It's hard to conduct an interview with the owner of a new Nottingham shop because of the constant flow of customers. Who knew there was so much love for macarons?
Macaron Marlo is the latest addition to Carlton Street, in Hockley, one of the liveliest thoroughfares in the city. It's one of the tastiest too, home to Bar Iberico, Pho, the Hockley Kitchen, The Hockley Arts Club and much more besides.
The new shop is bursting with colourful French macarons. They're not to be confused with macaroons which are more like a coconut mound, or Macron, the French president, as helpfully pointed out by the Great British Bake Off recently.
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Macarons are the colourful, meringue-like discs - made with almond flour, egg whites, sugar and food colouring and sandwiched together by a filling of ganache or jam. Described as "luxury handcrafted deliciousness" prices start £9 for six.
Allena Marlow, co-founder of the company, said: "Sometimes people know what they mean, it's just the pronunciation. One is almond, one is coconut."
She bakes 1,600 a day, getting up around 3am to head to her bakery in Colston Bassett. There's a rainbow of 12 flavours. Pistachio is the best-seller; the others include raspberry, chocolate, mango, blueberry and lemon. Then there's usually two or three specials which could be anything from Oreo to rose. Brownies with a macaron twist are also on sale.
It's taken six year for Allena to get to where she wants to be, with a shop in the heart of Nottingham. Macaron Marlo started in 2016. After being made redundant from her job at Specsavers' head office, religious Allena prayed to God and it was her faith that led her to bake - despite zero experience and no training. She couldn't afford to go to pastry college so after the "epiphany moment" she sold a Louis Vuitton handbag that had been a present for her 20th birthday to buy a food processor and hand mixer.
The rest is history. She started off at Sneinton Market before progressing to a retail unit at the entrance of Victoria Market, but close to the fish counter it wasn't the best aroma. From there Allena and her husband Ian progressed to selling at Leicester's High Cross Centre, food festivals and farmers' markets across the Midlands and Lincolnshire.
But she always wanted a base in her home city of Nottingham. There had been plans for a kiosk in Smithy Row like Hasty Tasty Pizza and then they were on the cusp of launching a stand at the food court in Victoria Centre two years ago but the pandemic put paid to that.
"It feels long overdue. I'm ecstatic. We have done so well in other places. We travel quite a bit but it didn't feel right not having a base in Nottingham. We've been to Peterborough, Solihull, Birmingham... so it's doing that that has allowed us to invest in this. It has been worth the wait. The location had to be right."
The former optician's has been transformed into an eye-catching shop with giant macaron decorations and colourful towers in the window - just in case anyone's thinking of pilfering one, they're made of resin. It will be open six days a week from Tuesday to Sunday.
Marlo comes from the original French spelling of Ian's surname, which he's traced back through the centuries. "When they came to England they put a 'w' on so the heritage is French," he said.
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