Fire at Mervier Canal pastry shop in Barcelona: "We saved the award-winning croissants"

BarcelonaThe workshop of the Mervier Canal pastry shop on Calvet Street in Barcelona caught fire on Friday night, likely due to a problem with the electrical panel. It was 4:00 a.m. when a neighbor alerted the fire department after smelling smoke. "He was awake and noticed it immediately, the smell," says Lluís Estrada of the Canal pastry shop, adding that the tragedy came during the worst week and the worst month of the year.

"We make all the tiles and chocolate nougat at the Calvet workshop, and this month we had everything up and running to fulfill orders," he says. Luckily—if one can say there's no luck in a fire—the Calvet shop doesn't have ovens and therefore no other production takes place. "We saved the croissants," says Estrada, referring to the award-winning croissants of The latest competition for the best croissant in Spain, which for the fourth time awarded the Canal pastryThe croissants, then, are saved, but so are the panettone, whose fruit-filled variety has qualified for the final of the competition that awards the best in the world, to be held in Madrid at the end of next year.

While the bakery is being rebuilt in a renovation expected to last two months, Lluís Estrada says that the Barcelona Pastry Guild has offered them a classroom so they can go and make the nougat. "In the other bakery, on Muntaner Street, is where we do the rest of the preparations; and with the Guild's help, we'll be able to make the nougat and the chocolate tiles, which are what we would have made in the bakery on Calvet Street," says Estrada, who comments that they've had to cope with the news of the fire through their work. Even more so, with Christmas just around the corner.