It started as a single shop in Madrid in 2023. Three years later it’s a global franchise with dozens of stores across Europe, Latin America and the U.S., downtown lines that wrap around the block, and a formula that swaps the sugary self-serve swirl of the old days for Greek yogurt and goat’s milk kefir. Now it’s got its sights on the Upper East Side, and it’ll be landing within a block of three dessert shops that are already there.
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The brand is Myka, and signage has gone up at 1547 Second Avenue between 80th and 81st streets. The storefront most recently housed Ania Rybka Salon. No opening date has been announced.Myka was founded by chef Natalia Morales and entrepreneur Javier Ezquerro, and it’s grown fast: from one artisanal shop to 51 locations in over 27 cities around the world, according to the company. The brand’s first U.S. store opened in Miami Beach last December, and it’s since picked up several Manhattan spots, including a West Village shop that’s become known for its waits and a Rockefeller Center location that opened over the summer.
The pitch is a tangier, less sweet take on frozen yogurt. Myka’s original base is made with Greek yogurt and goat’s milk kefir, which the company says preserves the protein and probiotics of the real thing. Each store makes its product in an on-site workshop and rotates in two seasonal flavors a month, plus fruit sorbets for anyone avoiding dairy. The toppings are where it leans into the Mediterranean theme: baklava, pistachio sauce, honey, olive oil, praline crunch and fig and orange compotes, alongside more familiar cookies and granolas. Morales, who trained in French pastry in Paris, has said the toppings are developed like a pastry kitchen would, rather than the pick-and-mix approach of the froyo chains of the 2000s.
Myka joins a neighborhood that’s been steadily refilling with frozen yogurt after a long lull. Mythos, a Greek-inspired shop with a similar yogurt-first approach, opened in June at 1269 First Avenue (between 68th and 69th streets), the brand’s first U.S. store. And tomorrow, Thursday, September 10 at noon, Mimi’s, the Australian froyo brand behind those block-long lines in SoHo and Greenwich Village, opens its Lexington Avenue shop at 997 Lexington Avenue (at East 72nd Street).
Myka’s own corner is even more crowded. Pinkberry, 16 Handles and Anita Gelato all sit on Second Avenue between 81st and 82nd streets, less than a block from the incoming storefront. If the lines that follow Myka everywhere else show up here too, that stretch of Second Avenue is going to get very sweet, very fast.
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