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Louise Thomas
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The viral Olympic Village chocolate muffins have made their New York City debut with hundreds lining up at the East Village pop-up to get a taste.
Hundreds of people lined up on 17 August to check out the new pop-up dedicated to the chocolate muffins that were all the rage in the Olympic Village at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games after Norwegian swimmer Henrik Christiansen posted about them on TikTok.
One user on X, formerly Twitter, took pictures of the blockbuster, writing: “There is a bonkers looooong line on 2nd Avenue in the East Village this morning for a pop-up.”
Christiansen - lovingly called “muffin man” online - shared a popular series of videos that garnered millions of views on TikTok, showing viewers his addiction to the Village’s delicious “choccy muffin,” of which he gave an 11/10 star review.
In one video, Christiansen could be seen walking down the street with two muffins in each hand, strutting to the tune of the bass-heavy Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas theme song. Meanwhile, another hilarious video showed him being “caught” chocolate-handed as a stash of the muffins was discovered in his drawers.
On the fan reaction to his muffin addiction, he said: “I never in my life thought that I would be taking fan photos in the Olympic village, because that’s (usually) only the biggest athletes, but I’ve been doing it. People have been coming up to me, chatting about the muffin, having a chat.”
Although Christiansen hasn’t appeared at the pop-up, many fans hope the pastries are as good as he made them out to be. Food influencer Alyssa La Spisa (@the_reccomendista) visited the pop-up and raved about it to her viewers in a recent video she posted on TikTok.
“It really is like cake holy s***,” she said. “Delicious. If you’re craving chocolate, this is the perfect thing.”
“That looks like heaven in a muffin,” one user wrote beneath her video. Another added: “It’s about time the muffin came to the city.”
With nearly 40,000 meals served to thousands of athletes from more than 200 countries and territories each day of the games, chief baker Tony Doré noted that many of these athletes gathered at the Olympic Village’s bakery. From fresh baguettes to delightful “viennoiseries,” Doré and his team produce a variety of delicacies every day throughout the games.
The muffins, however, were made by another producer and rivaled the typical French baked goods in popularity as consumption of the pastries reportedly reached an estimated 4,000 per day. The world-famous chocolate muffin recipe has since been posted on TikTok, with Christiansen among many planning to re-create them at home.
