Today we eat from Ca na Riera

Itziar Lecea/Ciutadella – Mariola Fiol Julián has been working for 24 years to offer, increasingly, a differentiated product in an establishment as emblematic as Ca na Riera, next to the Market Square in Ciutadella. As the store is about to turn 100 years old, this year Mariola has decided to make us lunch.

For less than five euros we can eat from Ca Na Riera, now. How did the initiative come about?

For some time now we have been evolving quite a bit, we have added things more elaborated by ourselves and adding products. As for elaborate food, I started with pizzas, which were the first ones I made, ten years ago. I started making about 25 pizzas a week and now I make about 100! People’s word of mouth has worked very well, and the same thing is happening to me with prepared food. It has not been an easy path, because setting up a kitchen has involved a process of about two years to obtain all the permits.

But now we are up and running and the truth is that we are very happy with people’s response. Furthermore, it was an idea that my husband and I had in mind, and that I have now been able to make a reality. These are hours of being in front of the stove, because at 6:30 in the morning we are already in the kitchen that I have set up in the store, but for now I am very happy, since it also allows me to serve those who come to buy and help to my shop assistants.

So, can we find everything every day?

We try to have something of everything every day, although I am introducing new recipes. This winter we have introduced hotter and heartier dishes, and from spring we will return with the dishes that have worked wonderfully this summer.

The fact of starting to cook must have arisen from some need.

We found that with the competition from supermarkets, we could not compete on price to be able to sell what we had, being such a small store. So we decided to differentiate ourselves with things that supermarkets don’t have, with higher quality products, more gourmet products, and to round out, and give more options than supermarkets, I thought I could offer a line of food prepared by me, which don’t have anyone else.

And the experience in the kitchen, where does it come from?

I had a bar for five years, and I already learned there. And, furthermore, I have the help of my mother, Juana Riera, who has always cooked very well.

Where do the ideas for the dishes you prepare come from?

As she mentioned, I have taken advantage of recipes from my mother, who is a very good cook. Especially the salad, which has been one of the star dishes of the summer. However, every week I prepare, and we have dishes that have a shelf life of one week and others that have two. We also make a daily tortilla, which comes out a lot. And a cheesecake that is delicious, and that I make with four types of cheese. This with respect to daily food. We also make it to take away in whole pieces, for those who request it.

Omelette, salad, pizzas… what are you enjoying the most since you started?

The croquettes also turn out very well, and I make them: we have Iberian ham, cheese, mushrooms, monkfish and shrimp. We also make an assortment of lasagna and cannelloni that have also been very popular and are ideal for this season of the year. There is lasagna with bolognese and spinach; and the meatballs are also very popular. The secret is that I do it as it was cooked before, with patience and desire. It is the secret that I have been able to learn from my mother and her aunt Nina, who was the one who previously owned the store.

Is the prepared food a reflection of what we can find at Ca Na Riera?

Yes, certainly. Everything I am using for the preparations is a product from Menorca and the freshest and highest quality possible, which is what we sell. And what I don’t have here, I can find very close, like the meat, which belongs to my brother-in-law Fel Caules, who has the butcher shop next door.

What type of audience does prepared food have?

We have something of everything. We have elderly people who live in the center of Ciutadella who have chosen our dishes because cooking for one person alone is not worth it for them. But I also have people from outside and many people who go on excursions, who choose dishes that are not packaged, but rather in recycled plastic containers, and that are very comfortable to take to the beach or during the fall and winter to the countryside. . There is a dish for each moment.