affordable meats and fish. ”