The true story behind the burnt Basque cheesecake (2024)

San Sebastián was voted the best city in the world for food by you in the 2023 Readers' Choice Awards. We sought out one of the best-loved restaurants in the city to uncover the secrets of its most famous foodie export.

When you think of internet virality or A-list stardom, a pudding is not the first thing that typically comes to mind. The burnt Basque cheesecake, however, has reached every corner of the globe, from the pages of the New York Times to the Cheesecake Factory menu. But it got its start in a minuscule bar in the small coastal town of San Sebastián, Spain.

Brothers Eladio and Antonio Rivera founded La Viña in 1959; a humble, family-run pintxo bar in the heart of San Sebastián’s old town. Together with their wives, Carmen and Conchi, the brothers worked long hours behind the bar – if there were customers, no matter the hour, they served them. Eventually, Eladio and Carmen took the reigns, and their son Santi began to work in the family business.

It was the late 1980s, and Spain was recovering from years of dictatorship and economic oppression. San Sebastián’s culinary star was on the rise, and Santi Rivera was experimenting in the bar’s kitchen, eventually developing the cheesecake heard around the world.

Here, we sit down with Santi in San Sebastián’s Old Town to find out how it happened, what makes this cheesecake so special, and what is in the future for the world’s hottest pudding.

Before you worked full-time in the bar, were you studying or working in something else?

Well, I didn’t have work at the time. I actually studied to be an electrician, and nobody was hiring. So I started working with my father here in the bar, and eventually, I realised that if someday I wanted to take over the restaurant, I should learn to cook. If I didn’t learn how to cook, I wouldn’t have any future… just being a barman, well, it’s not enough. I started to study cooking from books… in those days, there weren’t really schools. Thanks to books and TV shows like those of Karlos Arguiñano and Pedro Subijana, I watched and learned from them. I’m not a spectacular cook, but I’m a good one and a good restaurateur.

Was your mother the one who cooked in the bar and at home?

Yes.

And you took over in 1987?

I have been working here since 1987. At that time, the most important thing was to just work. We didn’t have employees. I liked it a lot more than I expected, and then I started to take cooking classes and one-day courses, so I could continue to work. I also met a lot of young people cooking, and their youth and desire to get out there opened up another world for me, one beyond that of my parents. I also had friends from local bars, like Izkiña, who had worked with important chefs like Luis Irizar. These people had a strong foundation in the kitchen and served as my support system. And then, I began to work with Mikel, currently our manager, who will stay with us in the future. I’ll be retiring soon.

You’re going to retire?!

Oh yes.

When?

In two years.

Well, let’s talk a little bit about the burnt Basque cheesecake. Tell me more about the origin story.

I used to do tests in the kitchen. I would come to the kitchen on Mondays when the bar was closed. I started doing tests with a recipe from one of my books. Looking at different recipes, I made combinations, mixing and comparing the results of all of them. I was testing lots of different things, like a chocolate mousse, a white and dark chocolate cake, mango creams… I worked on them a lot. Pintxos, too, because this is a pintxo bar, after all. At the time, you don’t know, you’re doing what you’re doing to make the establishment better, but you don’t know which dish will be more important than the others – your clients tell you that.

In my upcoming pintxo book, you told me the cheesecake was ‘born’ in 1988. Is that right?

Yes, a year or so after I started working with my family. My father was funny, he said about the cheesecake, “Santi, that thing you made, don’t ever stop making it.”

When you started making the cheesecake, what cheese did you use? The one you use now?

No, now we use a different one. At the time, we used quark-style cheese, and that was really good, too. I remember taking the car after lunch service and driving around to look for different cheeses at the shops and supermarkets. At one point, I was doing a mixture of cheese until I finally found a cream cheese that I thought gave a good result. We used one brand for a while, then another gave me a discount, and we changed brands. And the cheesecake was even better! You have to adapt to where you are; that’s the secret.

Sometimes limits free you up to make great things.

Yes, I changed the cheese, and it was even better.

But always a cream cheese? Do you use Philadelphia?

I use one just like it. All cream cheeses are quite similar. Philadelphia, San Millán, the brand isn’t going to make a huge difference. Each person can play with the flavour he wants. If you like blue cheese like Cabrales, add some Cabrales. It’s all about enjoying different tastes, and different points of view. For example, I removed the cookie base.

Why did you do that? Limitations of a small kitchen?

Because the cookie, when you bite into it, prevents the creamy cheese part from dissolving. You have to chew the cookie part, using your teeth. At the time, I was working with a chocolate mousse, and I thought it was special how it just melts in your mouth. I wanted the cheesecake to do the same, to make it so the flavour goes straight from the fork to your palate to your brain, instantaneously.

That’s definitely one of the cheesecake’s trademark traits. Another is serving it in two small slices. Why do you do that?

When you eat and want to taste things better, small pieces are better than a single large one. You end up eating a smaller bite but getting more flavour.

I’ve always wondered about that. When do you think it really took off and came into its own?

Once, after I had taken over in 1997, a chef came from the Ritz-Carlton in Paris. He said to us “This cake needs to be held outside of the refrigerator because the fridge makes it denser.” I didn’t pay much attention [laughing]. But then, as time went on, I realised he was right. I stopped storing the cheesecake in the fridge and set it next to the coffee machine. People started seeing it there, near the pintxos and the wine. And that’s when it really started to sell. We started making them two at a time, then four at a time, and so on.

What do you think about the success the cheesecake has had globally?

I don’t know what to say. I’m very thankful. I think that when a product is super successful, it’s not just about how delicious it is. There are more factors, like the treatment given to the clients… the fact that this is a bar accessible to anyone, and you don’t have to eat a whole menu to try it. And, of course, the Internet has helped. The fact that this city is a culinary powerhouse. We are making desserts that are a continuation of the pintxo. This has influenced the concept.

Have you seen all the crazy variations out there? Have any of them surprised you?

Yes, yes. I think having done something that so many people notice, test, play with and talk about is really exciting. It goes much further than just selling it and making a profit. You get an emotional payoff.

I think it says a lot about you, that you are running this bar successfully, but you have also allowed this phenomenon to grow, and you enjoy the enjoyment people get out of it.

Yes, that’s how it has to be. In fact, we shared the recipe early on, so people could make it too. And now, we’re building a bakery that will open next year.

Nearby?

Yes, right behind the church. We’re doing it to be able to work better in the kitchen. We’ll bring the cheesecakes here – the bakery won’t be a point of sale.

Any other changes? Selling it in other places?

No, we want it to remain our cheesecake. We don’t want to grow in a massive, unstructured way. The cheesecake is good when it’s made and sold immediately, within 36 hours. That’s the good cheesecake. If you start freezing it, vacuum packing it, and finding ways to make it last 15 days…you start to lose the flavour. Maybe we’d make money for a few years, but the product would eventually die. The reality is we have a great product that we sell here, and people keep coming to try.

Totally. Any other message for the people out there making and eating the cheesecake?

We don’t burn the cheesecake here. That gives it bitterness. But, of course, everyone can do whatever they would like.

You’re so diplomatic. Do you still eat burnt Basque cheesecake?

That’s something I learned from Paul Bocuse. He said that twice a year, you need to sit in your restaurant and be a client and a critic of your own food. He’s right, you can taste and try and, of course, continue on the process. Every year we get a little better.

And do you make it at home?

[laughing] No, at this point I don’t.