Casa Egon

Founded in 1916, Casa Egon is the oldest pasteleria, a cake shop in the Canaries and has happily maintained its stuck-in-a-time-warp ambience with custard-coloured paintwork, antique weighing scales, original floor tiles and woodwork, and much of the decor. The cakes include all-time local favourites such as anís-based roscos and apple-filled cabello de angel. There’s a simple, traditional restaurant out back. Casa Egon arises from a coincidence of fate. Egon Alfred Wende Bard was born in 1890 in Breslau, a city that used to belong to Germany and is now part of Poland. He cooked and worked in hotels and restaurants in his hometown, until in 1914 he decided to join a ship bound for the German colonies in Africa. The First World War surprised the ship in which Egon was traveling in the Canary Islands and this is how this young German confectioner ended up in an impromptu destination: Santa Cruz de Tenerife. Egon began working in Santa Cruz in 1915 and he set up his first business in La Laguna, at the same time working as a cook and pastry chef for the now-defunct Hotel Camacho, in Tacoronte. Then he moved to La Orotava and here he founded a small workshop. Visiting Casa Egon is a sensory trip to the past. Everything is the same. This cannot be changed.