Cristina Oria: "Working with me is complicated and fun in equal doses"

Cristina Oria (Madrid, 1983) enters the

apologizing for her delay.

She does not give him her life and, even so, she has gladly made a hole in her busy schedule to attend Metropolis on the eve of the Easter holidays.

During her photo shoot, the photographer asks her to take it easy on her.

"Ugh! That word hasn't been in my vocabulary or in my life for a long time," the chef, businesswoman and mother of three children ages one, four and seven says with a smile.

But she never complains.

She is happy and proud of what she does, although she, she admits, "her days are sometimes a bit chaotic."

Together with her husband Álvaro Corsini, Cristina manages a small empire that includes three restaurants, three gourmet and kitchenware stores in Madrid, a catering company that serves events for up to 4,000 people, a website that sells food products created by her throughout Europe and accessories for the kitchen and decoration, a corporate and wedding gift company, a 20-hectare farm of olive trees in Morata de Tajuña with which he makes his own olive oil... and a few other projects that he has in mind and is will materialize soon.

A whole maelstrom of professional life that, in reality, was never in her plans.

"My parents had a company [the Musgo store chain] and they worked a lot. I didn't want to be like them and preferred to work for others," she says.

She studied Business Administration and was placed in a consultancy,

but a series of catastrophic events and a health problem caused him to leave the company and take a sabbatical.

"It happened that I was getting married and we had the opportunity to go live in Paris."

There, in 2008,

and, without knowing it, his successful professional career began to take shape.

Did the prestigious course change your life? Yes.

I loved cooking, but it was not in my plans to dedicate myself to it.

There I learned to make my famous foie mi cuit with three wines [it won the award at Madrid Fusión 2011].

Then I started making it at home and I liked it so much that I was encouraged to sell it at Christmas as a gift.

Also the lemon cake.

Those two things were the beginning and we started setting up pop-up stores to make them known. Then came catering and delivery... When I lived in Paris I noticed that the takeaway business worked very well.

In Madrid that almost did not exist (beyond pizza and little else): either it was very rudimentary, very much like a taper, or it was super-elaborate catering.

So, with the overview I had of the business that strategic consulting gave me, I created a quality food delivery company,

At first she did everything at home and her husband (who quit his job to help her) encouraged her to open a store (Conde de Aranda) so that people could try their products.

Thus, in 2009, Cristina Oria was born, a company that has not stopped growing since then, and that today has more than 130 employees.

In recent months, the businesswoman has been very focused on something that she describes as "her great challenge": the opening of a new restaurant in San Sebastián, something that excites her in a special way because it is the place of origin of her family.

"My grandmother would be very happy with this move."

Catering, shops, a cookbook, cooking shows, now another restaurant... what do you have to do? I always say "nothing" and the next day I go crazy and think of new things.

I am very happy ideas.

Working with me is complicated and fun in equal doses, because I have ideas every day and they have to follow me.

My husband and I are easy to get on with... Now, for example, I just got back from the Paris Fair and I've brought children's clothes, handkerchiefs and towels that I don't need, but I never know what I can think of.

Another new project that fascinates me is my flower garden, not to sell them, but for events and restaurant tables.

Opening in San Sebastián was a sentimental decision, he says.

"The logical thing would have been to do it in another city before, because it is going to be a great challenge: it is a place three times larger than that of Ortega y Gasset in Madrid; it is a complicated place, very demanding, because the gastronomy there is very cutting-edge ... But it's a gamble. We don't want to compete with what's out there or try to do what they already do; I'm not going to start cooking turbot, because they do it a thousand times better than me, but rather defend our concept, which There's not much of that out there. It's going to be very much along the lines of CO."

Of all these projects, which do you have the most fun with?

Having studied the numbers, the thing that amuses me the least is the subject of finances, balance sheets... It bores me a lot.

And I like everything else: I love social networks, which I run, marketing, choosing the product and developing it, such as teapots, cups... Also kitchenware design, every year I add two or three new pieces to our crockery, which is the hallmark of the brand.

It is a way to build customer loyalty... they are pieces that may not be so necessary but it is a whim.

I guess the pandemic affected the business a lot. Before Covid, I complained a bit about having too many legs in my business and not being able to focus on all of them.

However, thanks to having all those branches (delivery, kitchenware, catering, weddings...

) we were able to save the company when the pandemic hit, because we went from serving catering for 5,000 people to zero.

What happened is that I was already in the delivery business, and in all the food delivery applications, so I didn't have to go all the way to study the packaging, how the product arrives well, that it doesn't leak , that the croquettes do not break... As for online sales throughout Spain and the delivery of vacuum-packed food, they also caught us with a good website, with which it worked phenomenally.

The Covid made us assess areas of the business that were not so cutting-edge and get ready to develop new ones, but with the bases already created. Do you think that the government aid was adequate? I try not to enter into controversy, but I am very grateful because in Madrid they let us work.

I don't want them to help me, I want them to let me work within the feasibility, of course.

I saw that in other places in Spain they imposed surreal and harmful measures for the sector.

I've just been to Paris and I've seen a lot of places for rent that haven't survived.

On the other hand, in Madrid, there are no premises for rent.

Here it is like an oasis.

And then, the ERTE came in handy, but we, as we had many lines of business, were able to relocate many employees and very few went to the ERTE.

Cristina Oria in front of the Pescadería Oñate stall, in the La Paz Market

Do you cook daily? Sometimes I feel like a ball because of the weather, but many days I throw fatal sandwiches at noon;

you know, at the blacksmith's house... But now with the recipes I record at home for social media, I force myself to cook more.

I like salty much more than sweet, because there is more freedom to experiment.

I'm not into haute cuisine, spherifications or anything like that, but it's a matter of humility, I don't know how to do it and I've never wanted to go that way.

I am a defender of good raw material, of knowing who sells it to me and of thinking that when it is good, there is little that needs to be done.

I don't think we have to reinvent lentils in smoke, when some good lentils are good as they are.

I like and admire avant-garde cuisine, but I like market cuisine more. Do you go to the market a lot? When I have time,

I like to go to the Diego de León market or the La Guindalera market because of its proximity.

I always take some fish, fresh and of the day, and also the fruit and vegetables that we don't produce on the Morata farm, because we still can't be 100% self-sufficient in everything.

As for meat, I use the suppliers we have for restaurants.

How do you combine your work life with your personal life? Working with my husband makes things a lot easier at home, because we both know what our schedules are like.

We have turned our work into a way of life;

For example, at Easter we go to the markets of La Provence to buy old furniture for restaurants, shops or the Morata estate.

These are our vacations and those of the children, so in the mornings we take them to see the markets and in the afternoons we play with them and go sightseeing.

Another example: this summer we will spend it in San Sebastián, there we will be able to enjoy the holidays, the beach and the family and, at the same time, supervise the works of the new restaurant.

Council giving up personal leisure;

They are times of your life.

My fun now is that of my children.

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