“Love is in the cake,” proclaims the napkin of the newly opened venue in Arena City, Kyiv’s central shopping mall. It appears to be true, because The Cake confectionery makes visitors fall in love with their light tasty desserts at first taste. But not their wallets.
We decided to try out The Cake on a Saturday night and had trouble finding a table. The place is located next door to The Burger, one of the most popular burger joints in Kyiv.
Dmytro Zakhodyakian and Alina Kosichkina manage both venues. It seemed to me that many of The Burger’s visitors call in for a dessert to The Cake after having a substantial burger.
The Cake’s crowd is young and fashionable, and the female visitors prevail. Couples seem to like the place too. The café has a minimalistic look with almost no decorations on its white walls. Despite the crowd, we were lucky enough to land in capacious, emerald-green armchairs.
All the cakes, tarts, macaroons and homemade fruit jelly are proudly on display. The cakes (Hr 70) look like a blob of paint in a kid’s album, with their colorful silky coating.
The menu, presented in a form of four colorful sheets of paper on a metal clipboard, looked quite vague. It took a waiter over 20 minutes to show up at our table again after he provided the menu. On the flip side, the staff was polite and cheerful.
We ordered a Lemon praline cake layered with hazelnut filling and cookies, and a Pistachio cake with fresh raspberries, Hr 70 each. While the lemon cake was wonderfully soft and melted in my mouth, I have no idea why it has lemon in its name at all, because there was none in the taste. My biggest surprise was the brown color of its coat.
The Pistachio cake looked like a real masterpiece, so it was a pity to ruin it with our pastry forks. It was delicious and just sweet enough, while the raspberries added some freshness to its taste.
Macaroons here go for Hr 15, while cottage cheese pancakes cost Hr 50. Coffee, tea and alcohol cocktails are available too, as well as an assortment of sandwiches (Hr 70-80) and salads (Hr 75).
Another specialty of the place is all-day breakfast. They go for Hr 45-80. The breakfast menu includes pancakes, croissants, granola and toasts.
The Cake
Arena Mall (5 Velyka Vasylkivska St.)
223-1673
8 a.m. – till the last guest
www.facebook.com/TheCakeKiev
