Can a bao be named after Dennis Rodman? The answer is obvious: of course it can.
And not only can it: it is ordered, eaten and repeated. It is the best seller at Zumbaos, a place -there are now two of them- that has decided to build a temple around this spongy, steamed bun, with Chinese roots and more and more frequent in pan-Asian menus, but rarely as a protagonist. Here it is neither a garnish nor a whim: it is the hard core of a menu that opts for the single-product format in its most pop version.
Zumbaos opened in early 2025 in Malasaña (Calle de San Joaquín, 7) with a very clear idea: to set up a well-honed fast food model, with street food and a recognizable identity. Something as simple and as difficult as that. Why baos? Out of discard and opportunity. ” We started thinking about tacos,” Álex Medina, one of the founders, told Madrid Secreto, “but we saw that the competition was brutal. Baos, on the other hand, were on the menu but not as a mainstay. And it’s a format that everybody likes”.
The bao as a pop icon
Every bao has its own name. And we are not talking about Asian names or functional descriptions, but about celebrities, real or fictional characters, with that eccentric point that connects with the name of the place: Zumbados. There is a Rodman (oxtail, acevichada mayonnaise, jalapeños), a Grison (duck), a Haaland (salmon), and so on until completing a menu of nine references, with carnivorous options, vegetables and a vegan bao.
The names are not anecdotal: they are the letter of introduction. Here you don’t order a cochinita bao, but a Frida. The game is easy to understand and, above all, to remember. Just like the aesthetics of its packaging, designed by Jorge Paneda, a former UniverXO, so that the baos travel better than well and reach home without losing warmth, texture or grace.
A menu designed in a (gastronomic) laboratory.
The development of the menu was not improvised. Although the central bakery that supplies the premises is in the hands of the founding team, the kitchen was advised by two consultant chefs who signed the recipes without being involved as partners or as a public image. They provided technique and, above all, the Asian twist that the menu needed. The result: baos that can’t be found anywhere else in Madrid.
The challenge: to sneak in between the pizza and the burger.
Zumbaos is doing well: good reviews, immediate acceptance, favorable reviews and a menu that works. The problem? The category. “We’re competing against pizzas and burgers, which are installed in people’s heads,” they say. “The bao is not there yet. Our goal now is to make it be ordered with that same naturalness.”
That’s why they don’t just cook, they also brand. Naming, design, delivery strategy and a campaign that seeks that the next time you’re at home thinking about what to order, don’t think pizza or burger. Think Rodman.