Lagree, Then a Cookie: Our Two Pop-Ups at MAD Notting Hill
Here's a sentence we didn't expect to write when we started baking cookies: some of our best days so far happened inside a Lagree studio.
At the end of September, MAD, the studio that brought Lagree to London, invited us to set up at its new Notting Hill studio on Westbourne Grove. Twice. Once on a Tuesday evening, and once on a Saturday that turned out to be one of the most important days in MOLTO's short life. Here's what happened, what Lagree actually is, and why we think dessert after a workout is nobody's business but yours.
What is Lagree?
Lagree is a high-intensity, low-impact workout done on a machine called the Megaformer. It was created in Los Angeles by Sebastien Lagree, and it looks a lot like reformer Pilates for about four minutes, until you realise it very much is not. The movements are slow and controlled, the springs keep tension on your muscles the whole time, and the shaking, we're told, is part of the point.
MAD was founded by Mona Halawi and Nour Abu Hamdan, who fell for Lagree back home in Lebanon and, finding no studio when they moved to London, opened one in Mayfair. Notting Hill is their newest home.
A cookie stall in a fitness studio. Isn't that a bit off-message?
We get why it sounds odd. But we've never believed in “earning” dessert. The whole language of treats you have to work off, or cookies you have to justify, is exactly what we started MOLTO to get away from. We make a cookie from real ingredients, dark chocolate, dates, almonds, butter and a little miso, and we think you should eat it because it's delicious, not because you did enough squats first.
What a studio like MAD does have is the thing we love most: a room full of people who read labels, care about what they eat, and still very much want something indulgent at the end of the day. That's our people. A warm cookie after Lagree isn't a reward. It's just a very good idea.
Tuesday: goodbye to the original pouch
Our first pop-up was on Tuesday 29 September, in the evening, as people came out of their after-work classes. It was also the last outing for our original packaging, the plain pouch with two stickers that had carried MOLTO since we launched in June. We brought the final pouches we had left, and it felt right that they finished their run somewhere this good.
Saturday: a new pouch and a sold-out class
Saturday 3 October was a bigger deal. It was the first time our new pouch went on sale in person: fully printed, matte, cream and burgundy, the version of MOLTO we'd been working towards for months. (Here's why we redesigned it, and what a food label should actually tell you.)
That afternoon we also co-hosted a private Lagree Starter x MOLTO class at the studio. All 12 places sold out, mostly to friends, customers and people who've been following us since the beginning. Picture a room of first-timers discovering the famous Lagree shake together, then heading straight for a cookie.
It turned into our busiest pop-up day yet. We're still slightly stunned.
What two days on Westbourne Grove taught us
People want to meet the cookie first
Almost nobody buys a cookie made with dates and miso from a description alone. Answering “wait, there's miso in it?” face to face is what turns curiosity into a first pouch. That's why pop-ups matter so much to us.
Lots of people don't know we deliver
The question we heard most wasn't about ingredients. It was “where do I get these when you're not here?” Fair question. The answer is just below.
Where to find MOLTO between pop-ups
You don't have to wait for the next stall. MOLTO is available any time online: three soft-baked dark chocolate chip cookies per pouch, made by hand in small batches in London and delivered by Royal Mail Tracked 24. Delivery is free from four pouches, which conveniently is also the right number for a household with opinions.
When they arrive: 20 to 25 seconds in the microwave, a scoop of ice cream on top, no workout required. Order a pouch here, or read how MOLTO started.
And to everyone at MAD: thank you for having us, twice.